Sponsorships

Sponsorships let you sell ad slots in your newsletter. Sponsors purchase slots via Stripe, submit their content for your review, and approved content is automatically included when you send.

To get started with sponsorships, you'll need to:

1. Connect your Stripe account in Settings.
2. Go to Sponsorships and create your first advertising slot.
3. Share your sponsorship page with potential sponsors.

An advertising slot (or "SKU") represents a type of sponsorship you offer — for example, a banner ad, a classified listing, or a dedicated email. Each slot has:

• Title: A short name for the sponsorship type (e.g. "Banner ad").
• Description: Details about what the sponsor gets, including placement, format, and any restrictions.

When you create a slot, Buttondown generates individual time-based slots that sponsors can purchase. You can start with one of the built-in templates (banner ad, classified, or dedicated email) or create your own from scratch.

You can choose between two modes for each sponsorship:

1. Managed by Buttondown: Buttondown handles the entire process — sponsors purchase slots via Stripe, submit content, and you review it before it's included in your newsletter. This is the recommended option for most users.
2. Managed by you: You handle invoicing, pricing, and payment outside of Buttondown. Buttondown manages content submission, review, and metrics. This is best for users who already have established sponsorship relationships.

Each slot goes through a lifecycle:

flowchart LR
  open e1@--> sold
  sold e2@--> submitted[Content submitted]
  submitted e3@--> approved[Content approved]
  submitted e4@--> rejected[Content rejected]
  rejected e5@--> submitted
  e1@{ animate: true }
  e2@{ animate: true }
  e3@{ animate: true }
  e4@{ animate: true }
  e5@{ animate: true }

You can view and manage all your slots from the Sponsorships page. Click on any advertising slot to see its individual slots, then click on a slot to review submitted content.

When a sponsor submits content for a slot, you'll receive an email notification. To review:

1. Go to Sponsorships and click on the relevant advertising slot.
2. Click on the slot with submitted content.
3. Review the sponsor's submission and either approve or reject it.

Approved content is automatically included in your newsletter when you send. If you reject content, the sponsor can revise and resubmit.

If you choose to have Buttondown manage your sponsorships, you can set a price per slot in US dollars. Payment is handled by Stripe, which takes a 3% fee on all transactions. The remaining 97% is paid out to you. Buttondown does not take a cut of your sponsorship revenue.

If you manage your own sponsorships, Buttondown does not have visibility into your pricing. All Buttondown manages is content submission and metrics.

To include sponsorship content in your emails, use the {{ ad }} template variable. When you send an email, Buttondown replaces this variable with the approved content from any sold slots scheduled for that send.

If no sponsorship content is available for a given email, the variable renders as empty.

Under your sponsorship settings, you can choose which metrics to share with potential sponsors:

These metrics refresh every 24 hours. There may be a delay between enabling a metric and it appearing in your sponsorship kit.

Buttondown sends email notifications to keep both you and your sponsors informed: