How to Automate Your Email Newsletter (Without Mailchimp)
Most creators are overpaying for Mailchimp features they never touch. Here's how to automate your email newsletter from scratch — subscriber capture to weekly digest — using free and low-cost tools that actually fit a lean operation.
If you send a newsletter and you're still paying for Mailchimp, there's a decent chance you're funding features you've never opened.
Mailchimp's pitch made sense in 2015 when it was the only real option. In 2026, it's a legacy pricing decision — most creators are on paid plans because switching feels like work, not because Mailchimp is the best tool for what they do. For a solopreneur or founder sending a weekly email to 2,000 subscribers, you don't need a $100/month marketing platform. You need a simple way to automate your email newsletter — capture subscribers, trigger a welcome sequence, and send a digest on schedule — without enterprise overhead.
This guide walks you through the full stack: free tools, a specific Make.com setup for weekly digest automation, and how AI cuts your writing time to under 30 minutes per issue.
The Mailchimp Trap
Mailchimp moved to audience-based pricing a few years ago, and the math turned ugly fast. Once you cross 500 subscribers, the free tier is gone. Once you cross 1,500, you're on Essentials at $20+/month. By 5,000 subscribers, you're looking at $50–$100/month — for list management, basic automations, and a drag-and-drop editor you probably use three times a year.
The real problem isn't the price. It's the misalignment. Mailchimp is built for marketing teams running multi-campaign programs with A/B tests, audience segments, and custom reporting dashboards. If you're a creator or founder with one list, one weekly email, and no marketing department, you're paying for complexity you don't need.
The email newsletter automation tools that have matured in the last few years — ConvertKit (now Kit), MailerLite, Brevo — are built for exactly your use case. And for the most flexible setup, a Make.com + MailerLite stack lets you automate the entire workflow for close to nothing.
What a Real Newsletter Automation Looks Like
Before picking tools, get clear on what the system actually needs to do. A complete free newsletter automation setup has four stages:
1. Subscriber captured — Someone finds your signup form (embedded on your site, linked from social, attached to a lead magnet) and submits their email. They land in your list immediately with a source tag so you know where they came from.
2. Tagged by source — A tag gets applied automatically based on how they signed up: "website," "Twitter," "lead magnet," or whatever your sources are. This isn't just organizational — it lets you segment sequences later. A subscriber who downloaded a free resource gets different early emails than someone who signed up from your blog.
3. Welcome sequence triggered — The moment they subscribe, a sequence starts. Email 1 lands within minutes: who you are, what the newsletter is, what to expect. Email 2 goes out two days later with your best content. Email 3 at day 5 moves them into your regular rhythm. This all runs automatically — you write it once and it fires for every new subscriber forever.
4. Weekly digest sent automatically — Your regular newsletter goes out on schedule without manual sends. You write the issue, it goes to the queue, the automation handles delivery.
That's the full stack. Building it doesn't require Mailchimp.
Free + Low-Cost Tool Stack: What to Use Instead
Here's the honest comparison for a ConvertKit alternative or Mailchimp alternative automation that won't break your budget:
ConvertKit Free (now Kit) — Free up to 10,000 subscribers. Includes broadcast emails and one automation sequence. No A/B testing, no advanced segmentation on the free tier. Best for: creators who want a simple tool with good deliverability and don't need branching logic. Cost: $0/month up to 10k subs.
MailerLite Free — Free up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails/month. Includes automation sequences, landing pages, and a clean editor. The free tier is more capable than most people expect — full automation builder included. Cost: $0/month up to 1k subs; $10/month up to 2.5k.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) — Free for unlimited contacts, limited to 300 emails/day. The pricing model is inverted from the others — you pay by send volume, not list size. If your list is large but your send frequency is low, this is often the cheapest path. Cost: $0/month for up to 9,000 emails/month; $25/month for 20k.
Make.com + Gmail/SMTP custom stack — No native email platform. Instead: Make.com scenario pulls your content from a Notion page or RSS feed, formats it, and sends via the MailerLite API or directly through Gmail SMTP. Most flexible option, lowest cost, more setup time. Cost: $0/month on Make free tier (1,000 ops/month) + $10/month MailerLite = $10/month total, or $0 if you stay under MailerLite's free limits.
For most creators: start with MailerLite's free tier. It covers the full automation workflow up to 1,000 subscribers and is simple enough to set up in an afternoon. Add Make.com when you want to automate the content sourcing and formatting layer.
Step-by-Step: Build a Weekly Digest with Make.com
This is the part most newsletter guides skip. Once you have a list and a welcome sequence, the automation that actually saves you weekly time is the digest workflow — pulling your content, formatting it, and sending it without you manually triggering anything.
Here's how to build a weekly digest that pulls from an RSS feed or Notion page, formats it, and sends via MailerLite.
What you need: A Make.com free account, a MailerLite account (free tier works), and either an RSS feed URL or a Notion database with your weekly content.
Step 1: Create a scheduled Make.com scenario
In Make.com, create a new scenario. Add a Schedule trigger — set it to run weekly on your send day (e.g., every Tuesday at 9am). This is your clock.
Step 2: Pull your content
Option A (RSS feed): Add an RSS → Get RSS feed items module. Paste your RSS URL (your blog, your Substack, a curated source). Filter to items published in the last 7 days. This pulls the week's content automatically.
Option B (Notion): Add a Notion → Get database items module. Filter to items where Status = "Ready to Send" or Published Date = this week. This works well if you draft your digest directly in Notion.
Step 3: Format the newsletter body
Add a Tools → Set Variable module (or a Text Aggregator if you have multiple RSS items). Build your email body by mapping the fields: headline, summary or excerpt, URL. Format it in plain HTML or rich text — MailerLite accepts both.
For a clean weekly digest format:
Subject: [Your newsletter name] — Week of [Date]
Hi [First Name],
Here's what's worth reading this week:
**[Article Title]**
[One-sentence summary]. [Read it here →](URL)
**[Article Title 2]**
...
— [Your name]
Step 4: Send via MailerLite API
Add a HTTP → Make a request module (MailerLite has a native Make integration, but the API call also works directly). Call the MailerLite API to create and send a campaign to your list:
- Endpoint:
POST https://connect.mailerlite.com/api/campaigns - Authorization: Bearer token from your MailerLite API key
- Body: group_id (your subscriber list ID), subject (from your variable), content (your formatted HTML body), type: "regular"
Add a second HTTP call to trigger the send: POST /api/campaigns/{id}/schedule with scheduled_for: now.
Step 5: Mark as sent
If you're pulling from Notion: add a Notion → Update a database item module. Change the Status field to "Sent." This prevents the same content from going out next week.
If you're using RSS: no cleanup needed — the date filter handles it.
Turn the scenario on. Every Tuesday at 9am, Make checks your content source, formats the digest, and sends it to your full list. You write the content; the automation handles the rest.
AI-Assisted Newsletter Writing: 30 Minutes Per Issue
The automation handles delivery. This handles the writing.
Most newsletter creators spend 2–4 hours per issue — researching, outlining, drafting, editing. That's not a content problem, it's a process problem. With a consistent AI prompt workflow, you can cut that to under 30 minutes.
The stack: ChatGPT (or Claude) + your prompt library.
Outline in 5 minutes:
"You are an editor for [your newsletter niche]. I'm writing this week's issue about [topic]. Give me a 5-section outline: hook, 2–3 body sections with specific points, and a CTA. Audience: [describe]. Tone: [direct/conversational/analytical]. Keep each section to 2–3 bullet points."
Draft in 15 minutes:
"Write a 400-word newsletter issue based on this outline. Tone: [describe]. No filler, no 'In today's issue...' opener. Start with the hook directly. Use short paragraphs. End with one clear action or takeaway."
Repurpose in 5 minutes:
"Take this newsletter issue and rewrite it as: (1) a LinkedIn post under 200 words, (2) a Twitter/X thread of 5 posts, and (3) a subject line with 3 options. Keep the core insight."
Five minutes to outline, fifteen to draft, five to repurpose. You can also use AI prompts to write faster across every content format — the same principles that work for newsletters apply to blog posts, social content, and email sequences.
If you're also automate your social media posting alongside your newsletter, the repurposing step feeds directly into that workflow — one piece of content becomes five distribution touchpoints automatically.
The AI Prompt Pack for Operators at Flux Labs includes 50+ prompts specifically built for this kind of content workflow — newsletter drafts, audience growth, repurposing, and more, each structured with the role + context + constraints format that produces publishable output instead of generic copy.
Skip the Setup
Building a full email newsletter automation stack from scratch — welcome sequence, weekly digest, AI writing workflow — takes an afternoon the first time. The Make.com scenario alone requires field mapping, API authentication, and a few test runs before it's dialed in.
The faster path: the AI Prompt Pack for Operators includes 50+ prompts for content writing, newsletter drafts, and audience growth. Every prompt is pre-built with role, context, and constraints — so your output is usable on the first try, not the fifth.
You'll have your newsletter running on autopilot and your writing workflow down to 30 minutes a week — without paying Mailchimp $50/month for a dashboard you ignore.