#88 - Best Email Platforms in 2025 for Soul-Lead Businesses & How I Help My Clients Choose

Email marketing is FAR from dead! In fact it's thriving with a side dish of reality TV drama these past few weeks since Kit hiked their prices. 😂

If you're wondering which email platform is actually worth it in 2025 — this episode is for you. I’m breaking down the recent Kit pricing drama, comparing top ESPs like Flodesk and Beehiiv, and sharing exactly how I help my coaching clients choose the right tools for their business stage.

Even if you're not an email marketer, listen in because email is still the highest-ROI channel we’ve got. 

Connection, storytelling, sales - it all starts here.

Let’s simplify the tech, get clear on your next move, and make sure your marketing actually supports your mission.

You’ll Learn:

• What happened with Kit’s sudden price jump 
• How Flodesk, Beehiiv, and Kit compare (the real pros + cons)
• Whether an all-in-one platform like Kajabi or Systeme.io is right for you
• The exact advice I give my clients when choosing an ESP
• Why email still matters (and how to make it work for your business)

And, if you're looking for a simple, step-by-step program to help you clarify your signature offer and build the two main essential marketing funnels every business needs - a lead gen funnel and a sales funnel - then look no further! 

Foundations Group Program and Mastermind is open and enrolling. 

Check out the details and enroll in Foundations here.

For those interested in checking out the comparison chard mentioned in this episode, here is a link to a Google Doc. 

View ESP Comparison Chart.

Mindset to Market is a Luminous Creative Production. If you'd like to learn more about our business coaching program and group coaching container, please visit us online at DeborahcSmith.com.

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Mindset to Market is produced by Deborah C. Smith and designed to inspire and support big-hearted creatives in finding their own unique path, building a sustainable business, and creating financial, spiritual, mental wellness and abundance.

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Transcript

 Hey. Hey there. Welcome back to the show. This week I am going to spend a little time talking about a topic that's been buzzing around all week in creator circles, that one creator coined kit gate, which I thought was hilarious, which is essentially that the kit, email service provider platform had a big price hike last week, and it really got a lot of small businesses and solo creators into kind of panic mode.

And so I'm gonna break down what actually happened. I'm gonna give you a quick comparison of top email platforms, and I'm gonna share my honest thoughts. Especially if you're one of my clients who's already using Kit because I recommended it to you. Yes, I see you and I got you. Um, but listen, even if you don't think of yourself as an email marketer, stick with me because here is the facts.

Email still delivers the highest return on investment out of any standard marketing strategy in terms of like the amount of time and money you spend. The potential investment, it's, it's at the top of the game. And why is that? Because email can be very personal. You can create true personal connection and it allows you to tell those types of stories that actually lead to sales.

So whether you are sending a weekly newsletter or. You've been avoiding your email list, like that junk drawer in your kitchen. This episode is still gonna help you. We're gonna talk about platforms pricing, and how to make smart moves in your email marketing. Hey there and welcome to the Mindset To Market Podcast, your go-to place for practical tools and solutions for the everyday challenges of being a creative and spiritual solopreneur living in a material world.

I'm your host. Deborah Smith. I'm a holistic business coach with 17 years of experience, and I help my clients bust through mindset blocks and build a daily practice that prioritizes your business's financial growth as well as your personal health and wellness. I'm here to offer you support, creativity, mindset, practical how-tos, and getting into imperfect messy actions so you can find balance while building the dream.

Business. If you're a purpose-driven solepreneur, who's working on that dream one day at a time, then you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Okay, so this kind of goes without saying, but I'll say it anyways. I am a big fan. Yes. Still after 20 years in the online space of developing a strong email list.

So that just goes without saying. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, but I just wanna use social media. My answer to that is you do not own social media and you can own your email list, meaning you'll create an account with a, a, a standalone email service provider where you have a proprietary control over that list, and it's a privilege to have all those emails and you should use it wisely.

Um, it's not the same as using platforms that are social platforms that just kind of come and go where you have no control over what they're gonna do. When you get somebody's email, you can reach out to them anytime, anywhere from any place and send them information. So it's really, really different than people just scrolling by on social media.

Who may never see your content, so there's really no comparison. So whether you love social as top of funnel, whether you have an am amazing, elaborate funnel, you're still going to need email. And in my opinion, your email list is a, is the critical core foundation and the engine of your business. So we're just gonna get that outta the way.

Um, and if you disagree with that, I still think there's something for you to learn in this episode because. The facts are the facts, right? So we just wanna be smart about how we're marketing our businesses. So what happened with Kit's Price Increase. First of all, kit, they were formally Convert Kit, and then this past year they announced, uh, a change in their brand.

They did this whole big public rebrand and like spent all this money, you know, kind of showing their work or whatever They recently announced, like last week, new pricing that's gonna go into effect on October 15th. And. Uh, the pricing goes up kind of significantly for, for this type of platform. So, for example, if you have less than a thousand subscribers on the creator plan, their monthly charge is gonna go from $29 a month to $39 a month, a $10 a monthly increase, and the annual price goes up from two 90 to three 90.

If you have the Creator Pro plan, it's increasing, um, similarly from 59 to 79, and then the annual price is reflective of that. So their justification for the price hike is they say, and they said this at like the opening line of their email, was that they haven't raised their prices since 2013, despite adding all kinds of new features and increasing costs and all that stuff.

And these added features include, you know, visual automations, app integrations, commercial tools, the ability to do recommendations through networks. And they created this like entire creator network. So they have some really great features that they added. And their justification was, we've never charged you for this.

So we're gonna start, we're gonna jump up now. Now, here's why there was so much pushback. First of all, I agree. With increasing prices as you develop, you know, better skills, better tools, better delivery. So I think the price increase is not really the issue, but what people are upset about was that the magnitude of the increase was a little bit large for the smaller creators who have lists that are like under 300 people, right?

So it was roughly a 35% up upward, um, increase on the creator, like the entry level plan. And a lot of people felt like the messaging that they. How they framed it was really off. So by saying, we haven't raised our prices since 2013, is kind of like, well, that's your problem, not our problem. Right? So it suggests that they have stability, but then they're raising the cost so dramatically and so many years later it's kind of jarring and unexpected.

And basically the gap between their messaging and the reality of what their company is doing. Like they're obviously making a ton of money, kind of stings a little bit. And also I just, I saw, I mean, I combed through hundreds of comments on threads about this. 'cause I was just kind of fascinated at people's take and a lot of people just felt like it was so rude to send an email to, especially like new, new people on there.

New subscribers, right? New users. To say, Hey, we've never raised our prices, so now you're gonna pay the price. It's like, but I just started using you and why should I be punished for your poor business decisions? So I agreed with that. Also, a lot of people felt that they weren't really given enough time to budget for the change or to assess other options, right?

So existing users are gonna see the new pricing on their billing right in the middle of October, but new users pay immediately under the new rates. And the last thing is that even for larger creators with larger subscriber lists, you know, and anyone who's making heavy use of these advanced features, like if you're invested in Kit and you've got all your funnels there and, and you're using their landing pages.

The price increase could be pennies turned into dollars very quickly, which matters a lot more for small business margins, right? When you're like a massive corporation with like different types of funding and stuff, none of this stuff matters. But for small creators or independent creators, solopreneurs.

This could affect your income. So here's my take and what I think clients should do specifically around Kit and, and I'm gonna compare, I did create a comparison chart that you can download and I'm gonna talk a little bit about this versus also, um. You know, a standalone email service provider versus having an all in one platform.

'cause I think that's the other question that didn't get as much airtime around this. So the, the big question is like, should I even be using a standalone ESP if I also need, you know, more robust funnels and I wanna have a website, et cetera. So let's just focus first on what I think you should do if you are using kit.

And or if you're new to email marketing and you're considering Kip, uh, first of all, if you are on their newsletter plan, which is their free plan, stay there. Right? You, you don't need to change, you don't need to do anything until you need to do something, right? You will know when you have outgrown that plan because you need more access to more features.

So stay on the free plan. And keep using it. Build there. Test things there and grow there. Grow your audience. Use it for free. Only move up to a paid plan. When you truly need the extra features or when you feel the cost benefit makes sense to you. For example, you hit their subscriber limit and you really feel, honestly like all those thousand people on your list are actively invested and you really want to keep them and you know you're gonna start paying for them.

The second thing is, while you're using the free plan, I want you to audit the features that you actually use. So before you start paying more, make a list, ask yourself which of the newly added features. Will I actually use and get value from? And guys, this is always gonna be my advice on any of this stuff.

Collect data before making a decision. Because if you need some advanced feature in order for you to really, truly connect with your audience and make the sale, and you're selling, you know, your high ticket coaching program, using that feature. Then you can justify the cost and the price increase is just folded into your, your increased sales.

So it'll make sense to you. Um, but if some are nice features but they're not actually essential, then maybe you can do without them for now. Right? Or you could find other platforms that offer similar features, um, also for free, because there are a lot of competitors out there. And if you're really trying to budget or save your money when you're just getting started.

There's almost always a solution that's a workaround. So the other thing I think is shop around now while you still have time, right? So maybe carve out a couple of days this coming week or within the next month, and use this as a queue to evaluate your competitors, their competitors. So email service providers and all in one platforms.

There's tons of them. And again, I have a comparison chart that I just made that I will give you so you can. Just snag this from me now and, and look it over. But, um, compare what they cost versus what they offer versus how well they integrate into your workflow. Really consider the migration cost too.

Design deliverability, all of these things really matter. So for me, I'm on, I use Kit and I've used them for years and migrating doesn't make any sense because I also have an all-in-one platform with Kajabi. Now, if anything I might, I might migrate off of Kajabi 'cause they're really expensive and there's some really good competition for them now.

But I don't need, like for me, I've, I've had Kit forever and I kept it, I actually downgraded to their newsletter plan. And the reason I did that is because I, I actually like their functionality. They have been best in class for a minute, um, for a reason. Right. They really considered some of the. Actual technical functionality.

And so their designs are not that cute in my opinion. They have, but they have superior functionality. And that's when you're doing email marketing on a regular daily basis, you want ease of use. So, um, but shop around. Right? And then the fourth thing is to really think about the total cost, not just the price tag.

So rising costs are gonna continue to be a real thing. Tools also need to pay their bills. Platforms add features all the time and they change their pricing. This is a regular part of doing business online, but sometimes the real cost isn't just the subscription, it's lost time or difficulty switching or like what it would cost me to migrate off of Kit.

Well, actually it would be pretty easy 'cause I would just download a CSV file. Um, piecing things together. If your tools don't all work together, like really make a list of the things that, the hidden costs of your time, because time is money. And if you're gonna spend weeks and weeks trying to navigate or learn the tool or learn a new tool, you just have to ask yourself, is it really worth it for me to do this just over, you know, a $10 price increase.

Now for those who are like, yeah, it is, I don't wanna pay the extra $10. Then go back to 0.3 and really shop around and please use my comparison chart that I made for you. The other thing, and I wanna just, this is kind of the fifth point, um, under, you know, what my advice for you is to do is to plan for growth, right?

If you are going to be using email marketing, which you should, and you plan to grow your subscriber list, which you should, uh, you are going to have increased. Price tag on that. So just know what your list size is likely to be in the next six to 12 months and what your email automation and sales needs might look like.

And if you expect to need more, right, like more automations, um, a better commerce tool, more support. Then you might wanna plan to invest in that in a, in a stable provider or a platform that you really trust rather than just constantly changing and chasing cheaper, but less stable tools. And that's another, I would say, argument for staying with Kit, because one thing that they do really well is customer service.

And it's one of the reasons why I've been recommending it to my clients because. I would say the bulk of my clients are either new to email marketing or they're not new to business. They've been doing business for a long time. They know what they do, they know who they serve, but they don't actually do the automation tool, use the automation tools as much.

And so, you know, getting comfortable with these platforms and learning to use them may include a learning curve, and I highly recommend a good customer service. Uh, platform because you want to get a response. You want the, the people that you're chatting with to actually be helpful. And I, I, no joke, I literally have an account on, I think every, I mean, every single.

Email service provider and all-in-one platform that's out there. I have clients that use ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, the Squarespace, and Wix. You know, clients I have personally used Kajabi and Kit. Um, I've used, I have a Flow desks account, I have a mailer light account. I have the only, the only company that I haven't used is beehive.

So, um, and I actually added them to my comparison chart. So what I'm gonna do is just briefly. Walk you through this comparison chart and then I'm gonna give you the link to download it so you can consume the content on your own time. Okay, so this comparison chart, uh, on the left hand side I chose kit flow desks and beehive.

And the reason I chose flow desks and beehive is number one, flow desk has. I think is the great competition for kipp. Um, and Beehive is a kind of the new kid on the block and they were hilarious during this whole kit gate, you know, blow up on the internet last week where like Flo desk and beehive were just like so cheeky.

Like anytime somebody would. Post and then, you know, app mention kit in their post flow desks and beehive. Were in the comments so hard and I, I thought that was just funny personally. But, um, they offer some really competitive pricing and features. So, on this comparison chart, once again, I'm just going to let you download the chart and pour through the content and the, and the, and the information on your own.

But basically. On the left hand side, it just says the provider's name. Then I have the information about their free plan or their trial feature. So like Kit allows you to have a free plan up to 10,000 subscribers, but there's really limited features. Flow desks has a free trial period, and then after 30 days you're paying no matter what.

But you can grow things like forms and audiences even before you get paid. So you can, if you're ready to go, you can start working for a month for free and build your whole thing, and then you start paying. Um, and that, you know, that, that's just the way they do it. And then Beehive is a free tier for small subscribers, smaller accounts, um, and then pretty affordable tiers for growing.

And like, you know, the way that they price out their, their growth. Tiers. The next column is just their starting paid plan cost, and uh, then I have a column for what's included in their basic or core paid plans. And then I have a column for what I think their strengths are, um, in com, comparison of what they really, you know, where they really shine.

And then the final thing, the final column on this chart is things to watch out for and limitations. So I've kind of just compiled this into a, a basic chart. I'll just quickly breeze through the, the, the, the strengths column, because I think that's the real point here is like when you're using email marketing, it should reflect your brand and what you and the tool and the actual features that you are, you need, right?

And so in my opinion, kit is very good for newsletter type, uh, weekly newsletter type. Creativity. Whereas I think flow desk, the strength is really design. Right. So I don't love kits. Design features, like their, their landing pages are meh, they're like kind of not that great. They, they feel limited to me.

Um, they just have, you know, some very basic landing pages. You can add images and video, and they have added a ton of, like, you can now sync up, you know, Spotify accounts and other, they have other platforms that they now cross connect with, which is good. But generally speaking, I just feel like their strength is.

You know, it's for newsletter writers who want flexibility, who, uh, have, want room to grow from the free plan. Really, it emphasizes like writing and small monetization tools. I think flow desks strengths are really for businesses and creatives that care a ton about design and branding as their main thing.

So beautiful emails, templates, right? They have just absolutely gorgeous design. And there's no surprise costs as your list size grows. Like they just have one sh one stop shopping on their pricing. So it's, it's a little bit more simple and it's also more elegant, I think. And so I think design is their big feature.

And then beehive, I think they're coming in more as a competitor for kit, right? They're more focused on newsletters as well. They're, they've added monetization tools so you can actually sell from their platform. And they're really, they feature, from what I can tell, they feature really helping people grow their audience.

So a lot of their, their content around their marketing for their business is to help you grow your audience, which I think is great. I mean, kit does the same thing, which is why I think Beehive is trying to creep in on, on Kit's territory here. And they've also got tools for sponsorship and paid content built into the platform, which is pretty cool.

So once again, I've got this comparison chart here for you. I actually also have a replay video of what I call email marketing one oh one, and that, um, includes a comparison chart with a few other platforms. It includes mailer light. And active campaign. So if you want like a more robust and more in depth comparison chart, I do have one and it's in, uh, a replay video of an old cor of a class that I've taught many times.

Happy to share that with you. So either just drop me a message or just yeah, DM me on Instagram and say, Hey, I heard about your email marketing 1 0 1, uh, training, and I'll just shoot you the replay video. It's lives on my email service provider. It's really easy to just send you that link. Okay, so now let's have a quick chat about a standalone email service provider versus an all-in-one service platform.

The pros and the cons. Okay. And I just wanna talk about where I see the trade-offs, so you can decide what fits your situation. And again, this is just all designed to help you navigate. This tech stuff with greater ease because I know, I know when I first got started, I had so many questions like, which email service provider should I use?

And I honestly, I followed what just people told me to do. And then it took me a while to figure out what actually worked for me. So I'm trying to help you with that. So first of all, what is a standalone ESP? Um, a standalone email service provider is focused only on emailing it's list management. It helps you with newsletter.

Uh, sending it has basic automations that you can set up so that when someone gets on your list, they automatically get a welcome and then you can send them a sequence of emails to like, you know, nurture them or get them into your world. And it'll include analytics. So examples of an ESPA standalone ESP are kit flow desks, beehive, Miller Light, MailChimp.

Those are all standalone ESPs. What is an all-in-one platform? These are platforms which combine multiple functions, so they might have membership sites, sales funnels, like more robust sales funnels, course delivery, website builders, payment features like checkout pages, affiliate programs where you can.

Send out links and start to build an affiliate program in some examples of all in one are Kajabi, Kartra system io, um, and maybe parts of ClickFunnels. Now you might be asking yourself, but what about. My Squarespace website and my Wix website, so Squarespace and Wix, they started as website builders and in their effort to stay relevant and can, you know, be in competition with these all in ones like Kajabi and System IO and Kartra, they started adding features on.

So they added on the email client. They added on the course client. They've been adding on features for the last like 10 years. And to be honest with you, because they were not designed with this functionality in mind, they tend to be very clunky. And because both Squarespace and Wix were designed to be simple drag and drop platforms that like basically their whole selling point is.

Anybody can do it. It's like build your own website in just minutes. Um, and GoDaddy, actually I should add GoDaddy Arrow to this list. They just, they just created a new, um, drag and drop AI driven website builder. And a couple of my clients use Arrow to build their websites. So what I would say about those is they're very, very simple and they're very limited in, in their features and functionality.

And for some people that's perfectly fine. You don't need a clunky, robust, all in one, you know, crazy. Every single feature in the world platform. At first, you don't. You need a very, very simple page that explains who you are, what you do, and how we can pay you. So do not overcomplicate this. There's gonna be really good marketing from these platforms trying to sell you.

They're, you know, all in one. And it does seem like it's simpler, but when you are first getting started in online marketing to trust me, it is not simpler. It's actually really overwhelming. It's very time consuming. I would like to get back the year of my life that I spent learning Kajabi. Now I'm like a Kajabi design expert, but I don't.

I didn't wanna become that. I want be a business coach. So it's kind of annoying that I had to do so much tech to get where I'm at. It just, it, luckily I, in, you know, I had a background in, in sort of the nerdy tech side of things, so it went fine. But let me just say like, for a lot of people this would be really overwhelming.

So my, my thoughts on whether you need a standalone or an all-in-one. To go back to what I said about Kit earlier is if you are just getting started. You do not need a website yet. You're going to need a website eventually because it really, and it should be working for you. But more importantly, you need a way to contact your audience and tell them stories about your product and sell it.

So let's get you making some money and set up your foundational core engine to do that, which is gonna be your email marketing service provider when you need that website, when you need those sales pages, when you need all those other functions. Of course. Client and all that stuff, that's when you're gonna migrate.

And, and the better thing to do is just to go from email to an all-in-one when you're really ready than to start out on an all-in-one and, and sort of reverse engineer learning how it all works together. Um, and really just really quickly, I did put together some pros of choosing a standalone ESP and some cons, and then also some pros of all in one versus some, some, some cons.

So here, let's breeze through that. So these are gonna be the pros and cons of a standalone ESP Pro is. The special specialization and the depth of email features. So they often invest heavily in deliverability, right? So you wanna make sure when you send an email that it actually gets to people that, that, and so companies like Kit and Flow desks, they invest heavily in being able to being compatible with like Gmail and Hotmail and these, these free mail accounts that most people have.

Um, they make it really easy to manage subscribers, which is the whole point of having an ESP. They allow for segmentation, which means you can group people based on, you know, events or seasons or different as parts of your business. So for example, I have a segment for people who are actual clients of mine, and I have a segment for people who are just regular, like, I call it general population gen pop.

Just people reading my newsletter who have never hired me or bought anything from me. Once somebody has paid me, they move into a different tier because I wanna make sure that they, first of all, that they don't get all the same sales emails. And second of all that they get treated with higher priority because they're paying, right?

They should be treated like, uh. VIPs, when someone's paying you, you wanna retain them as a client by treating them like gold. So segmentation is really great. And then newsletter features are usually pretty robust and subscriber growth tools. So if email is central to your business, if you want it to be a specialized ESP will give you more control and better performance.

They're usually pretty flexible. Um, and I would say it's more cost efficient if you're. Just starting out, right? You don't need a $200 all in one, $200 a month, all in one platform. When you're just starting out. Let's keep you at the free tier or $29 a month, or $30 a month, whatever it is. And then when your email list starts to really grow and you start to nail some of your, you know, growth strategies, then you might get to the point where you start to consider other things.

I would also say an ESPA pro is that it's, it's got, you know, it's pretty simple to learn. Most of my clients figure out how to send their newsletters after like two or three weeks, and you can get into this right away. So there's not a huge learning curve. And then they pretty much have like the future proofing down, right?

So there's better upgrades. As email marketing evolves and there's new laws and deliverability improves, they tend to update those features really fast because that's their core business. So if email is your core business, like it is mine, then this is gonna be good for you. I would say the cons of a standalone ESP are that, you know, you kind of need to sew things together, so to get your funnels and your landing pages and your payment processing all working together, you might need to stitch things together a little bit and, you know, connect things using a piece of code or something if you have, you know, a website already or whatever.

If you're using WordPress for example, you might find that a little complex at first. Typically, you can just either have someone help you do it once. And then it's set, but. You know that that's, that is a piece that is a con. Another con at first is that there tends to be more moving parts, so there's more tools to integrate and manage and more things that could break or misalign, like data syncing and design consistency.

And stuff like that. Um, but again, something that you can learn to monitor pretty quickly. And I would just say the learning curve for choosing and managing multiple tools could be a con. So there might be more decisions to make, like which tool, which integration to keep everything working. And again, that goes to if you have a website already and you're using other platforms already, which happens frequently.

Like a lot of times people are like, I built a website over here, but I wanna use. You know, I have clients that built a website in Squarespace. Don't like the email function there. Want to use a standalone ESP, and then you have to connect those two things. So that would be an example of like a learning curve for connecting and managing multiple tools.

So let's do pros and cons of all in one platforms. Huge pro. The number one pro is that it's convenient, right? You log in one place, everything is there. Website, funnel courses, payments, email. And there's less switching around for between tools, there's fewer integrations, and you have a unified dashboard, which is really nice, simplified setup and workflow.

So if you want to do a course and an email sequence, if you wanna have a, you know, a sales page funnel and a checkout and a membership, it's often more like plug and play inside an all-in-one. So. It just will seem easier to just set them all up to flow together. And I would say they're just better for certain business models.

So businesses that sell courses, like I have lots of courses, memberships, events, and often, you know, you would benefit from having a website, a checkout membership and all that, all in one place. So when you get to that point where you've designed a course, you have a membership, then you're gonna want an all in one tool.

And again, I would go back to what I said at the beginning and just stay where you are and don't, don't react to this price increase. Just stay where you are and, and, and collect some data for the moment because you don't wanna make rash decisions like people sometimes jump ship so quickly, but it's a more, it winds up costing them more with the migration.

Okay. Back to pros. Um, support and maintenance is actually a pro of these all-in-ones. So there's fewer vendors, right? And so they have one place to call if something breaks. Usually. I, I mean my all-in-one, my, um, Kajabi and system io have great. Uh. Customer service. So I find that these all-in-one platforms, they're really, they understand that they need to have good customer service because it's a lot.

So they're gonna pretty much help you with support and maintenance. The cons, okay. Honestly, their email features tend to be weaker. That's my number one con. The email tools in these all-in-one platforms are less sophisticated. It's not their core deliverable. So automations, deliverability, segmentation are kind of lagging behind the standalone ESPs.

That is why if sometimes people ask me, why do you use Kit when you have Kajabi? And the answer is really simple. Kit offers a superior email service client. They just do. Kajabi's. Email is clunky. I don't love it. Done, period. I don't, that's it. That's the reason. Another con is a lock in risk. So moving off of these platforms becomes very difficult.

Right. So when I, earlier when I mentioned that maybe I would migrate off of Kajabi. Eventually the reality is, is that is, it's a big job. It's not gonna be something that I do in a day or two. That's gonna be a season for me, that's gonna be decision making, planning, you know, plotting the move, getting probably hiring help.

So if your email lists, your funnels, your courses are all in one platform. Switching becomes a much bigger project and then also riskier because you wanna make sure it's done right. Um, obviously cost is another con. The cost is significantly higher to have an all in one platform. So I think I'm on whatever tier I'm on on Kajabi, it's $200 a month and obviously that's way more than $30 a month.

But again, I'm using all of their features. Um, so you wind up paying for features that you don't actually use. Like I just said, I use a different email client because I like it better. Or you might be paying premium for like convenience versus actually using the best of tools. And then the last con I would say is that there's less flexibility or customization.

So there's some really good companies out there that make templates for these all-in-ones. So. You know, once you get to the point where you're building websites and landing pages and sales pages, you might wanna save yourself a lot of heartbreak and time by buying people's prefabricated templates that you can then just like plug into these all-in-one platforms.

It just saves so much time with design because the custom designs are not great inside. These all-in-ones. They're just, they're just not. So here's what I typically recommend, um, sort of my final takeaway. If your business is like mine and it's mission driven and it's values driven, and you really are here to serve clients, your, your, the most important thing is a connection to your clients.

You wanna have clear, you know, be clear on your values, be clear on your overall strategy to connect with people, tell them stories, bring them into your world and serve them. And so, honestly, what makes sense in those. Cases is to start with a really good standalone ESP. Develop your email practice, develop a really great newsletter, tell great stories.

Invite people to be a part of your world and, you know, get them excited about hearing from you week after week. Tell them share good tidbits of your knowledge, like, educate, nurture, and connect. Right? Pick something that lets you grow without huge cost jumps. And has strong deliverability. So do the research on deliverability and again, grab my comparison chart.

Make sure you have good automations. Um, oh my God, the neighbor is mowing the lawn. I don't know if you can hear that. Sorry. I'm almost done here. So, um, as you scale. Only move to an all-in-one if you find that the overhead of managing multiple tools really outweighs the benefit of specialization. So let me say that again.

As you're scaling and you're growing, you're getting more subscribers, I only want you to move to an all-in-one. When you find that, you know, it's more of your time managing multiple tools and you'd really would rather just have everything in one place and you're, you're the cost, you know, the $200 a month cost actually really makes sense to you.

And then, or you could consider a hybrid like an ESP with a minimal tool for a course or checkout, like Kartra has that. So, and I think like Thinkific, and there's a couple of course platforms that all they do is courses. So you could combine like just a really good standalone email service provider with a really good course tool.

Um, that would be an example of like a, a smaller hybrid rather than going to that all in one from day one. So. As always start simple. Start with what's manageable and affordable and and change as you grow and you become really clear that you need to change, and if all of this talk about email marketing platforms has your head spinning and you're realizing that your systems are kind of a mess, please do not stress.

Okay. That's exactly what I work on with my clients. That's exactly what we do. Inside Foundations. My foundations group coaching program literally is designed to help people. Lock down two critical systems for your business, your lead generation system, and your sales system. And so if you are in business for the long haul and the big picture, you're, you need those two systems to be in place and, uh, and honestly automated for you to be able to ever scale.

So when you're first building, it's really just about learning what is my operation, what is my offer, and being really clear on how you wanna serve and who you want to serve. That's step one. That's step one of what we do inside foundations. Step two is we build automations around that. So clarity on your offer, and then systems that become scalable.

And this is a really high touch coaching group, uh, where we really just simplify the tech. We clarify your message and we build marketing funnels that actually work for you. That's gonna lead to an increase in your sales and also you feeling comfortable with your operation, right? That's such a big part of entrepreneurship is like doing, having the parts of your business feel manageable when you feel like every single day you're showing up at your desk and you're like, ah.

It just is so overwhelming. You know, most of my clients hire me because they feel so overwhelmed that they're at the wall, and I, I, my goal with foundations is to help you build a system that reflects the lifestyle that you desire, and that where you choose programs and platforms and, and clarity on your offer that really is what you want to be doing and how you want to be doing it, as opposed to following trends or doing what other people are doing that's already successful or trying to fit, you know, a square peg into a round hole all the time.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed by this stuff and you're ready to stop guessing about it all and you really wanna grow and scale, please come join us inside foundations. Uh, I'm really excited about the new plat, the new community space that's going on there. We moved into school and. It's just I'm, it's giving me way higher access to my clients so people can drop their homework and get a response right away.

And I'm excited to grow that program. So I would love to connect and talk with anybody that wants to learn more about it, and let's build a business that actually matches the magic that you bring to the world. Like that's the whole point. You have a, you have a beautiful dream and a way to serve people, and your, your, your online marketing system should not drown you, right, and make you feel like you can't breathe.

Instead, you should be like, I got this. I know what my daily checkpoints are. I know what my weekly and monthly checkpoints are. I have, you know, clarity on my annual goals. I have clarity on, you know, the numbers in my business. Like it's really all about data. How many people are coming in each month? How many people, how many of those convert to client, clients and sales?

And how many of those do I need per month to meet my personal financial goals? Like that's really what this is about. So that is the goal of foundations, is to help you build that in a way that is connected to your sole purpose so you don't lose sight of the big picture. All right, my friends, I hope you found this helpful.

I know the tech stuff is really overwhelming for many of us, so I'm trying to make it more simple. I will put the link to that Google Doc. It's gonna just be a comparison chart in a Google Doc. I will drop that link in the show notes. And as I said earlier, if you want to watch the email marketing 1 0 1 training, just DM me on Instagram, or you can message me right through the buzzsprout platform.

Or you can email me at hello@debracsmith.com. D-E-B-O-R-A-H dot oh no sorry, D-E-B-O-R-A-H-C, the letter C-S-M-I-T h.com. And if you are curious about foundations, uh, please reach out to me. I would love to invite you to check out and learn more about it and see if it's a fit. And with that, my friends, I am excited.

I've got a big week this week. I'm, I'm interviewing Mickey Agrawal this week, who is the founder, four time founder of multiple wildly successful businesses that are absolutely disruptive. She. Created thanks. The period underwear for Women. She created Tushy, the Bidet Attachment. Um, both of these are environmental disruptors and she recently just launched a new business called Hero, and it is diapers that are made from the Mycelium network, um, using mycelium fabric.

I cannot wait to pick her brain about how she's doing this. We're gonna talk about conscious creators and how to create a conscious business that does not contribute to the death of our planet. And I, I cannot wait to have this conversation. It's literally gonna be a dream come true to chat with her. So please tune in in a couple weeks for that one.

And as always, I'm thinking about you when I create these episodes. So if there's something you want to hear about, I welcome your, your ideas. If there's a, as a person that you think I should reach out to, to talk about business and or if there's a technical issue that you're struggling with, just let me know.

I'll, I'll see if I can help. And yay, I'm so glad you're here with me on this journey. As always, until we meet again, may you be vibrant.