In the last few years, there’s been an explosion of tools that will help you to create and run a paid newsletter. Full-featured tools such as Substack, for example, allow writers and creators to not put their newsletter behind a paywall, but to also pair a paid newsletter with a podcast, get your newsletter featured in the Substack marketplace, and to attend local events with other writers.
Unfortunately, using a service such as Substack comes at a cost. Substack’s pricing includes a 10% transaction fee for each successful recurring payment you receive, on top of the 2.9% payment processing fee Stripe charges. Paying 12.9% + for each paid subscriber will quickly (and substantially) eat into any revenue you make.
If you’re already using a platform such as Mailchimp to manage your email list and you want to save yourself both some money and aggravation from having to switch away from Mailchimp, read on.
In this tutorial, we’ll go over how you can keep your subscribers on Mailchimp and integrate ChargeKeep as the payment tool that you can use to create and manage paid subscriptions to your email newsletter.
Connect Mailchimp
In order to collect payments with ChargeKeep and send any new subscriber information to your Mailchimp account, you’ll first need to connect Mailchimp to ChargeKeep. ChargeKeep integrates directly with Mailchimp, so all you need to do is authorize the connection in the ChargeKeep integrations portal. No need to go through a multi-step process using Zapier. You can connect ChargeKeep to Mailchimp in just two steps.
Step 1:
Step 2:
You are now ready to send paid subscribers to Mailchimp.
Create a Checkout Form For Your Newsletter
The next step on the road to paid subscribers continues with a great checkout form or landing page. Using ChargeKeep, you can quickly create a checkout form where new or current free subscribers can purchase a subscription to your newsletter.
Here’s an example of a form you can create with ChargeKeep:
Once you’ve created your payment form, you can link to your form on your website (or use a button that opens a pop-up of the form) or in any emails you send to your emails list. ChargeKeep supports all major content management systems, so it doesn’t matter if you’re using WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, or any other platform.
Anytime someone pays you via a ChargeKeep payment form (using their credit card or via ACH), the information for that subscriber is automatically sent to Mailchimp.
Manage Your Subscribers
Once you’ve accumulated a few paid subscribers, you’ll need a way to manage those subscribers and subscriptions. ChargeKeep makes this easy in two ways:
1. You can make any changes to subscriptions directly in the ChargeKeep dashboard. Need to cancel, pause, or cancel a subscription? ChargeKeep makes that easy. No need to log into your Stripe account.
And if a subscriber wants to unsubscribe and cancel their own subscription (or update their credit card), they can log into your customer portal and do that themselves.
2. Any changes you make to a subscription are automatically synced to your Mailchimp account so you can be sure that any canceled (or, if you choose, overdue) subscribers don’t receive your next issue. This type of automation is key as you convert more of your free email subscribers to paid or activate new paid newsletter subscriptions.
Still with us?
ChargeKeep is a super simple way to run a paid newsletter with Mailchimp. If you liked this tutorial, you’ll probably love ChargeKeep too.
