What I picked, what I skipped, and why the setup matters
It was Easter.
In Bulgaria, that means knocking coloured eggs together to see whose wins. Ours were dyed in onion skins and decorated with liquid beeswax.
We had a wonderful time, eating my mom’s delicious kozunak (the sweet traditional Easter bread), chatting over Facetime with my little granddaughters.
And during this beautiful weekend, between the moments of celebration and driving my son to sports games, I chose to do also something else.
I rebuilt my entire communication stack – a.k.a. my email generation system.
Not what you’d expect someone to do during holidays, I know, but here is why I find it important.
If you have ever tried to combine creativity, passion, income generation, personal values, and website, you will know the tech side is often what trips people up. There are thousands of tools to choose from, literally. Everyone promises ease and convenience, but usually almost nothing works out of the box.
So this weekend, I blocked some time and did what I wish someone had helped me do years ago:
I mapped the real options I had — clearly, carefully, and with soul.
I am sharing this map with you today.
However, don’t expect this to be a tech review. It is more of a real-time journal entry from someone walking the same path. As I shared with my audience earlier, here is how building in public looks like. And the cover photo is in fact “building in public” – me with my laptop enjoying the spring sun on the balcony.
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small thank-you commission — at no extra cost to you — if you choose to use them. I only ever share tools I’ve tested myself or have extensively researched and would recommend anyway.
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” — Lao Tzu
Here is what I need from an email platform and what I do not
Let me start here and I hope this will help you filter some options for your own case.
As someone who writes, coaches, creates digital products, and now blogs with joy, I am connecting with my audience through using several channels. The main is Facebook, then LinkedIn. And several years ago I accidentally launched a newsletter on Linkedin, which with the second one, now have about 1200 subscribers.
But as you know, on social media you don’t own the data. So after lots of hesitation, I eventually started using email. The contact on my email list are people who have attended my free or paid workshops, received my meditations, checklists or have been clients in my coaching and mentorship programs. I try to regularly send emails with news, insights, or invitations to my courses. Before anything else, I have been building relationship with my audience members.
So, to serve my needs, my email platform must:
- feel simple and friendly
- allow me to truly connect with people, not just push campaigns
- handle automations without burning hours of my life
- work with opt-in forms, free offers, and lead magnets
- scale gracefully — not aggressively
- support honest affiliate work without shady tactics
- send something that looks good and sounds like me
And here is what I do not need:
- overbuilt CRMs (CRM = Customer Relationship Management) with 85 tabs I will never use
- loud dashboards full of blinking marketing KPIs (key performance indicators)
- platforms that treat people as “funnels” instead of humans
The tools I used before and now
| platform | how it came into my life | what I use it for now |
|---|---|---|
| Kit (formerly Convertkit) | I used it first for free pdfs, then I taught my coaching clients — therapists & coaches just starting out – to learn it as an easy way to start receiving payments. | I am still hosting free PDFs and the payment links for some of my coaching and therapy services. I love its simplicity. |
| Omnisend | I learned about it while watching Pinterest affiliate tutorials. I loved the popup forms! | Most of my blog forms and automations are built here. It is my favourite for creativity. |
| Brevo | I wanted a more robust email system with cleaner CRM. | I just started using it for sending newsletters. Still testing it, but its email templates look good. |
| ActiveCampaign | My legacy list, after Mailchimp. Reliable, detailed reports. But heavy and a little overwhelming. | Still sending from here occasionally. I have a paid plan until December – but I’m evaluating to keep it or not. |
| Sureforms | Quick contact form tool for my blog – comes free with Hostinger (where my blog is hosted). | For my contact page only (when someone wants to message from the website) — nothing more. |
| Tidycal | Clean booking tool I have used for years. | Will test Brevo’s booking feature next, but I am still loyal to Tidycal. |
What I love is that I did not have to choose just one solution. I let each tool do what it does best without pressure to be everything.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci
My experience and insights
Here are some of my key insights – I am sharing them so you don’t have to waste your time.
Kit is still one of the easiest tools for new creators. It can be used for sending newsletters, for landing pages for free or paid digital products. Its most clever use is as a payment processor for services. There is a nice cross-referring system to help grow one’s audience – a newsletter can be recommended to other creator’s audiences. This is available on the paid plans.
Omnisend won me with its beautiful, high-converting (so they say – I am yet to confirm that!) forms. What I find attractive is their gamified options with spinning wheels — I may use them soon to offer my multiple free resources in a fun way.
Brevo offers beautiful, mobile-friendly emails and a decent CRM. Their free plan limits you to 300 emails per day but allows for up to 5,000 contacts. It is truly generous, with up to 9,000 emails sent per month! The 300 emails a day limitation can be overcome by breaking the audience in segments. So when my email list grows, I will be sending my campaigns in several batches of 300 per day.
ActiveCampaign is robust but feels a bit corporate and over complex for me. For some users, it is perfect – I personally need more lightness and fun.
Sureforms is not an email software but works with contacts. It does the job when you need a well working contact page. Surprisingly, the other tools don’t have this feature – to let your readers send you a message. So if you choose to write to me from the Contact page, your message will be delivered by the pigeons of Sureforms.
You should know that no one platform will solve everything. You (or your team members) can test the tools and decide for yourself. What matters is your own style and taste, skills, time and resources you can invest in learning or applying.
Why I did not choose an “all-in-one” solution like Kajabi or GoHighLevel
I am often asked — why not use something like Kajabi, GHL, Clickfunnels, Kartra? (Yes, I am familiar with all of them – I’ve had subscribed for each one at different times.)
Here is my first reason – I love freedom and I like to explore. I am tech savvy and I have fun testing features, creating my own work arounds. And I enjoy stacking tools that fit my energy and workflow.
The all-in-one solutions work great for some people. But for me, I would rather walk around the block than live in a shopping mall.
If something breaks, I want to know where. And I wouldn’t put my all my eggs in one basket (the Easter theme again, huh?). My whole business can be at risk when a all-in-one platform experiences a major crash. You remember when Facebook – Whatsapp – Instagram shut down all at once (being part of the same platform), right?
“Clarity is kind.” — Brené Brown
The human side of all this
This blog — Thrive With Joy — is not about email platforms and not only about tools and systems. I am sharing with you snippets of my real life, my real choices while creating a space to live and work with more ease, trust, and alignment.
But now, in the beginning, I might write a little bit more about how I have been setting my blog and this new part of my business.
I am documenting my journey not as a polished expert with all the answers, but as a woman, mother and grandmother, who believes in freedom, connection, and building in public. You can read a little bit about me on the About page as well as my kind of manifesto here.
Whether you are here for my thoughts on lifestyle, relationships, simplicity, or business — thank you for reading.
You are not a data point neither a funnel step to me. You are part of our living conversation. Leave comments under the posts or send me direct messages (use the Contact button in the navigation bar at the top of the pages).
Have a look around, explore the resources I start sharing with love. My first gift to you is the free 15-step blog launch checklist that helped me bring this blog to life. It will pop up when you browse the pages of the blog.
A different type of resources you can find in the blog post about spring detox – products and rituals I use to keep my body and mine in harmony.
The checklist will appear when you read here in case you are curious how this blogging journey began.
Until soon, and looking forward to hearing from you!
Warmly and with joy,
Iskra
