Think email is hard? Not with us.

We're building the best email for creators. We're not just a tool – we're a community.

We started Buttondown to make the best possible space for creators to grow their audiences. With the best support, deliverability, and simplest interface, you can grow your audience and turn it into a living.

Paid subscriptions

Your Stripe account

Monthly recurring revenue

$3,093.33

Total revenue (all-time)

—

Active paid subscribers

320

Make money with your email – with no extra fees.

Want to charge for your email? We integrate natively with Stripe, and we don't charge any fees for your paid subscribers– so you can keep the money you make.

Recent writing

A tour of Markdown

Welcome! This email is a quick walkthrough of everything you can do when writing in Buttondown — from standard Markdown to features unique to the platform.

Text formatting

Markdown makes it easy to add emphasis to your writing:

• Bold text draws attention to key points
• Italic text adds subtle emphasis
• Strikethrough is handy for corrections or humor

You can also combine them: bold and italic work together just fine.

Headings

You've already seen a few headings in this email. They range from large (#) to small (######), and they're great for giving your newsletter structure:

This is a third-level heading And a fourth-level heading
Most newsletters stick to two or three levels — that's usually plenty.

Blockquotes

Use blockquotes to highlight a passage or call out something important:

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
— George Bernard Shaw

You can nest them, too:

A reader wrote in to say:

This is the best newsletter I've ever subscribed to.

Lists

Unordered lists are great for features, tips, or anything without a natural order:

• Keep your paragraphs short
• Use images to break up long sections
• Always preview before you send

Ordered lists work well for step-by-step instructions:

1. Write your draft in Markdown
2. Preview it in the editor
3. Send a test email to yourself
4. Hit publish when you're happy with it

Links

Linking is one of the things Markdown does best: A tour of Markdown

You can also add a title that appears on hover: Markdown Guide is a great resource.

Images

Images make your newsletter more engaging. Here's how they work:

Code

For technical newsletters, inline code like git commit -m "first post" is invaluable.

Fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting work too:

def send_newsletter(subject, body):
    """Send a newsletter to all subscribers."""
    for subscriber in get_active_subscribers():
        deliver(subscriber.email, subject, body)

Tables

Tables are useful for comparisons or structured data:

Footnotes

Sometimes you want to add context without interrupting the flow. That's what footnotes are for1.

You can use them for citations2, asides, or any supplementary detail.

Buttondown-specific features

Everything above is standard Markdown. Below are features unique to Buttondown.

Template tags

You can personalize emails using template variables like or.

Conditionals work too:

Hey , thanks for being a subscriber!

Hey there, thanks for being a subscriber!

Premium content

If you have paid subscribers, you can gate content with premium blocks:

This paragraph is only visible to premium subscribers. Use it for bonus content, early access, or anything you want to reserve for paying readers.

This paragraph is only visible to free subscribers — a great place to include an upgrade nudge.

Buttons

Add a styled call-to-action button anywhere in your email:

Get started with Buttondown

Snippets

Snippets let you reuse content across emails. If you've saved a snippet, insert it like this:

Embeds

Paste a URL on its own line and Buttondown will automatically embed it for supported platforms — YouTube, Twitter/X, Spotify, Vimeo, and more.

Comments

Finally, you can leave internal notes that your subscribers will never see:

That's a wrap! You now have a reference for every major feature. Happy writing.

1. Footnotes appear at the bottom of your email, right where readers expect them.↩

2. Like referencing John Gruber's original Markdown spec from 2004.↩