What’s the best email newsletter platform for a personal newsletter to friends?

Hi! For a small personal newsletter to friends that still looks polished, the “best” platform is usually the one that lets you design quickly with drag‑and‑drop blocks and doesn’t fight you—most people in your situation end up happiest with something like MailerLite (easy visual editor + good-looking templates) or ConvertKit (super simple, more “letter” style, but can still look clean). If you want the absolute easiest “write + send” experience and don’t care as much about custom layout, Substack is hard to beat—but it’s less flexible if you’re trying to match a detailed mockup.

On turning your design mockup into a real email: the simplest approach is to rebuild the layout using email-friendly blocks (text + images + buttons) rather than exporting the whole thing as one giant image. Email clients don’t handle complex layouts the same way websites do, so “design-to-email” usually means translating the look, not exporting it 1:1.

A few platform picks (based on what you described)

• MailerLite: Great balance of “fun/polished” templates + easy customization + not overly enterprise. Good if you want a visually designed newsletter without coding.
• ConvertKit: Best if you want mostly text-first updates that feel personal (like a real letter) with a few images—less “design tool” flexibility, but very clean and readable.
• Mailchimp: Powerful and popular, but some people find the builder more frustrating for precise customization (still viable if you already like it).
• Beehiiv: Nice for newsletter-style publishing, but it can be more “newsletter business” oriented than “email a few friends.”

If your list is truly just friends and family, also consider whether you even need heavy “email marketing” features—sometimes a simple, clean template you can reuse every month is the win.

The simplest way to convert your mockup into an email-friendly layout
Think “stacked, single-column, mobile-first.” Most newsletters that look great in inboxes are basically a 1-column layout with sections.

Here’s the practical workflow that works well:

1. Rebuild with blocks (don’t export a full-image email)

• Use a single-column layout.
• Add sections in this order: header image (optional) → headline → text → image → text → button/link → footer.
• Keep real text as text (better readability, accessibility, and deliverability than image-only emails).

1. Export only the images you truly need

• Export your banner/illustrations as images (optimized JPG/PNG).
• Don’t bake your paragraphs into images—use the email editor’s text blocks so it looks good in dark mode, scales on mobile, and doesn’t break if images are off.

1. Match your mockup with simple styling

• Choose 1–2 fonts (email-safe fonts are most reliable; custom web fonts can be inconsistent across inboxes).
• Use consistent padding/spacing and a tight color palette.
• Make buttons real buttons (not an image), so they’re tappable on mobile.

1. Use a purpose-built email builder if templates feel limiting
   If you keep hitting a wall with ESP templates, design the email in a dedicated email layout tool, then export to your platform:

• Tools like Stripo or BEE Free are made specifically for building HTML emails without coding, and they often give you more control than an ESP’s default templates.

A few “don’t do this” tips (to save you headaches)

• Don’t send a single big image as the whole newsletter (it can look broken if images are blocked, and it’s harder to read and reply to).
• Don’t try to perfectly recreate complex multi-column web layouts—many inboxes render them inconsistently.
• Don’t skip a simple opt-out. Even for friends, it’s good practice to include a “reply and I’ll remove you” line (some platforms also add an unsubscribe footer automatically).

If you tell me (1) roughly how many friends you’re emailing, (2) whether you want it to feel more like a “letter” or more like a “mini-magazine,” and (3) what design tool you used for the mockup, I can recommend the best fit from the options above and a specific build approach (blocks vs. an external builder) that’ll feel closest to your design.