Commune + Buttondown
Buttondown sends it. Commune gets it found.
Connect your Buttondown newsletter and every issue gets a public page, a conversation, and a spot in front of people who read newsletters like yours. Anyone who subscribes on Commune lands straight in your Buttondown list.
Free. About two minutes. Your list stays in Buttondown.
How it works
Keep writing in Buttondown. Commune does the rest.
Step 1
Paste your API key
Copy your API key from Buttondown and paste it in. Commune checks it with Buttondown before connecting.
Step 2
Your archive goes live
Pick the public emails to bring over. Each one becomes a public page with a conversation under it. From then on, every public email you send shows up on Commune by itself.
Step 3
New readers flow back
When someone subscribes on Commune, they're added to your Buttondown list as a regular subscriber, with metadata that says they came from Commune.
Between Buttondown and Commune
What comes in, and what goes back.
From Buttondown
- The public emails you pick from your archive
- Every new public email you send, through one address Commune adds to your list
- Your regular and premium subscribers' email addresses, once a day, so readers already on Commune are subscribed to you there too
Back to Buttondown
- Readers who subscribe on Commune, as regular Buttondown subscribers
- Metadata on them, is_on_commune and acquired_via_commune
- Four engagement fields for readers who use Commune: a score, a trend, a status and their last action
- An unsubscribe, when a reader leaves your newsletter on Commune
Discovery
Get read by people who already read newsletters like yours.
Sending is solved. Getting found isn't. On Commune, your Buttondown issues sit next to other independent newsletters, and readers move between them through the feed and the conversations under each post.
Step 1
A reader comes to Commune for another newsletter.
Step 2
Your latest post is right there in the same feed.
Step 3
One click, and they're your subscriber.
Every newsletter here sends readers to the others, yours included. The more it grows, the more it sends.
Your API key
Exactly what Commune does with it.
Here is the whole list of what Commune uses your Buttondown key for.
Commune will
- Read your public emails to publish them on Commune
- Read your subscribers to bring your readers into your community
- Add people who subscribe on Commune, update their metadata, and unsubscribe those who leave
- Add one Commune address to your list, so new emails reach Commune by themselves
Commune will never
- Write, send, schedule or edit an email
- Change your newsletter's settings
- Delete your subscribers
Disconnect any time from your Commune dashboard, then regenerate the key in Buttondown if you like.
When you're ready
Or move your sending to Commune.
Questions
The short answers
- Does it cost anything?
- No. Connecting Buttondown to Commune is free. Sending from Commune instead is the Creator plan.
- Do I change anything in Buttondown?
- No. You write and send exactly as before. Commune adds one address of its own to your list, so new emails reach it, and unsubscribes it when you disconnect.
- Which emails come in?
- Only public ones. When you connect, you pick which to import, and after that every new public email comes in by itself. Premium and private emails never do.
- What happens when a reader unsubscribes on Commune?
- Commune marks them as unsubscribed in Buttondown too.
- What happens if I disconnect?
- Your posts and their conversations stay on Commune. Readers Commune added to Buttondown stay on your list there.
Connect Buttondown in about two minutes.
Free, and nothing changes in how you write or send. Every issue gets a conversation and a place in the network.