The first time I heard about Flodesk, that new(ish) email service provider all the boss babes are talking about, it was in our Slack community and what I heard was something about how it makes “pretty” emails.
I was immediately skeptical.
I wondered about deliverability and instantly had a picture in my head of a flat lay with an iPhone, a latte, and some peonies.
Sort of typical “pretty” blogger stuff. I’ve never really loved that aesthetic, so I ignored the Flodesk hype.
And then we decided to test it for Bogoten.
And I fell in love.
My Mail Service Provider Baggage
Before I tell you how and why I love Flodesk, I think it’s fair to let you know my past history with email service providers.
I’ve been with Mailerlite & Mailchimp and I use Drip for all Odd Noodle correspondence.
Mailerlite and Mailchimp are like if your first car has manual windows and you never knew automatic windows existed. You just thought it was great the windows could go up and down.
You don’t have any expectations and so you are happy that it functions mostly the way you want it to.
Drip is like then upgrading to a luxury car with all the bells and whistles. Maybe even a tank. It’s awesome but oh.my.god what do all those buttons do?!
Flodesk fits right in the middle of those two extremes. It functions the way it should, it looks really good, it’s not crazy expensive and it’s simple to use.
Flodesk Review: 7 Reasons I Love Flodesk
1. It’s actually easy to use.
I am not the most technically astute person you’re ever going to meet. I’m not of the age where you had a tablet when you were 2 and so you just absorbed the technical atoms into your skin.
My kids are. But, I’m not.
Of course I’ve learned a ton and I learn new things all the time, so I was prepared to have a little learning curve when the Flodesk dashboard opened before my eyes.
Guess what?
I didn’t.
If you have some experience with using an email service provider, you are going to love how clean and intuitive Flodesk is to use.
Here’s what it looks like when you open up your dashboard:
Emails. Audience. Forms. Workflows. Simple and easy to navigate, right? Let’s take a look at each.
Emails
The Emails tab shows you your recently sent emails and there are a number of actions you can take by hovering over those emails like duplicate (which I do every week for my newsletter. It’s a cinch to use the same template and just switch the text and images) or share or resend to unopened.
You can also click that little chart icon in the bottom right corner for statistics on each individual email. We’ll talk more about those in a bit.
You can create a new email here with one of Flodesk’s templates or your own design from scratch.
Audience
Guess what the audience tab shows you?
RIGHT! Your audience!
All of your subscribers and their segments. You can filter them if you want or add someone new if you need to.
Forms
The forms tabs will show you all the beautiful forms you made or you can create a new one.
And that is indeed very easy to do. You can work from templates and they will make you look good. I promise.
Here’s my inline form for Bogoten:
Using one of the templates for this form meant I knew what was already there had good design bones. I was able to add a stock photo, switch some colors and fonts to our Brand colors and fonts and edit the text.
And voila, a beautiful form for people to give us their email addresses.
And embedding it into your site is a breeze.
So is adding a pop up form. I don’t use a pop up, but I tested it out to make sure it worked well and it does.
I tested it because it is a huge complaint I had with Mailchimp and I know others have as well. Flodesk’s pop ups work correctly.
Workflows
And finally, Workflows. Where the magic happens.
This is where you’ll schedule your amazing nurturing emails and sales funnels.
The interface for creating workflows is clean and simple. This is more advanced email marketing than sending out a newsletter every week, but the technology is still simple to use.
2. It really is pretty.
Before you start assuming that because you just saw that beautiful form that we use on Bogoten that I have some sort of design skills, let me just stop you right there.
I do not.
That is a template straight from Flodesk, the colors are the brand colors already chosen for Bogoten, same with the fonts and the picture is a stock image.
All I did was write the words.
It is very easy to look like you have some skills if you use the templates that Flodesk provides.
There’s just enough customization available with the fonts, images and colors that you can make a unique form that looks really good.
Same goes for the email templates that Flodesk provides.
Here’s what the weekly newsletter from Bogoten looks like:
It’s got our brand colors and fonts and all I do is switch out the images and the words every week with new stuff.
And if you’re curious what the template looked like before I customized it with our design, here it is:
I don’t really think anyone that subscribes to My Style Vita is going to go, “Wait, that looks just like Bogoten’s emails…”.
That’s just ONE of the gorgeous templates that you can choose. And remember, I was skeptical about pretty.
Pretty to me isn’t super important. But if your emails are coming through looking polished and professional, that does do a little bit to build trust with your reader.
And there are lots and lots of email templates to choose from. Flodesk even categorizes them with things like, “Welcome”, “Share News” “Make Money” and other tags so that you can narrow down your choices of templates a bit.
Or you can always start from scratch. But why would you when you have templates like these to choose from:
Not a peony to be found, is there?
3. The price is pretty alright.
Flodesk, if you sign up through an affiliate link, is 50% off of the introductory price of $38.
Which means, let me grab my calculator, (jk, ok, maybe not), you pay $19 a month. We’d love it if you used our Flodesk affiliate link to get your 50% off.
It is not as cheap as free Mailerlite or free Mailchimp. But, it is less expensive than Converkit or Drip. And it is about a 75% percent reduction in headaches as compared to using Mailerlite or Mailchimp (disclaimer: I’m not a doctor. Anecdotal evidence only).
4. Deliverability (so far, so good)
Bogoten has a teeny tiny list. We’ve only been building it for a couple of months at the time of the writing of this article.
But so far, deliverability and open rates with Flodesk have been solid.
Here are the stats for our most recent newsletter:
100% deliverability rate and a 33% open rate.
It is only 115 emails we’re talking about, but I am glad to see that the emails are getting delivered and most of them seem to be going to inboxes and not spam or promotions since they are getting opened.
5. Statistics for those who love numbers
Well, you don’t really have to love numbers to love the statistics that Flodesk offers.
In fact if you’re like me and you don’t really love numbers, but you are competitive as hell and want to know how many people clicked each link you put in your email and which link they clicked the most, then you can see that with Flodesk’s stats.
And more things, too.
What I love about the statistics on Flodesk is that they are laid out in clean charts that are easy to understand and don’t feel anything like any Math class I ever fell asleep in. Or skipped completely.
6. Their Help documentation is second to none.
I’m a big fan of the Help page. I would rather scour the Help documentation than reach out to a human. Sometimes that can become a time suck, but not with Flodesk.
Their Help documentation is good. I mean, really, really good. It’s clear and concise, written in language that is simple to understand.
When it’s appropriate, there are Youtube videos to help walk you through things.
If you’re stressed about figuring out the technology part of your email service provider, then Flodesk is the only service I’ve used that I would recommend.
If you’re still stressed about the technology piece, we’ve got you covered. We created a 2-hour Flodesk Workshop that teaches you the ins and outs of Flodesk.
7. Flodesk is run by two women.
Their names are Martha Bitar and Rebecca Shostak.
They are two women who saw a problem that needed solving.
So they solved it.
Does that sound familiar to you? Does that sound a little like what you are trying to do with your own business?
Don’t you want to support two women that are on the same path as you?
I do.
And the One Reason I Would Not Recommend Flodesk…
My only teeny, minor complaint with Flodesk so far is that I would like to be able to either sort subscribers by the date they entered my email list (as opposed to the date of their last activity which is the default and as of the writing of this post, it can’t be changed).
Or, I would like to be able to export the list so I can view it and sort it however I want in a spreadsheet.
But that function doesn’t exist. At least not yet.
On the bright side, Flodesk is constantly making upgrades and tweaks so I would not be surprised if this is something that will be coming in the near future.
But Should YOU Get Flodesk?
I’m very happy with Flodesk, but how do you know if you will be?
Well, it depends.
If budget is your greatest concern and your budget for an Email Service Provider right now is zero, then Flodesk isn’t for you. You can start with a free option like Mailerlite or Mailchimp. They will handle the basics that you need but once you want workflows/automations or an increase in subscribers you’re going to be forced to pay.
If you are ready to pay for an upgrade from Mailerlite or Mailchimp (or you just want to skip them outright because you know the value your email list is going to bring is going to exceed the monthly cost of Flodesk), but you don’t need an intricate, high end service like Drip that can basically launch a space shuttle, then Flodesk is probably perfect for you.
If you are someone who isn’t “Technical” or if you struggle with design, then Flodesk is most definitely for YOU. Not only is it easy to use, but it’s also going to make your lack of design skills a well-kept secret.
Go Get Your Flodesk and Reduce Your Email Induced Headaches
Here’s probably the best thing I could say about Flodesk.
I actually LOOK FORWARD to using it. I enjoy writing a newsletter every week.
I like checking out how my workflows are performing.
Can you say that about your current email service provider? (I didn’t think so).