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Jetpack Newsletter

Transform blog posts into email newsletters. With Jetpack Newsletter, visitors to your site can subscribe and receive email notifications for new posts.

Many visitors reach your site once and never come back. However, you can convert more of these visitors into regular readers by making it easy to subscribe to your content. Jetpack makes this simple by letting your readers know whenever you’ve published a new post.

Jetpack Newsletter turns on automatically when you connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account. If it has been turned off, turn it back on from My Jetpack. While Newsletter is off, Jetpack → Newsletter doesn’t appear in the WP Admin menu.

Go to Jetpack → My Jetpack in WP Admin and click the Features tab.
Find Newsletter and turn its switch on. You can also click Newsletter to open its details and click Activate.

Newsletter features in the editor need the Jetpack Blocks feature, which is on by default. If it’s off, turn on Blocks in the same Features tab.

Jetpack emails your subscribers only when you publish a new post, so pages, custom post types, and updates to a published post don’t send an email. For every reason a post might not send, see Check whether your post could send an email.

You can customize your Newsletter at Jetpack → Newsletter.

For detailed customization options, visit our page: Customize the Newsletter experience.

All of Jetpack Newsletter’s default subscription blocks are customizable if your site runs a block theme or if the WordPress Core version is 6.5 or above. On those customizable block’s toggles, there’s a “Preview & edit” link, which leads to the template editor, where you can change the settings. On non-block themes, those “Preview & edit” links won’t appear.

Import from Substack

You can import your Newsletter from Substack, including content and free and paid subscribers. Head to your Subscription dashboard at https://cloud.jetpack.com/subscribers/yourjetpack.blog (replace yourjetpack.blog with your site’s domain). Click on Import from Substack, and follow the instructions. For more info on importing subscribers, see this support page.

The Newsletter widget on your WP Admin provides quick access to key stats and settings for your Newsletter.

Enabled by default, the widget includes a chart showing your total and paid subscribers. It also provides direct links to your most-used Newsletter tools—making it a faster alternative to navigating through options in WP Admin or Cloud.jetpack.com.

Jetpack Blocks require the Block Editor (also referred to as the Gutenberg editor). If you’ve installed the Classic Editor plugin, you have a few options:

Deactivate the Classic Editor: Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins in your WP Admin and deactivate the Classic Editor plugin.
Enable both editors: If you prefer flexibility, navigate to Settings → Writing in your WP Admin (not the menu under Jetpack settings). Set Allow users to switch editors to Yes. You will only see these options if you have the Classic Editor plugin installed and active.

Some custom themes or plugins may prevent you from using the Block Editor. In that case, please contact the support team for the plugin or theme for further assistance.

For more details, see Using Blocks and the Classic Editor.

The Subscribe Block allows you to insert a subscription form within any post, page, or widget area. This will enable your readers to get notifications when you publish new posts.

The block also allows you to set up paid plans to offer premium newsletters to paying subscribers. For more information, see the Paid Newsletters support guide.

See our Jetpack Blocks article to learn about the available blocks and how to activate them.

Two other blocks work with Jetpack Newsletter:

The Paid Content block shows content only to paying subscribers. Everyone else sees the content you choose for non-subscribers.
The Subscriber Login block lets subscribers log in to your site to access subscriber-only content and their subscription details.

Find your first readers

Find your first readers and newsletter subscribers by reading, liking, and commenting on other writers’ posts in the WordPress.com Reader. When you like a post, comment on it, or subscribe to a site, the writer gets a notification, and will often subscribe to your site or blog.

To find your first readers in the Reader, follow these steps:

Add your site’s address to the Web address field in your WordPress.com profile so it’s linked to your name when you comment on other sites.
Click Reader in the admin bar at the top right of the screen.
Click the magnifying-glass icon at the top of the Reader sidebar to open the Search tab.
Type a topic you write about in the “Search Reader” field and press Enter.
Read posts that interest you, and click the Like button (the star icon) on the ones you enjoy.
Write a comment in the “Add a comment…” field about something specific in the post, and click the Send button. A thoughtful sentence about what they wrote works better than “Great post!”
Click the three dots at the top right of a post and select the Subscribe option to subscribe to writers you like.

Keep reading and commenting for the first few weeks after you start publishing to find your first readers. When someone subscribes to your site, you get a notification, and they appear in your subscriber list.

Add the subscription form with shortcode

You can still insert a subscription form using the jetpack_subscription_form shortcode if you do not use the block editor. Here is an example of such an implementation:

[jetpack_subscription_form title="LET ME KNOW ABOUT NEW POSTS" subscribe_text="Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email." subscribe_button="Subscribe" show_subscribers_total="1"]

The shortcode supports these attributes:

title — The heading displayed above the subscription form. Leave blank to
show no heading.
subscribe_text — The descriptive text displayed below the title. Leave blank
to show no description.
subscribe_button — The label on the submit button. Defaults to “Subscribe.”
show_subscribers_total — Set to 1 to display the total number of subscribers
below the form. Set to 0 to hide it.

All attributes are optional. A minimal shortcode with no customization looks like this:

[jetpack_subscription_form]

The jetpack_subscription_form shortcode does not support configurations for premium newsletters intended for paying subscribers.

With Jetpack Newsletter, you decide who receives the email for each post: everyone, all subscribers, or paid subscribers only. This is the Audience setting, which controls who can read the post. It is separate from the Send this post to subscribers toggle, which controls whether Jetpack sends an email at all.

The Audience panel appears in two places in the post editor: the Post settings sidebar and the Jetpack Newsletter sidebar. When you publish a post, the recipient options also appear in the pre-publish checks after you click the Publish button. If you use Newsletter Categories, the Jetpack Newsletter sidebar also lets you choose which categories’ subscribers get the email.

For posts that are more than a day old, the Post settings sidebar also shows the number of subscribers your post was sent to via Jetpack. This gives you a quick view of how many subscribers received the post by email. The subscriber count includes a link that takes you directly to the Email Stats page (it can take up to 24 hours for the stats to update).

To learn more about the available options to customize the Newsletter recipients, see this support guide. The Paid Newsletters support guide also explains how to get paid subscribers to your newsletter and how to set up paid plans.

You can also send posts only to the subscribers who want them. With Newsletter categories, subscribers choose which of your post categories they want emails for. They do not receive emails for posts in other categories.

To give someone free access to your paid newsletter, see Manage complimentary Newsletter subscriptions. Complimentary subscribers receive all paid content and are not charged.

Post without sending emails

Jetpack emails each new post to your subscribers unless you turn the email off for that post. You do this in the Jetpack Newsletter sidebar. Open it from the Jetpack Newsletter icon (a paper airplane) in the editor’s top toolbar, or from the editor’s options menu. This sidebar is separate from the editor’s Preferences window.

To publish a post without emailing your subscribers:

Open the Jetpack Newsletter sidebar.
Find the Email section and turn the “Send this post to subscribers” toggle off. The sidebar shows the notice “Newsletter emails are turned off” and reminds you that you can still choose who can read the post.

The toggle is available on any post that has not been published yet, including scheduled posts. You can change it at any time before a scheduled post goes live. You do not need to revert the post to a draft first. After publishing, the sidebar no longer shows the toggle, because Jetpack has already sent or skipped the email.

If you’re using the Classic Editor plugin, the Send this post to subscribers toggle isn’t available until you switch to the Block editor.

Set the default for new posts

The Email new posts to subscribers by default setting decides whether the Send this post to subscribers toggle starts on or off in each new post. The setting is on by default, so new posts start with the toggle on.

Go to Jetpack → Newsletter in WP Admin and click the Settings tab.
In the Email defaults section, turn the “Email new posts to subscribers by default” toggle off. New posts then start with Send this post to subscribers turned off.

You can still turn the toggle on or off for any individual post in the Jetpack Newsletter sidebar while the post is unpublished, including while it is scheduled.

If you never want to email your subscribers when you publish, turn off Newsletter in the Features tab at Jetpack → My Jetpack. Turning it off also stops visitors from subscribing and removes Jetpack → Newsletter from the WP Admin menu.

You can preview a visual representation of the newsletter email that will be sent to subscribers. This helps you to review the content and how it appears on different device types (desktop, tablet, and mobile) before sending it out.

You can find the Email preview option under the Newsletter settings in post editor Preferences.

Send test emails

You can send a test email to preview how your newsletter will look in a subscriber’s inbox.

You can find the Send test email option under the Newsletter settings in the Jetpack Newsletter panel in the post editor. Click Send test email under the Newsletter settings in the post editor Preferences.

By default, the test email is sent to your own email address. If you have permission to manage subscribers on your site, you can edit the recipient field and send the test to a different email address. This is useful for checking how the email looks in a colleague’s inbox or a different email client. If the address you enter is invalid or can’t receive the test, you’ll see an error message in the modal.

The Preview email and Send test email buttons appear in the Jetpack Newsletter sidebar only while Send this post to subscribers is on and the post is unpublished.

View or remove subscribers

From WP Admin, go to Jetpack → Newsletter → Subscribers.

You can also manage subscribers from Jetpack Cloud at Select site → Subscribers. Both interfaces operate on the same subscriber list.

See Manage Newsletter subscribers in WP Admin for the full list of actions available on this page, such as viewing more information about a particular subscriber, add and remove subscribers, (also in bulk) and more.

To download your subscriber list as a CSV file, see Export subscribers. To move your subscribers from one Jetpack-connected site to another, see Migrate subscribers to a new site.

Track growth and performance

Analyze your subscriber growth and newsletter performance with Jetpack Stats. Jetpack Stats provides a dedicated Subscriber Stats view with insights and data about your subscriber base.

Email configuration

You can manage how emails are sent to your subscribers once posts are published from the Email configuration section. You can customize many aspects of the emails:

Configure the email byline.
Define the length of the content displayed in the email – full text or excerpt.
Designate the sender name for newsletter emails.
Choose who receives emails when subscribers reply to your newsletter.

You can read more about each setting in the Customize the Newsletter experience document.

WordPress.com accounts for subscribers

Previously, your site visitors who subscribed using their email addresses were added as email-only followers, which were limited in functionality. Now, by confirming their subscription to your site, your subscribers will be provided with a WordPress.com account. This change will not alter the subscriber’s basic experience or collect additional personal information; it simply enhances their access to features.

Subscribers will continue to manage their subscriptions and receive updates in the same manner as before. A WordPress.com account will enable your subscribers to interact with sites more fully once logged in, including the ability to interact with liked content, comment on posts, access subscriber-only content, and take advantage of the WordPress.com Reader and our mobile apps.

To explain to your readers how subscribing works and how to choose instant, daily, or weekly email delivery, share Subscribe to a site.

The WordPress.com integration also unifies subscription counts and management methods for site owners and subscribers alike. Merging these subscriber types into one comprehensive account also simplifies the interface for site owners on both the Stats and Subscribers pages.

Existing email-only subscribers will have a WordPress.com account created on their next interaction, such as managing their subscriptions or accessing subscriber-only content.

As a result, subscribers will not receive marketing notifications from WordPress.com or Jetpack, nor will they be automatically subscribed to our blogs.

Please read our troubleshooting Newsletter email delivery article for tips.

Still need help?

Please contact support. We’re happy to advise.

Privacy Information

Jetpack Newsletter is activated by default once you connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account. You can turn it off any time at My Jetpack → Features in WP Admin.

Data Used

Site Owners / Users

To set up and process subscriptions, we use the subscriber’s email address, as well as the ID of the post or comment (depending on the specific subscription being processed).In the event of a new subscription being initiated, we also collect some basic server data, including all of the subscribing user’s HTTP request headers, the IP address from which the subscribing user is viewing the page, and the URI which was given in order to access the page (REQUEST_URI and DOCUMENT_URI). This server data used for the exclusive purpose of monitoring and preventing abuse and spam.

Additionally, for toggle activity tracking (detailed below): IP address, WordPress.com user ID, WordPress.com username, WordPress.com-connected site ID and URL, Jetpack version, user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.

Site Visitors

To set up and process subscriptions, we use the subscriber’s email address, as well as the ID of the post or comment (depending on the specific subscription being processed).In the event of a new subscription being initiated, we also collect some basic server data, including all of the subscribing user’s HTTP request headers, the IP address from which the subscribing user is viewing the page, and the URI which was given in order to access the page (REQUEST_URI and DOCUMENT_URI). This server data used for the exclusive purpose of monitoring and preventing abuse and spam.

Activity Tracked

Site Owners / Users

Functionality cookies are set for a duration of 347 days to remember a visitor’s blog and post subscription choices if, in fact, they have an active subscription.Additionally, we track when, and by which user, the feature is activated and deactivated. We also track when, and which, configuration settings are modified.

Site Visitors

Functionality cookies are set for a duration of 347 days to remember a visitor’s blog and post subscription choices if, in fact, they have an active subscription.

Data Synced (Read More)

Site Owners / Users

We sync options that identify whether or not the feature is activated and how its available settings are configured.

Site Visitors

None.

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