10 Best Email Newsletter Templates (and How to Start Your Own Newsletter)

If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve probably heard the saying that “the money is in the list”. In other words, your email list is an important part of your marketing and business strategy. 

In reality, most visitors and followers won’t buy from you the first time they come across your brand. But, if you have a newsletter in place, they can sign up for it. This allows you to stay top of mind and keep in touch with them. Once you’ve established trust with regular email newsletters, they’ll be more likely to invest in your products or services. 

Another benefit of an email newsletter is that you can also create a paid newsletter. This allows you to create an additional revenue stream for your business. But before you do that, you’ll need an email newsletter template. 

In this guide, we’ll share the best email newsletter templates that you can use as a starting point for your newsletter as well as tips and tools to help you start your own newsletter. 

Find the Best Email Newsletter Templates (With Unlimited Use)

If you’re looking for the best email newsletter templates, Envato Elements should be your first stop. Envato Elements is a subscription-based marketplace with a compelling offer. 

For a low monthly fee, you get access to thousands of email newsletter templates and other assets. Best of all, all of the templates can be used in an unlimited number of projects. 

Aside from newsletter templates, Envato Elements also offers presentation templates, web templates, stock photos, fonts, and more. 

Envato Elements is the best value for business owners and creatives today. And thanks to the unlimited downloads, you can experiment with different designs in all your projects. 

Free creative assets and templates found online are tempting. But they have fewer features and options than premium templates found on Envato Elements. 

Templates from Envato Elements come with features such as: 

• Professional design that stands out
• Image placeholders and easy customization options
• Content ideas baked into the template itself

In short, templates from Envato Elements have everything you need to create professional email newsletters and other documents.

Another place where you can find professional email templates is ThemeForest. ThemeForest is a great choice if you prefer to buy email templates individually. 

Top Email Newsletter Templates

Now that you know where to find the best email newsletter templates, let’s take a look at a few examples. Below, you’ll find the top email templates for all kinds of newsletters from Envato Elements.

1. Gravity – Responsive Creative Email + Builder

The Gravity email newsletter template features a creative and modern design. It can be used for any type of newsletter. Thanks to the intuitive builder, you can easily drag and drop elements you need to feature your content, products, and share news. You can also easily customize colors and fonts to make your newsletter look branded. The template is Litmus tested and can be used with a variety of email services. It’s also compatible with all major email clients and devices.

2. Sentinel – Responsive Email + StampReady Builder

The Sentinel email template is more than a template. You get access to an email newsletter builder that you can use to create a responsive email template that works with all major email services, clients, and devices. You can upload your own images, change colors, and add various modules. This makes it easy to share news from your blog or feature important products and services. 

3. Eshop Mail – Responsive E-mail Template

The Eshop Mail is a responsive email template designed with online stores in mind. This template has a minimal and modern design that makes it easy to showcase your products. You can easily add product images and customize colors to create a perfectly branded newsletter.

You can also include calls to action that encourage visitors to go check out your offers. This template is compatible with major email services and popular email clients. 

4. Responsive Email Templates for eCommerce WebSite

Here’s another set of responsive email templates designed with eCommerce websites in mind. The template has a modern design that comes in light and dark color schemes. You can easily change colors to suit your brand though.

On top of that, you can add text, images, calls to action, and any other type of content you need to promote your business and build trust. The templates are compatible with major email services and email clients. 

5. MZone Responsive Email Template For Business

MZone is a responsive email template that can be used for business or portfolio newsletters. Thanks to the intuitive builder you can add a variety of blocks to your templates such as text, images, buttons, and more. This means you can effectively share business updates as well as showcase past projects. In addition to that, the template is fully compatible with email services such as Mailchimp, CampaignMonitor, and others. 

6. Dido – Responsive Email Template

Dido is a clean and minimalist email template that can be used for any type of newsletter. It allows you to easily customize the styles to make your newsletters match your brand. You can also easily add text, images, buttons, and more to your newsletter. In other words, this template makes it easy to share regular news, updates, and promotions with your subscribers.

The template is fully responsive and compatible with major email services. On top of that, this email template was litmus tested so you can rest assured it will display properly in all major email clients.

7. Hostetemp – Multipurpose Email Templates & Builder

Try the Hostetemp email template if you want a variety of different styles to try out. This set of templates offers more than 4 different demos and 40+ different modules that you can use to build out your newsletter. Easily showcase your products, feature services, share testimonials or reviews, and more.

The template is fully responsive and comes with unlimited color variations. Plus, you can quickly upload your logo. In addition to that, the template is compatible with major email services and has been tested with Litmus to ensure compatibility with major email clients.

8. Sartre – Responsive Email Design Toolkit

The Sartre is another versatile and responsive email template. In fact, it’s more than a template — it’s a full-featured email design toolkit that allows you to create a fully branded newsletter template.

You’ll find dozens of modules to help you add images, text, buttons, logo, and even a navigation menu to your newsletter. This makes it easy to link to important pages on your website. On top of that, you can customize colors for that perfectly branded look. The template is fully compatible with major email service providers and email clients. 

9. Rockefeller Creative Email Template

The Rockfeller is a creative email template that allows you to create an engaging layout for your newsletter. It’s easy to customize and you can choose between a number of different modules to add content to your newsletter. Thanks to its versatile design, you can use it for a variety of newsletters in different industries.

The template is compatible with all major email service providers. It has also been tested with Litmus to ensure compatibility with major email clients and devices. 

10. Avalan – Responsive Email + StampReady Builder

The Avalan email template has a clean and minimal look. Thanks to this, it can be used in any industry for any type of newsletter. The template comes with a variety of modules and an intuitive builder that makes it easy to create your email newsletter. You can customize the template to your liking.

On top of that, it’s compatible with all major email services such as Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, FreshMail, and others. 

How to Start Your Own Newsletter

Finding the perfect template is only the first step in starting your own newsletter. Here are five tips that will help you launch a newsletter that helps you grow your business. 

1. Decide On Your Topic

Before you get started on your newsletter, it’s a good idea to decide on the general topic. This will largely depend on the purpose of your newsletter and your business. Most businesses have a newsletter to show the behind the scenes of their brand as well as to share promotional campaigns. 

If you’re starting a personal newsletter for your blog, you might consider sending the latest articles or tips that would be useful to your readers. 

Whatever the case may be knowing what you’ll email your subscribers about will help you plan out your campaigns in advance. 

2. Create Newsletter Editorial Calendar

Once you know your general topic, decide how often you’ll send the newsletter and on which days. In essence, you’re creating an editorial calendar for your newsletter. You can even jot down the first few topics of your newsletter to serve as a reminder of what you’re going to cover. 

You don’t have to use a fancy tool for this — even a simple spreadsheet can be a quick and easy way to create an editorial calendar for your newsletter.

3. Come Up With An Incentive

Nowadays, our inboxes are flooded with emails. The days of signing up for just a newsletter are behind us. That’s why you need to create an incentive that will encourage people to sign up for your newsletter. 

This can be something simple like a cheat sheet or a checklist. Or it can be something more complex such as a free masterclass, audio training or a mini course. Keep in mind that if you have a business, your incentive should be related to your paid offers. 

4. Sign Up With An Email Service Provider

Once you have your topic, editorial calendar, and your incentive, you need to sign up with an email service provider. This is necessary as you shouldn’t send a newsletter using a regular email service such as Outlook and Gmail for a variety of reasons.

One of the main reasons is that using a service like Gmail makes it impossible to stay compliant with various rules and laws that concern email marketing. For example, each newsletter you send should have an easy way to unsubscribe with a single click. 

Email services like Mailchimp make it easy to do so automatically — without you having to lift a finger. Contrary to that, with a provider like Gmail, you’d have to do it manually which leaves a lot of room for error and could lead to legal troubles down the road.

5. Create Sign Up Forms And Landing Pages

The last step in starting your newsletter is creating sign up forms or landing pages where your audience can opt in to receive said newsletter. 

Most email service providers allow you to create forms that you can easily embed into your website. Some even offer plugins for WordPress and other platforms that make the process of adding a sign up form to your website even easier. 

If you don’t yet have a website, some email service providers allow you to create landing pages where you can collect email addresses. 

Best Email Services to Help You Start Your Newsletter

So far, we’ve covered different email newsletter templates and shared tips on starting your own newsletter. But in order to implement those tips, you’ll need an email service as mentioned above. 

There are plenty of email service providers out there but not all of them were created equal. Here are our top recommendations for email services that are both user-friendly and budget-friendly.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email services and also one of the oldest. It has a free plan for up to 2,000 subscribers that allows you to create email sign up forms and send simple newsletters. You can also create landing pages. 

Given that Mailchimp has been around since the early 2000s, it’s not surprising that it integrates with almost every other platform out there. 

As far as actual newsletters go, Mailchimp offers templates on their paid plans and you can also import custom templates. The price for paid plans depends on the number of subscribers you have and starts at $11/mo.

MailerLite

MailerLite is a relatively young email marketing platform but it offers quite a generous free plan. You can have up to 1,000 subscribers, create landing pages and sign up forms, and even send automated marketing campaigns. 

MailerLite also makes it easy to create or use custom templates. It integrates with most popular website platforms out there. This includes WordPress and Shopify. On top of that, you can use Zapier to connect it with any other platform you need. 

Another benefit of MailerLite is that you can easily create a paid newsletter thanks to their integration with Stripe. Aside from that, pricing for MailerLite starts at $9/mo billed annually.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit was built by a content creator for content creators. It features a simple interface and their emails are also very minimal. In fact, you can even opt to send text-based emails to improve your open and click-through rate. 

ConvertKit has a free plan but it doesn’t allow you to send automated campaigns. Automations are available on paid plans which start at $9/mo billed annually for up to 300 subscribers. 

While their free plan is limited, ConvertKit also has the option to create a paid newsletter thanks to the direct integration with Stripe. What sets them apart is the fact that you can get very nuanced in your automations and ensure you’re sending the right message at the right time. 

Substack

Substack is an interesting email service as it’s dedicated to helping you turn your email newsletter into an income stream. In other words, setting up a paid newsletter is a breeze with Substack.

When you sign up for Substack, your newsletter will be available through their app and your readers can easily pay an ongoing subscription to access your writing. You can also use their calculator to see how much money you could make with a paid newsletter. 

The best thing about Substack is that publishing your newsletter is completely free so this is a good option if you’re just getting started. It’s also worth mentioning that you can have a free and a paid newsletter through Substack.

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor touts itself as a straightforward email marketing service that connects you with your audience. It offers an intuitive builder to help you design your sign up forms and build out your newsletter. You can also import a custom newsletter template. 

Campaign Monitor doesn’t have a free plan but their plans start at $9/mo billed annually which is pretty affordable. All plans include email marketing automation as well as the ability to send regular broadcasts and newsletters. 

Sendgrid

Sendgrid is an email delivery service that you can use to start your newsletter if you’re on a tight budget. Their free plan allows you to send 100 emails per day. They also have an intuitive email template designer and you can create signup forms to build your list. 

The biggest benefit of Sendgrid is the high email deliverability rate thanks to their cloud infrastructure. So if you want to ensure that your newsletter reaches your subscribers no matter what, Sendgrid is worth considering. 

Mailblast

Mailblast markets itself as the email marketing service on a budget powered by Amazon SES. In other words, you can expect high deliverability rates. In terms of other features, you can create custom email templates as well as sign up forms. 

Mailblast allows you to send regular newsletters as well as automated campaigns. They do have a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers. Paid plans include automation features and start at $17/mo. 

Email Octopus

Email Octopus offers simple but powerful tools to make it easy for you to get started with your newsletter. You can use their drag and drop editor to build your email templates or simply import a premade one. You can also create signup forms and add them to your website. 

Email Octopus has a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers but keep in mind that your emails will include their branding. Paid plans start at $14/mo for 2,500 subscribers.

Start Your Own Newsletter to Grow Your Business

Starting your own newsletter is the best way to nurture the relationship with your subscribers and get them to know, like, and trust your brand. With the help of email newsletter templates from Envato Elements, you’ll be able to start your own newsletter in a matter of minutes. 

Visit Envato Elements to find your perfect email newsletter template and don’t forget to implement the rest of the tips shared in this article.