Honest Flodesk Review 2024
If you have a small business and you’re not using email marketing as a strategy (or at least building your email list) 2024 is the year to start! Stats show a $1 investment in email marketing on average generates a $42 return on investment - that’s huge! But which email marketing platform should you choose? Today I’m sharing my honest Flodesk Review 2024!
In this review of flodesk - one of the newest email marketing kids on the block (founded in 2019) - developed and run by two women (huzzah!) with the aim of making sending beautiful emails accessible to all businesses. I’m going to cover
How to get 50% off Flodesk (hint - click here!)
Flodesk features
What I love about Flodesk
Cons of Flodesk
How Flodesk compares to other email marketing software platforms - Convertkit, Mailchimp & Squarespace email campaigns
Flodesk Pricing
Integrating Flodesk & Squarespace
Should you switch to flodesk?
Full disclosure before we begin - I use flodesk for my email marketing & I think it’s the perfect fit for me. That’s not to say that it’s the perfect fit for your business however, so in this review I’m giving a balanced overview of what I love, an honest Flodesk review if you will, and what the drawbacks are so you can make an informed decision for you and your business.
This article contains affiliate links - as with any affiliate link on my website I only share things I know, use and love myself and at no cost to you.
Flodesk Discount Code
Already know you want to give flodesk a try to find out for yourself? Get 50% off your first year and a free month’s trial here!*
Flodesk Features
First up in this flodesk review we’re going to cover features!
Flodesk has a number of features that have expanded over time & continues to do so based on user requests.
emails
First up in this review of flodesk features, the obvious! Flodesk is an email marketing software, so naturally allows you to send emails to your audience! You’ll probably also have read in every Flodesk Review you’ve browsed, that their emails are legit gorgeous, and that’s the truth! Here are the key features you can find in Flodesk emails.
Add your branding
Create & save templates
Add social media blocks
Send to one segment of your audience only/ not send to a specific segment
Add countdown timers
Pre-schedule your emails for the “best time” of the day based on stats #smart!
Flodesk forms
Like most (all!) email marketing softwares flodesk has a form builder, which allows you to create either inline or pop up forms to allow people to sign up to your email list on your website. Similar to Convertkit they also offer a landing page option which means you can set up an email sign up form without needing a website.
Here’s a quick summary of the key features of Flodesk forms
Inline forms, link in bios, pop up forms & landing pages available
In-form segmentation (people can select their niche/ language/ location etc) so they’re segmented before they land on your list
automations (known as workflows)
My fave flodesk feature (I’ll get into it more later on when we get to Flodesk pros) are their workflows. Not familar? A workflow is a series of actions that happen based on triggers (including signing up for something, time elapsing etc). Workflows are perfect for delivering your opt in gifts & setting up nurture sequences. Here are the highlights of Flodesk workflows
Visual easy to edit workflows
Duplication of workflows is possible making it stupid simple to create one then duplicate & edit for future
Workflows allow you to send an email, complete an action (like adding or removing a segment) & conditions allowing people to go down a different path depending on their action/ segment.
SEGMENTATION
flodesk, again like many other email marketing softwares has audience segmentation. Essentially people get assigned a tag either through a workflow, or through the form they sign up to & you can then engage with your audience differently depending on their segments. Flodesk segmentation is pretty basic for now, so that’s about it on that one!
AUDIENCE
Within flodesk your audience (ie people that signed up for your email list) are stored, along with other info about them like their segment(s), name (if you asked for it) additional info (if you asked for it), and their interaction with your emails. Again this is fairly basic for now.
analytics
The big improvement flodesk made in 2023 was to add analytics! Without this my Flodesk review would have been a lot less favourable! But I’m absolutely loving how I can now look at the performance of my forms, emails, workflows, and audience growth in a much more detailed way.
FLODESK CHECKOUT
A little different to most other email marketing softwares, flodesk has it’s own checkout functionality, allowing you to sell products via Flodesk, perfect if you don’t yet have a website.
They even have a freebie option, which might sound a little silly - but actually allows you to offer a free gift, with an upsell, which can be a great way to allow your audience to opt into a paid-for service or product when they’re opting into a freebie.
DOMAIN AUTHENTICATION & one click unsubscribe
Important! As of February 1st 2024, google requires for your domain to be authenticated & your email marketing provider to provide one-click unsubscribe to your audience. flodesk has made this really simple - allowing you to easily grab the key records you need & add them to your domain records.
Flodesk review of features - a summary
In short, flodesk has a wide range of features, comparable to most other email marketing softwares, like Convertkit, Mailchimp and Squarespace. It does though have some areas it particularly excels in, and others that are less developed - so let’s go on to the specific pros and cons of the Flodesk platform!
Flodesk Pros
Easy & intuitive user interface
Beautiful templates
Mobile optimisation
Flodesk landing pages
Easy to interpret analytics
Straightforward pricing
Simple automations
Female founded
Flodesk University
Flodesk’s user interface is easy & intuitive
If Squarespace is the apple of websites then flodesk must be the apple of email marketing software. It is so simple and easy to use, with no confusing functionalities or language (you can see it was built by people that understand email marketing for small businesses!)
I created and sent my first email on flodesk in less than 30 minutes - no exaggeration - having never used the platform before. With email marketing being such a powerful strategy for small businesses the amount of time saved through such a user friendly interface is mega valuable (Having been a mailchimp user in the past, this can’t be undersold as a strength… more on that below!)
Flodesk templates are beautiful
Flodesk has a large range of gorgeous, customizable templates for emails with various objectives from welcome sequences, to sales emails and everything in between. You can tweak and save any of them to use as your go-to, or try out various different flodesk templates to see which has the best conversion rate with your audience! See the image for some examples of flodesk templates.
Flodesk templates are mobile optimised as standard
Given that the majority of email opens are now on mobile devices, but that nearly ⅕ email campaigns are not optimised for mobile , the fact that flodesk’s templates are just as gorgeous on mobile as they are on desktop is a winner !
Flodesk landing pages can be used to support campaigns
Along with email templates, flodesk offers landing page templates too - simply choose the option “full page” when you select your form and you can create your landing page and autogenerate a url at the end.
Although generally I’d recommend creating a landing page on your website and then embedding a form, this is a great quick option if your website is still under development or you’re using a website builder whereby you aren’t able to quickly and easily whip up an additional page. The ease of adding an additional page to your website yourself is one of the many reasons I recommend Squarespace for small businesses - more about that here...
Flodesk analytics are easy to interpret
*Example analytics only - not real data
Going back a year or so, I was saying that Flodesk analytics don’t set the world on fire, but as of 2023 they’ve seriously upped their game & we’re now looking at some of the best email analytics on the market, and displayed in their signature beautiful & simple way!
Flodesk pricing is simple and straightforward (and doesn’t change with number of subscribers)
How does one flat price that doesn’t change based on your number of subscribers sound?
Unlike the majority of email marketing software whereby you begin with a low (or even free) monthly subscription, once you start to see success and build your list this can grow to the hundreds of dollars a month, and beyond. Although flodesk doesn’t have a free option (more on that below) the fixed monthly (or annual) subscription allows for easy budgeting, and based on the average ROI of email marketing you should be able to make that money back with a well crafted strategy and implementation.
Get 50% off your first year of flodesk and a 30 day free trial with this link
Flodesk automations are simple and easy to set up
The more automated your business is, the less time you need to spend on day to day tasks and the more time you have to focus on other things that move the needle. Flodesk makes automations easy, examples include setting up email welcome series, lead generator or freebie delivery, nurture series and more. You can choose the lag-time between emails being sent, and even allow members to self select into different segments based on their responses to different questions allowing them to receive more personalised email content. All of this can be set up and left to run allowing you to focus on the more important things in your business.
Flodesk is a women founded, women run business that feels more like a community
An extra bonus of flodesk is that it was set up and is run by two women. They pride themselves on having a team which is 75% women and 75% underrepresented groups. They are market disrupters and they GET small business.
IMHO Flodesk have created kind of a movement in email marketing through engaging with their customers like a community - they have a great affiliate program (once you’re a user you can be an affiliate and earn money for referrals - like I’m doing with the links in this article), but it feels more like I’m doing it “for the team” and because I love flodesk rather than because i’m looking to make a buck.
Flodesk University
The final point in my Flodesk review of the things I love is flodesk university that was launched in 2021. Full of useful information about getting the most from the platform, but also about e-mail marketing generally it showcases some amazing women educators sharing their knowledge and expertise and all for free.
Flodesk Review ctd…
Flodesk Cons
No free version
No one-click tagging like Convertkit
Lack of full workflow email previews
No native e commerce integration for Squarespace
No a/b subject line testing
There is no free version of flodesk
You can try flodesk for free for 30 days, but there is no free version of the software, for some small businesses that might make the $38 a month price tag too steep at the beginning.
This is something I much prefer about Convertkit, where they offer a free plan up to 1000 subscribers (albeit with slightly limited functionality), which allows you to get started & only once your list is of a decent size to start paying.
Do remember that you can get 50% off Flodesk for your first year though, and start making money as an affiliate yourself which could in the end pay for more than your subscription.
no ONE CLICK TAGGING In flodesk
A functionality I use a lot when working with clients who use Convertkit is the ability to tag/ segment a subscriber when they click a link in your email. This is such a useful functionality with a tonne of use cases & I’m crossing everything that flodesk implements it soon!
lack of full workflow email previews
At the moment, it requires you to pause a workflow to be able to hop in & view or edit an email inside it. It’s one of the rare none-user-friendly things about flodesk, and it’s not a deal breaker, but it would be a time saver!
There’s no native e-commerce integration for Squarespace (yet)
And Squarespace isn’t the only one - many flodesk integrations require you to connect via Zapier as opposed to existing in native form. This is a shame as having everything connected up on one email marketing platform provides more complete and useful data as well as a more consistent look and feel to your communications. Having said this, flodesk may develop more integrations over time, but for now lags behind the more established e-marketing platforms.
You can’t A/B test in flodesk
You can’t A/B test in flodesk yet. If you’re into A/B testing your emails (trying two slightly different versions to see which does better) flodesk doesn't support this yet - other email marketing platforms like convertkit do however - so I’ve outlined some of the strengths of two of flodesks main competitors in the next section.
Flodesk Review Continued…
How flodesk stacks up against other email marketing software
Flodesk vs Mailchimp
This deserves a blog of it’s own, but in short, Mailchimp wins out on offering a free version & more native integrations. It integrates directly with Squarespace too if you’re a Squarespace user. Apart from that I find the user interface complex, the email builder clunky and the end user experience of my emails much less attractive. Automations are more complex on Mailchimp too.
With this in mind I recommend Mailchimp only when there is literally no budget for email marketing and a free solution is required.
Flodesk vs Convertkit
Again deserving of its own post, Convertkit is probably the biggest rival to flodesk and outperforms in a number of areas - notably analytics which are much more thorough, ease of creating workflows and automations which is better integrated on Convertkit, and a lifetime affiliate income (30% of referral income for life as opposed to flodesk’s $19 one off payment for referrals). It also offers a free plan for up to 1000 subscribers which could be a good option if you’re starting off with a boot strap budget.
Flodesk however wins out on creating beautiful emails, a simpler pricing plan (which works out much cheaper than Convertkit if you have a large audience) and a more intuitive user interface.
Flodesk vs squarespace email marketing
TBH I don’t love Squarespace email marketing. It’s kind of clunky, lacks a lot of the functionality of the other 3 email marketing softwares & ends up working out relatively expensive for what it offers for any real functionality. Having said that, if your site’s on Squarespace and you really only need something simple you might like having everything in one place, and it’s fairly easy to use (and even less of a learning curve if you’re already a Squarespace user.
In short Convertkit might be your bag if your need is for text based emails and more analytics data. Flodesk is probably the better fit if email design and ease of use are your priorities. I honestly don’t really recommend Mailchimp or Squarespace email campaigns.
Flodesk Review Continued…
Flodesk Pricing
Flodesk is priced at $38 / month or $418 / year. What’s great about this is that this stays the same if you have 1 subscriber or 1million… this is almost unheard of in the email marketing software sector. There is however no free version, so after your 30 day free trial you will have to start paying even if you still have a very small audience.
How to Integrate Flodesk & Squarespace
As I said at the top of this article, if Squarespace is the apple of website builders, flodesk is the apple of email marketing software - its simply so easy to use, and integrating your flodesk forms onto your Squarespace website is super simple too.
Once you’ve created your form you simple follow all of the steps until you get to the final one titled “embed”.
Inline Forms
Here flodesk gives you two code snippets to add to your Squarespace website.
The first will go in your header code injection (and only needs adding once no matter how many forms you add to your website).
The second needs adding via a code block where you want it to display on the page itself.
Popup forms
Here flodesk gives you one code snippet that is to add to your header code injection. There is nothing to add on page.
Is flodesk right for you and your business?
As with all reviews (or almost all) the answer is “it depends”. Similarly to Squarespace flodesk is my top pick for the majority of small businesses, but not 100% - there will be some exceptions whereby another platform is going to be a better choice for you.
The factors you are likely to want to consider are the importance of the following to you in your business:
Email design. Does it need to be pretty, or is the text content more important)?
How tech confident are you? Do you need/ prefer an easy to use interface, or do you love getting into the nuts and bolts behind the scenes?
How much data do you need to evaluate and inform your strategy? Is simply presented top level data enough, or are you going to need more robust analytics?
What other programmes do you want to integrate your email marketing software with? Are you confident with Zapier as a workaround if your native integration doesn’t exist?
What’s your budget now and in the future?
Do you use affiliate marketing as a revenue generator? Do you have, or could you have an audience that might be interested in flodesk, allowing you to cover your costs and more.
So there you have it, my review of flodesk and the things to consider as you choose an email marketing software for your business.
Decided flodesk is defs for you? Get 50% off your first year on flodesk by clicking here!
