Full-platform alternative
to Buttondown
Buttondown stops at newsletters. Bitelio runs newsletters, transactional email, and workflow automation from a single platform — unlimited contacts included, with 1,000 free emails every month.
Billed on Sending, Never on Subscribers
A growing audience should never mean a growing invoice
Free to start, plans that scale
Sending volume sets the price and contacts stay unlimited. Ten thousand subscribers on your list adds exactly zero to the bill.
- ✓Free plan: 1,000 emails/month, unlimited contacts
- ✓Pro $19/mo: 15,000 emails included, then $1.20 per extra 1,000
- ✓Transactional, marketing, and automation included
Subscriber-count pricing
Starts at $9/month for up to 1,000 subscribers and steps up alongside your list.
- List size, not sending activity, drives the price
- Each growth spurt bumps you to a bigger plan
- No transactional sending — newsletters only
More Than a Newsletter Tool
Everything Buttondown leaves out
Transactional Emails
Receipts, password resets, alerts, and notifications go out through the very platform that publishes your newsletter. This entire category simply doesn't exist in Buttondown.
Workflow Automation
String triggers, wait steps, and conditions together into automated sequences — welcome series, drips, win-back flows. Buttondown ships nothing of the sort.
Dynamic Segmentation
Segments rebuild themselves as contact data and behavior shift, so the right message reaches the right readers — without you maintaining static lists by hand.
Unlimited Contacts
Hold as many contacts as you want — the meter runs on sending, not storage. Buttondown, by contrast, prices every plan on subscriber count.
EU-Hosted & GDPR-Compliant
All processing happens on EU infrastructure in line with GDPR, and the API lets you pull out contacts and data whenever you choose.
Developer API
A complete REST API with SDKs puts everything under programmatic control: fire emails from your backend, record custom events, manage contacts. The dashboard is entirely optional.
Feature comparison
Frequently asked questions
When should I choose Buttondown over Bitelio?
If you're a solo writer who wants nothing more than a minimal, beautifully simple newsletter tool, Buttondown is hard to beat — the writing experience is its whole reason for being. Reach for Bitelio when your needs extend past publishing: transactional email alongside your newsletters, workflow automation, dynamic segments, or full programmatic control through a modern API.
What is the pricing difference between Bitelio and Buttondown?
The two price on entirely different axes. Bitelio meters emails sent — 1,000/month free, Pro at $19/month with 15,000 included, then a flat $1.20 per extra 1,000 — with unlimited contacts on every plan. Buttondown meters subscribers: free up to 100, then from $9/month for up to 1,000, climbing alongside your list. A large audience that hears from you only occasionally is dramatically cheaper to keep on Bitelio.
Can Bitelio replace Buttondown for newsletter publishing?
It can. Marketing campaigns in Bitelio cover newsletter-style broadcasts to your full list or any segment, complete with scheduling, open and click tracking, and unsubscribe handling. One caveat: Bitelio is developer-first, so writers who want a no-code, prose-centric editor may still feel more at home in Buttondown.
What does Bitelio offer that Buttondown doesn't?
Four big things: transactional email (receipts, password resets, notifications), multi-step workflow automation triggered by events, dynamic audience segmentation, and a complete API for programmatic control — plus unlimited contacts on every plan. Buttondown stays squarely in newsletter territory and offers no transactional sending at all.
Try Bitelio free
Every month starts with 1,000 free emails and no card on file. Marketing and automation are right there the moment you want them.