I’m a Flodesk Partner, so some links here are affiliate links. If you use them, I may earn coffee money. You get beautiful emails and a 25% discount. Everyone wins.
The Moment My Email Marketing Finally Felt Right
If you’ve ever opened your email editor, spent an hour rearranging a single text block, and whispered “why do you hate me?” at your screen… trust me, you’re not alone. As a design business, I lived that nightmare for years. Then I found the one email platform that finally felt like it understood creatives.
ThriveHD is a design business and our brand is paramount. If you are a creative entrepreneur or a small business owner you understand how critical brand consistency is across all platforms. For a very long time email had to be the exception to this rule. Email marketing software had clunky templates and boxy designs.
There are hundreds of email marketing tools out there promising to revolutionize your business. In my opinion many of them fall flat. I spent long hours, and more tears than I’d like to admit in Mailchimp wrestling with designs and templates, desperately trying to get my emails to look anything like my brand guidelines.
Finally I found Flodesk and it was like the lights came on. You mean to tell me that I can send newsletters out that feel branded and speak to the high level clientele I serve? Dream come true. I was a Flodesk beta user way back in the day, and at that point it was much lighter on the functionality. I had plenty of “marketing bros” tell me I should switch, but something in me knew I had struck gold, and I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to badly designed emails even if they “worked” better.
Fast forward over five years later and I am so glad I stayed. Not only have they kept their commitment to good design and user friendly UX, Flodesk can easily add its name to the list of email marketing powerhouses. In this blog we will go over the Flodesk features and integrations that make it my absolute favorite email marketing tool.
Flodesk’s Evolution: How the Platform Has Grown Since Launch
From “beautiful emails” to full marketing suite
Flodesk started in 2019 as a fairly lightweight but beautiful and simple to use email marketing platform. It didn’t have too much in the way of analytics automation and segmentation. They’ve made so many improvements over the last almost seven years and even with all their growth and new features they haven’t lost the beauty and simplicity that made them stand out in the first place. With integrations, automations, workflows and checkout pages Flodesk has become a marketing powerhouse for creatives and small businesses. Here’s how Flodesk has transformed since those early days:
Major improvements over the years
- Faster loading email builder.
- More customization options while keeping the UI clean.
- Successful deliverability improvements.
- More segmentation and tagging options.
- Better performance analytics.
Flodesk’s Commitment to Listening to Creators
Flodesk listens to their customer base and they build what their users actually need. They prioritize user feedback from small businesses, creators and solopreneurs rather than ignoring the little guys and only paying attention to enterprise level users. The needs of small businesses are so different from the needs of enterprise level clients, so having a platform that builds what we need makes all the difference.
The Feature Lineup That Makes Me a Flodesk Superfan
Flodesk delivers advanced, sophisticated tools in an intuitive package. Most email marketing tools are hard to learn and, at least in my experience, incredibly frustrating. Flodesk combines deliverability and automation with beautiful design. Many people will tell you that in order for your emails to actually get delivered and opened they need to be plain text. Flodesk’s technology has (thankfully) made this a thing of the past. Flodesk has excellent deliverability even though their emails are design heavy, and who doesn’t want to open their emails and find something beautiful waiting for them?
Here are some of Flodesk’s amazing features:
Email Design / Branding
- Drag-and-drop visual email builder
- Stunning modern templates
- Custom fonts (upload your own)
- Brand color palette storage
- Pre-set brand styles
- Full-width image and layout options
- Minimalist, design-forward blocks
- Mobile-responsive designs
- No coding required
Forms & Landing Pages
- Pop-up forms
- Inline/embedded forms
- Full landing pages
- Hosted opt-in pages
- Customizable branding
- GDPR-friendly options
- Meta Pixel tracking
- Easy image + layout customization
Automations & Workflows
- Visual automation builder
- Lead magnet delivery
- Segmenting inside workflows
- Branching logic (if/then paths)
- Client onboarding sequences
- Workflow Templates
Segmentation & Audience Management
- Tags
- Segments
- Subscriber activity tracking
- Cleaner, simpler audience dashboard compared to Mailchimp
Analytics & Reporting
- Email performance (opens, clicks, engagement)
- Workflow analytics
- Deliverability insights
- Subscriber activity tracking
- Visual, easy-to-understand data (not overwhelming)
Checkout & Sales Tools
- Sales pages
- Checkout pages
- Payment processing (Stripe)
- Upsells and bonus offers
- Subscriptions/recurring billing
- Payment plans
- Abandoned cart automation
- Automated delivery confirmation emails
Flodesk + The Tools You Love. Meet Flodesk’s New Integrations
One of the clearest signs that Flodesk has evolved into a true marketing powerhouse is its growing list of integrations. Here’s the softwares that now integrate directly with Flodesk.
Shopify
If you sell products, this integration is huge. Shopify customers can be instantly added to Flodesk, tagged, and entered into automations without you lifting a finger.
Canva
A designer’s dream. Bring your Canva graphics directly into Flodesk, no downloads, no reuploads, no lost files. Just seamless branding from design to email.
BookFunnel
Perfect for delivering ebooks, guides, or digital downloads. BookFunnel handles delivery; Flodesk handles onboarding and nurturing.
Interact
Quizzes are incredible for list growth, and now your quiz leads can flow straight into Flodesk with segmentation based on their results.
Marvelous
For online educators and coaches, students can be added to the right segment or workflow the moment they enroll—no manual steps required.
Session
If you use Session for booking, new appointments can trigger automated reminders, prep sequences, or follow-up emails.
Involve.me
Connect interactive forms, quizzes, and calculators directly to Flodesk for smarter segmentation and personalization.
BDOW!
A fun, personality-driven lead capture tool that now syncs seamlessly with Flodesk. Great for bold, creative brands.
Mediavine
Bloggers and content creators can automatically bring new subscribers from Mediavine tools into Flodesk.
HoneyBook
For service providers who rely on HoneyBook, new inquiries and booked projects can be synced with Flodesk and added to the right segment or email sequence, making follow-up and client communication much easier to automate.
Why I Think Flodesk is the Best Email Marketing Tool for Small Businesses and Creative Entrepreneurs
Flodesk has the Best Design Experience On the Market–Bar None
When you open the email designer everything is user friendly and easy to figure out. If you are anything like me, you are busy with running your businesses, taking care of your kids, maybe even working another job/business. You do NOT have dozens of extra hours to spend on learning complicated software. The email editor is beautiful, it is easy to use and if you don’t want to design something from scratch they have many beautiful templates you can use.
No Coding Necessary:
You do not need to use any CSS or HTML to get the look you want from your emails. The built in editor allows you to make precise changes to colors, fonts, layouts and functionality so you get the exact look you want.
Brand Consistency is Queen:
If you’ve talked with me at any length about business you know that I am constantly preaching brand consistency. Your clients should be able to recognize you quickly across all platforms. When you look different with every email and through every platform, it’s difficult to build trust with your audience and trust means more than anything in business in 2025. You can upload your logos, colors and fonts directly to your account and every email will follow your brand guidelines with very little effort.
Not a Designer? Flodesk has you covered.
Obviously I run a design business so I love to be able to make granular adjustments to every part of the process. I usually start from a blank email and design each part, but if you’re short on time or not a designer, Flodesk has so many beautiful templates available. Pick one, add your content and hit send. No design experience necessary. (And you’ll save money because you won’t have to hire me to design your emails for you 😉 )
Final Thoughts on Flodesk (Spoiler: It’s a Yes)
Flodesk has proven that powerful marketing tools don’t have to be complicated or unattractive. Their evolution reflects a platform built for creators, designers, educators, and small businesses who value both aesthetics and performance. It’s why I continue to choose Flodesk, and why I recommend it to every brand-driven business I work with.
If you’re ready to level up your email marketing and finally use a platform that supports your brand instead of working against it, now is the perfect time to try Flodesk. Use my link below to get 25% off your first year: https://flodesk.com/c/THRIVEHD
