What tools do you use to run a multi-brand newsletter company?

When I had 15 newsletters, every reply to any of them came to me, because every hello@ address was just an alias for TJ. That was the first thing to fix.

The bigger rule behind every tool choice: pick things that get cheaper per brand as you add brands. Simplicity is key. I'm one entrepreneur, so the simpler the setup, the easier it is to spin up the next site, directory or newsletter.

What does the software actually cost?

Not much, which is why this model can have high margins. These costs scale really well.

Tool	What I pay (2025 numbers)
Beehiiv enterprise	About $1,000 a month, then about $10 per added newsletter
ChatGPT	About $30 per employee a month
V0 for sub-sites and forms	Roughly $50 a month, variable

The enterprise tier also matters because Beehiiv's API needs it. That's how my own software sends issues straight into Beehiiv. Before we moved up, the plan was around $400 a month, with $10 or $20 more per newsletter.

I buy domains through Porkbun. Stop using GoDaddy.

Which tools don't make sense at scale?

Anything priced per brand that doesn't drop with volume. I demoed an events-calendar service at about $150 a month. With 15 newsletters, it wasn't going to be $150 for all of them, so I bailed. If I only had one newsletter and was really focused on it, I'd buy it.

For automations I'd skip Zapier. It's expensive, a bit limited and more personal than business-friendly. I'd use n8n or Make, keep each brand's automations on that brand's own accounts, and build as if it'll serve a lot of clients someday.

How should I handle reader replies?

One shared mailbox, set up as its own user.

"Make a fake person in G Suite so all the replies go there and anybody can log in and answer."

Early on I told people to make their own name the primary Workspace account and add an alias for each newsletter domain, so one inbox can receive and send from every brand. That's fine with one or two brands. At 15, it put every reply on me.

While you're in there, cut signup friction. Don't make people enter a first and last name. And don't make them confirm their subscription before you count them.

Where should the CRM live?

For us, as of October 2026, in Notion. Cold outreach stays in its own database, separate from warm relationships, separate from clients. People move up only when they engage.

One lesson from setting that up: a connected tool isn't the tool you use. An AI assumed we used ClickUp just because the connector was attached. By then we didn't.

Notion can do almost anything, but it's bulky, and you have to train yourself and your team to use it for everything. For one city and one helper, I wouldn't be shocked if a simple to-do app like Todoist worked. It didn't for us, because our biggest complication was tracking which newsletter each task was for. For solo sponsor deals, HoneyBook walks a buyer from proposal to contract to payment link and doubles as a mini CRM. I also used Close because it connects to your email and tracks every thread.

How do I track recurring work across brands?

Tasks with everything attached. Daily checks are a parent task with subtasks for Instagram comments, Facebook comments, the brand inbox and Friday poll comments. Build it in one brand, then template it. The full setup is in how to set up newsletter QA.

The newsletter itself works the same way. Build the first issue, save it as a template, and each week click use template and change the copy and images. All the branding is Canva. Even those custom page breaks are just an image: a line, your logo in the middle, another line.

Should every site run on its own setup?

No. I want one shared system and one workflow for every site I have now and every one in the future, with each brand getting its own section. Then launching a new niche directory is configuration, not a new build. Getting that infrastructure done first is what lets us grow without worrying about it.

That's also why I built my own tools. On Beehiiv's website you can't run ads and you don't control anything. My first step was a newsletter builder where you drag and drop the layout and paste it into Beehiiv. That became lightbreak.

How do I get reports without anyone writing them?

Talk through the review. My ad manager narrates his pass through every Meta account into a meeting-note tool, and the plan is an automation that formats any Meta ads note and emails it to me.

Where do ideas go?

A Notion gallery of business ideas, one card each, plus an AI agent that knows the template, so "save this as a business idea" works from anywhere. Details in how I decide which idea to pursue.

Should I send newsletters through AWS or Mailgun myself?

You can have AWS or Mailgun send your email. Once you get to a certain scale, if you aren't handling deliverability correctly, the whole thing can blow up and land in spam. That's a big reason many publishers stay on an established newsletter platform. Delivery is the hard part of building your own.