How to start a newsletter as a freelancer, and what to send

The newsletter that brings a freelancer work is not the one that chases thousands of subscribers. It is a short email, once a month, to the people who have hired you or could: past clients, collaborators, the art director who asked about your rates last spring. Each issue carries one useful thing and one piece of recent work, and ends with a line on when you have room. Ask each person before you add them, send it from a free plan, and put an unsubscribe link and a postal address at the foot of every issue. Here is how to set one up and keep it going.

Who it’s for: past clients and people who could hire you

A studio of one rarely needs more clients than it can count. It needs the right few to remember it when the next project comes up. Past clients come back, and the people inside a client company move to new jobs and take your name with them, but only if they still think of you. A monthly email does that without you having to post anywhere.

So the list is small on purpose, and who is on it matters more than how many:

• Past clients, including every person you worked with at each company, not just the one who signed the contract.
• Collaborators who pass on work: developers, copywriters, photographers, printers and the agencies you subcontract for.
• People who asked about working with you and didn’t go ahead yet, if they agree to hear from you.

Leave out strangers, bought lists and the business cards you collected at an event without asking. They don’t know your work, and they didn’t agree to the email.

What to send: one useful thing and one piece of work

Every issue can follow the same five parts, which makes it quicker to write and easier to read:

1. A subject line that says what’s inside. Yours might read “What a printer needs from you, and a new label for a local brewery.”
2. One useful thing. Something a client can use whether or not they hire you: what to send a designer before a project starts, how to give feedback on a first round, when to start a rebrand before a launch. The best topics are questions clients asked you this month.
3. One piece of work. A recent project, with a picture, a sentence on the problem it solved and a link to the case study. Only show work you have the right to show; the portfolio clause in your freelance contract settles that, and if a project was under a confidentiality agreement, ask first.
4. One line on your availability. “I have room for one identity project starting in March.” This is the line that turns a newsletter into work.
5. Your name and an invitation to reply. A reply from a past client is worth more than any open count.

Keep the layout plain, close to a letter: your logo or name at the top, a picture or two, and no heavy template. It is a note from a person, and it should look like one.

How often, and how long

Monthly suits most studios of one: often enough that people remember you, rare enough that you can keep it up in a busy season. Every six weeks or once a quarter works too, if that is the schedule you will actually keep. A schedule you keep beats a better one you abandon in March.

Pick a fixed day, such as the first Tuesday of the month, and put the whole year’s send dates in your calendar now, the same way you book your weeks off a year ahead. Aim for 200 to 400 words, about two minutes of reading. If an issue runs longer, the useful thing has probably become an article, so publish it on your site and send the link.

Build the first list, with permission

Your first list is already in your inbox. Turn it into a mailing list one person at a time:

1. Gather the names. Go through your sent mail, your invoices and your client app for the last few years. If your clients live in HoneyBook, Dubsado, Bonsai or Moxie, export the contacts; our comparison of those four apps covers what each lets you take out.
2. Write to each one personally. A short note is enough: “I’m starting a short monthly email with one useful thing for clients and one recent project. Would you like it? No hard feelings either way.”
3. Add only the people who say yes, and keep their reply, so you have a record of when and how each person agreed.
4. Put a signup form where people already find you: your site’s About and Contact pages, and a link in your email signature. All three platforms below include forms.
5. Ask new clients at the start. Add one question to your client onboarding questionnaire: would they like the monthly email?

Pick a free plan

Any of these three will carry a list this size for free. Prices and limits are from the makers’ pages on October 27, 2026.

Platform	Free plan	First paid plan	Suits
Kit	Up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited sends, unlimited forms and landing pages, one automation	Creator from $39/month	A list you expect to grow, signup pages without a website
Buttondown	Your first 100 subscribers, a Markdown editor, sending from your own domain	Basic $9/month, up to 1,000	Writing in plain text and sending from your own address
MailerLite	250 subscribers, 2,500 emails a month, three forms, one landing page and one website	Comfort from $12/month	A newsletter and a simple website in one place

Kit’s free plan is described on its help page for the Newsletter plan, Buttondown’s on its pricing page, and MailerLite’s limits are on MailerLite’s pricing page. Choose by how you like to write, not by the feature list; you will use a fraction of any of them. Send from an address at your own domain, such as hello@yourstudio.com, and follow the platform’s steps for verifying the domain, so the email arrives from you rather than from the platform. Avoid sending from your everyday inbox with everyone in BCC: there is no unsubscribe link, and one slip puts every address in the To line. The rest of the email and marketing tools we list are on the Tools page.

The rules: unsubscribe, address and consent

In the US: CAN-SPAM

The CAN-SPAM Act covers email whose primary purpose is to advertise or promote a commercial product or service, and the FTC’s compliance guide says “the law makes no exception for business-to-business email.” A newsletter that exists to bring in work should follow it. The guide’s main requirements:

• Honest headers. The From, To and Reply-To lines must be accurate and identify you.
• An honest subject line that reflects what is in the email.
• A clear disclosure that the message is an advertisement. The guide explains how much leeway you have in doing this.
• Your valid physical postal address. A post office box registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox registered with a commercial mail receiving agency, counts, so you don’t have to print your home address.
• A clear way to opt out, which must keep working for at least 30 days after you send. You must honor opt-outs within 10 business days and can’t charge a fee. The platforms above add the link and remove people for you.
• Responsibility you can’t hand off. If someone else sends the email for you, you are still responsible for it.

Each email that breaks the law can cost up to $53,088 in penalties. CAN-SPAM does not require permission before you send, but asking first is still the better list: people who said yes read the email.

In the UK and the EU

The UK’s rules are stricter. Under PECR, the ICO’s guidance says you must not send marketing email to individuals unless they have specifically consented, and sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals, which covers many freelancers’ clients. There is a “soft opt-in” for existing customers who bought, or negotiated to buy, similar services from you, but only if you gave them a simple way to opt out when you collected their details and in every message since. You can email companies without consent, but keep a list of those who object. Every message must say who you are and give a valid address for unsubscribing. EU countries have their own versions of these rules, so if you have clients there, the habit this article already recommends covers you best: ask, keep the yes, and make leaving easy. For anything unusual, ask a lawyer where you work.

Keep it going between projects

Feast and famine is the reason to have a newsletter, and also the reason most freelance newsletters stop. In a busy month there is no time to write, and the quiet month after it is the one the newsletter was meant to fill.

• Keep a running list of ideas. Every question a client asks is a future issue.
• Write in the quiet weeks. Draft two issues ahead and schedule them in the platform, so a busy month sends itself.
• Send the short version when you must. One picture, two sentences and the availability line beat a skipped month.
• Count replies and inquiries, not opens. Open counts are unreliable, because some email apps load every image automatically, and replies are what bring in work.
• Clean the list now and then. Remove addresses that bounce, and keep your record of who agreed and when.

Tip: keep a note on your phone called “newsletter” and add a line every time a client asks you a question. A year of those lines is a year of issues.

More on getting found by the right clients, without becoming a full-time marketer, is in Marketing.