What Issue Mint is

Issue Mint runs curated link newsletters. You collect links through the week, group them under headings when it is time to write, put a line of your own under each one, and send. Issue Mint does the sending, publishes an archive website of everything you have sent, records which links readers clicked, and manages sponsorship if you sell any.

None of it has to be set up first. A newsletter has a live website and working sending from the moment it is created, so a first issue can go out the same day.

The shape of a curated link newsletter

A curated link newsletter is an issue built from links found elsewhere, grouped into named sections, each carrying a sentence or two of the author’s own. The definition of a curated newsletter covers the format itself; what matters about Issue Mint is which half of it the product is built around.

That half is the collecting, because collecting is the part that slips. Links land in one library through the week, from a button in your browser, from readers, or from pasting a URL and letting Issue Mint read the page for you. On send day the library is what you build the issue out of, in a composer made for link roundups rather than a general email builder with blocks in it.

What exists as soon as a newsletter is created

Creating a newsletter in the setup wizard produces a working publication rather than an empty shell. You get a website on a free {slug}.issuemint.com address, four sections to rename or replace, sending that is already configured with your own email address as the reply-to, and a subscribe form you can paste into a site you already run.

The sections start as News, Tools, Articles and Sponsored because most roundups want something like them, and a section with nothing in it never appears in an issue.

Who Issue Mint suits

Issue Mint suits a newsletter that is mostly other people’s work plus the author’s judgement. Trade digests, design and development weeklies, local listings, community and supporter updates, an agency keeping clients current on their sector: all the same shape, and all badly served by tools built for campaigns.

It suits a publisher who would rather spend an evening choosing links than laying out an email, and who wants a schedule they can keep. Weekly, every two weeks, monthly or no fixed schedule are all normal here.

Issue Mint does not do paid reader subscriptions

Every list on Issue Mint is free to read. There is no paywall, no members-only issue and no reader payments of any kind. The revenue side of the product is sponsorship instead: you define what you sell, publish the dates a sponsor can book, and invoice the sponsor yourself. Issue Mint takes no cut and runs no ad network.

If charging readers is the plan, Substack and beehiiv do that well, and this is the wrong tool. Saying so is cheaper for both of us than finding out in month two.

Issue Mint is not general email marketing

Issue Mint sends issues you have written, and nothing else. There are no automations, no sequences, no drip campaigns and no welcome series, and an issue goes to every active subscriber rather than to a chosen slice of the list.

The engagement segments on your list exist for looking at your readers and exporting them, not for deciding who receives an issue. If your plan depends on sending different mail to different segments on a schedule, a marketing platform is what you want.

Issue Mint is not a blogging platform

The website publishes issues. That means a home page, a full archive, a page for every issue you have sent, an RSS feed, and, if you switch them on, a page where sponsors can enquire and a page where readers can submit links. Have a look at what the archive website gives you for the shape of it.

There are no standalone pages, no posts that are not issues, and no theme system beyond your logo, colour and font pairing. An issue is the unit, on the web as well as in the inbox.

Sending is included, and it is also portable

Issue Mint sends your issues by default, with nothing for you to set up, and the cost is in the plan rather than added to it. Above 15,000 active subscribers, hosted sending stops and you connect your own Amazon SES or SMTP account instead, at no extra charge.

That handover is the unusual part, and it is deliberate: how sending works explains it properly, and choosing how you send covers the decision. A sender reputation takes years to build, and on Issue Mint it can end up belonging to you rather than to us.