Paid subscriptions

Whether you’d like to set up a formal paid subscription program or a pay-what-you-want model, Buttondown offers a number of different ways to collect revenue from your subscribers, while also rewarding them with exclusive perks!

To enable paid subscriptions for your newsletter, you must work in both Stripe and Buttondown. Here's an overview of the steps:

1. Add a paid subscription plan
2. Create a payment link
3. Share the payment link
4. Customize your paid subscription confirmation
5. Send your first paid email

To start using paid subscriptions, you must have:

1. A Stripe account. To learn how to create a Stripe account, read our Stripe integration guide!
2. A paid Buttondown account at at least the "Basic" tier.

Here’s what you need to know about Buttondown’s default settings for paid newsletters:

• Paid subscriptions automatically renew at the end of the billing cycle you specify, whether that’s monthly or annually. After your subscribers convert their subscriptions to paid, it will not expire unless they cancel it.
• Subscribers can cancel their subscriptions to your newsletter any time by clicking "Unsubscribe."

While these practices are defaults in Buttondown, you can always alter your payment settings in Stripe.

Buttondown works hand in hand with Stripe to automate payments and taxes related to your newsletter. First, you must connect your Stripe account to your Buttondown account. We have a step-by-step guide to help you connect your Stripe account.

After you’ve integrated your Buttondown and Stripe accounts, you can add a paid subscription plan in Buttondown. Here's how:

1. Navigate to Settings and scroll to the "Paid subscriptions" section.
2. Click Configure. The "Paid subscriptions" page appears.
3. Click Add plan. The "Add paid subscriptions plan" menu appears.
4. Specify the plan's details, including whether it is Fixed or Pay what you want, the price of the plan, the currency you're charging, and the cadence of the plan, which is how often you charge paid subscribers.

In this example, we'll create a Fixed payment plan. An example of a pay-what-you-want model is available below.

In the "Paid subscriptions" page, you can also choose to prohibit free subscriptions. You can change this at any time. To disable free subscriptions, click the toggle by Disable free subscriptions.

This video shows how to access and configure the "Add paid subscriptions plan" menu.

Next, you'll use Stripe to create a payment link.

1. In Stripe, navigate to Payments > Payment Links.
2. Click New to create a new payment link. The "Create a payment link" menu appears.
3. Use the dropdown to set your checkout "Type" to "Products or Subscriptions."
4. Click into the "Product" text field and choose Add new product.
5. Enter the name, description, price, and billing cycle for your newsletter.
6. Verify that your settings on this screen match the paid subscription plan settings you created in Buttondown.
7. Click Add product.

You can offer a pay-what-you-want subscription plan as well as a fixed subscription plan. The pay-what-you-want model encourages subscribers to support your writing without limiting their access to your content.

If you want to create a pay-what-you-want subscription plan, here's how:

1. Navigate to Settings and scroll to the "Paid subscriptions" section.
2. Click Configure. The "Paid subscriptions" page appears.
3. Click Add plan. The "Add paid subscriptions plan" menu appears.
4. Specify the plan's details, including whether it is Fixed or Pay what you want, the price of the plan, the currency you're charging, and the cadence of the plan, which is how often you charge paid subscribers.

Choose "Pay what you want" to give your subscribers the option to pay. You can leave your subscription price blank or request a minimum price for subscribers to pay each billing cycle.

This video shows both how to create a regular paid and a pay-what-you-want subscription plan.

Next, log in to Stripe.

1. In Stripe, navigate to Payments > Payment Links.
2. Click New to create a new payment link. The "Create a payment link" menu appears.
3. Use the dropdown to set your checkout "Type" to "Customers Choose What They Pay."
4. Click into the "Product" text field and choose Add new product.
5. Enter the name, description, price, and billing cycle for your newsletter.
6. Verify that your settings on this screen match the paid subscription plan settings you created in Buttondown.
7. Click Add product.

Curious to learn more about setting up and customizing your payments using a pay-what-you-want model? We recommend Stripe’s doc on "Letting customers choose what to pay."

After you publish your payment link, you can share it as a URL, send it as a QR code, or configure it as a "Subscribe" button for your website, blog, or newsletter landing page.

• If you prefer working with URLs, copy your payment link URL and format it as a hyperlink using either Markdown or HTML.

This video shows how to copy and paste a payment link URL.

If you prefer a QR code, download the QR code from Stripe and insert it into your webpage as an image.

This video shows how to copy and paste a QR code.

If you prefer a "Subscribe" button, copy Stripe’s code snippet and paste it into your webpage. Be aware that the code’s spacing from Stripe may not paste correctly. You may need to manually remove incorrect line breaks.

This video shows how to copy and paste code for a "Subscribe" button.

When a subscriber becomes a paid subscriber, it's nice to offer them a warm welcome by writing a custom confirmation email. You can create a custom email that is sent to a new paid subscriber automatically. Paid subscribers will receive this email when they opt in to your paid newsletter. Here's how:

1. In Buttondown, navigate to the "Subscribing" menu and scroll to "Premium welcome email."
2. Enter "Subject" and "Body" text for the welcome email.
3. Click Save changes.

You can send a newsletter email only to paid subscribers by configuring the recipient in the email drafting menu.

1. Navigate to Emails and draft a new newsletter email.
2. Click Send. The "Send this email" panel opens. Scroll to the "Audience" section.
3. Choose the radio button that matches the group you wish to send this email to. In this case, selecting "Premium" will send the newsletter email to all subscribers who pay for your newsletter.
4. Optionally, configure other email settings.
5. Click Finalize and then Yes, I'm sure.

You just sent your first premium newsletter email to all paid subscribers.