How Do I Set Up My Newsletter and Start Emailing Subscribers?
Configure your newsletter sender identity, import subscribers, and send your first campaign — all from the Admin → Newsletter tab.
VeloCMS has a built-in newsletter system — no Mailchimp required. Go to Admin → Newsletter, click the Setup Wizard button, and you'll have a working email list in about five minutes.
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You don't need Substack to run a paid newsletter. In the next couple of minutes I'll set up a paid tier, connect Stripe, write the first paying issue, and show you the subscribe page your readers land on — all on your own site, where the audience is actually yours.
Step one is the paywall, and it's just a tier. Under Settings, then Membership, I add a new one — Garden Society, six dollars a month. This is what readers pay to get the paid issues; free readers still get your public posts. A name and a price, and the hard part's already over.
Payments go straight to you, so you connect your own Stripe account right here. No middleman skimming a cut of every subscription — VeloCMS takes zero percent, and your payouts land in your bank, on your schedule. Connect it once and you're taking money.
Now the fun part — write. I open a new campaign, drop in a subject, and here's the trick: the audience picker lets me send to everyone, free readers, or only paid members. I'll pick Paid, so this planting guide goes just to the Garden Society. Then send now, or schedule it.
Here's the reader's view. They hit your subscribe page — your tier, your price, your branding — and pay right there on your own site. No detour to a platform that owns the relationship. Sign-in is a magic link, so there's no password for anyone to forget.
And this scales the smart way. You keep publishing free issues to build the list, then send the good stuff to paid members — same audience picker, one click. Your free readers see what they're missing, and some of them upgrade. That's a paid newsletter that funds itself, no Substack in the loop.
A paid newsletter, your Stripe, your subscribers, your site. Start your free trial at velocms dot org.
What do I need to configure before sending?
Three things need to be in place before your first send. First, your sender name and reply-to address — these show up in your subscribers' inboxes, so make them recognizable. Something like "Jane from Inkwell" beats a cold generic name every time. Second, a verified sender domain so email providers trust your messages (covered in the Custom Sender Domain article). Third, at least one subscriber — which you get automatically when someone signs up through your site's subscribe form.
How do I write and schedule a campaign?
Click New Campaign in the Newsletter tab. The campaign editor is the same TipTap editor you use for blog posts, so the learning curve is basically zero. Write your email, drop in a subject line, and optionally add a preview text (the snippet that shows up under the subject in most email clients — don't skip this, it meaningfully affects open rates). When you're ready, choose between Send Now and Schedule. Scheduling takes a date and time in your local timezone.
The preview text field is capped at 90 characters. Keep it punchy and make sure it doesn't just repeat the subject line — that's wasted real estate.
Can I import subscribers I already have?
Absolutely. In Newsletter → Subscribers, click Import and upload a CSV with at minimum an email column. The importer accepts an optional name column too. Imported subscribers are marked as manually added in the audit log so you can distinguish them from organic signups. Every imported subscriber gets a one-click unsubscribe link in every email — GDPR compliance isn't optional, and VeloCMS handles it automatically.
How do I see if my campaign actually worked?
Once a campaign is sent, the Campaigns list shows open rate, click rate, unsubscribes, and bounce count — updated in near real-time as Resend delivers tracking events back to VeloCMS. Click any campaign row for a per-link click breakdown so you can see which call-to-action got the most taps. These numbers update for about 72 hours after send as stragglers open.