Flodesk is Email Marketing That Grows With Your Small Business

I’ve been telling photographers this for years: your most important business tool isn’t your camera. It’s your email list.

Your list is your direct line to the people who care about your work. It’s the one piece of your audience you actually own. No algorithm can take it away from you, and it won’t disappear if a social media platform goes belly-up. If you want to build a photography business that lasts, you just have to have one.

But knowing you need a list is one thing. Actually managing it is another. The tool you pick matters. It has to be easy enough that you’ll actually use it. It needs to be powerful enough to get you clients. And for people like us, it absolutely must look good.

For a long time, my number one pick for photographers has been Flodesk. I’ve talked a lot about it, from how it compares to Mailchimp to email tips you can use right away with its setup. I even showed everyone my own Flodesk setup a while back.

Flodesk first showed up and changed the game. It gave us gorgeous templates and, most famously, one flat price for unlimited subscribers. It was awesome.

But here’s the thing: businesses have to change and grow. Flodesk has evolved.

It’s not just that simple, one-price tool anymore. It’s something much bigger. It’s more powerful, it connects to more of your other tools, and it’s built to handle your entire business, from the first time someone hears about you to the moment they buy.

After digging into all the new changes, features, and connections, I’m back to tell you why Flodesk is still my top choice for photographers.

Table of Contents

• The Flodesk I Knew: Why We All Signed Up
• The Evolution: A Smarter Way to Scale
  • Flodesk’s New Pricing That Scales With You
• More Than Just Pretty Emails: The New Flodesk
  • Flodesk Checkout: This is the Big One
  • New Connections: Making Your Tools Talk to Each Other
• Why Flodesk is Still My Number One for Photographers
• The Verdict (And the Fine Print)

The Flodesk I Knew: Why We All Signed Up

To get why the new version is so good, you have to remember what the original Flodesk fixed. It solved two huge problems for creative business owners.

First, most email software was just plain ugly and confusing. It all felt like it was built for coders, not for artists. We’re photographers. We can’t be sending out emails that look like a text file from 1999. Flodesk was the first tool that felt like a graphic designer made it. We could finally send emails that looked as good as our portfolios.

Second, old-school pricing punished you for growing. You’d work so hard to get 1,000 subscribers, and then your bill would suddenly double. It made you almost afraid to get more popular.

Flodesk’s original “unlimited subscribers, one flat rate” model was the answer. I shared my 50% off code for it all the time because it let us grow without worrying about the cost.

But that model, as great as it was, couldn’t last forever. To build the new features everyone was asking for, they had to make a change. The platform needed to grow up from just a “pretty email sender” into a well oiled machine and marketing tool. And that’s exactly what happened.

The Evolution: A Smarter Way to Scale

The biggest change, and the one that made everyone pause, was the pricing. Flodesk moved away from the one-price-for-everyone model and brought in pricing tiers.

I’ll be honest, I was skeptical at first. But here’s why it’s actually a good thing. It’s the same beautiful, intuitive platform — now with flexible pricing to fit your business.

This isn’t like the old platforms. Flodesk built its new pricing to be transparent and fair for small businesses.

As they put it, “Flodesk offers affordable, transparent pricing that scales with your active subscriber count.”

That’s the key. You pay for the audience you’re actively talking to. If you’re just starting out, you can now get in at a muchlower price than the old flat rate. You get all the tools, but you pay a price that matches the size of your business right now.

And here’s the part I really like. “See exactly how pricing scales with your audience, and get a heads up when you’re approaching your subscriber limit so you have time to plan ahead. No hidden fees, no surprises.”

No more sudden, giant bills. You can see exactly what’s coming. They also make it clear that “Flodesk will only adjust your tier if it’s needed, so you only pay for what you use.”

It just makes sense. As your business grows, your investment in your most important tool grows with it. This change allowed Flodesk to build the stuff we’ve been needing for years.

Flodesk’s New Pricing That Scales With You

This is a starting point for their new plans.

You may have noticed I used the term active subscribers in the table above. This is because Flodesk is charging based on subscribers who are actively opening and clicking your emails. Which also means you do not pay for people who aren’t engaging with you. Cool, right?

More Than Just Pretty Emails: The New Flodesk

The new pricing model let Flodesk invest in some serious upgrades. It’s not just an email tool anymore. It’s a full-on sales and marketing system.

Flodesk Checkout: This is the Big One

This is easily the most important new feature. Flodesk Checkout lets you build beautiful sales pages and take payments. Right inside Flodesk.

Think about what this means for your photo business:

• Sell Mini-Sessions: You can build a gorgeous page with all the details, and clients can book and pay right there.
• Sell eBooks, Presets or Guides: Sell your digital products and have them delivered automatically.
• Sell Workshop Tickets: Manage your signups and payments in one spot.
• Sell Print Upgrades: Create a special offer for a past client and make it super easy for them to buy.

Before, you needed a bunch of different tools. You’d have a landing page tool, a separate shopping cart tool, and then Flodesk. You’d have to tape them all together and hope they worked. Now, it can all happen in one place. You can build the page, sell the thing, and automatically add the buyer to a thank-you email sequence without ever leaving Flodesk.

New Connections: Making Your Tools Talk to Each Other

Flodesk now connects to the other tools you’re already using. This is where the magic really happens.

ThriveCart: While Flodesk Checkout is great for simple sales, a lot of us use carts like ThriveCart for more complicated stuff (like courses, affiliates, or special offers). The new Flodesk and ThriveCart connection is perfect. When someone buys my course on ThriveCart, they are instantly added to the right email workflow in Flodesk. It just works.

Canva: We all live in Canva, right? We make our social media graphics, ads, and price lists there. Now, you can pull your Canva designs directly into your Flodesk email. No more downloading the file, uploading it to Flodesk, and messing with the size. It saves time and keeps your brand looking consistent.

HoneyBook: If you’re using HoneyBook to manage photography leads, proposals, contracts, and invoices, connecting it to Flodesk ties your whole clientflow together. New inquiries from your HoneyBook contact form can land in the right Flodesk segment automatically and kick off a polished nurture sequence with your pricing guide, FAQs, and a link to book a consult.

Possible	Not Possible
It will automatically send clients in your HoneyBook projects to your Flodesk subscriber list. If the client already exists in Flodesk, it will check for a matching email address and update the other fields accordingly.	It will not send existing contacts to your Flodesk list. It will also not resubscribe users that have previously unsubscribed in Flodesk

Here is everything that can be sent to Flodesk from HoneyBook.

• Meeting scheduled
• Contact form submitted
• Lead form submitted
• Session scheduled
• Session starts
• Session ends
• File is completed
• Questionnaire submitted
• First payment paid
• Invoice paid in full
• Contract signed
• All signatures signed
• Project date
• Project end date
• Project moved to completed
• Manual trigger

Manychat: This one is wild. Manychat is what you use for automating your Instagram and Facebook messages. The Flodesk and Manychat connection is a game-changer for your social media.

Think about this:

1. You post an Instagram Reel about your new mini-session guide.
2. You tell people to “Comment ‘GUIDE’ below to get it.”
3. Manychat sees the comment and automatically sends that person a DM.
4. In the DM, it asks for their email address.
5. The second they type it in, Manychat sends that email to Flodesk.
6. Flodesk instantly sends them the email with your guide.

You just turned a random person scrolling Instagram into a hot lead on your email list. And it all happened automatically while you were out on a shoot. This is how modern marketing works.

There are also strong connections to Shopify, OttoKit, Zapier (which connects to almost anything), your scheduling tools, and more.

Try my automation on Instagram, that uses Inro.Social and OttoKit to send to my Flodesk segment for my podcast. Comment on that Instagram Reel with the word LYRICS to start the automation.

Or comment with FLODESK on this Instagram Reel to start my automation about Flodesk.

Why Flodesk is Still My Number One for Photographers

After all these changes, I’m even more convinced it’s the right tool for us. Here’s why.

1. It’s Still Beautiful. Period. This is the most important thing. Even with all the new power, Flodesk didn’t forget its main promise: to be the best-looking email builder out there. Our emails are part of our brand. A clunky, ugly email makes us look unprofessional. Flodesk’s templates are clean, modern, and put your photos front and center.

2. It’s Still Easy to Use. As a business owner, you’re doing everything. You don’t have time to learn a super-complex program. Flodesk’s design is still simple and clean. You can figure it out just by clicking around. You’ll actually use it instead of getting overwhelmed and quitting.

3. It Does More, So You Pay for Less. Having Flodesk Checkout built-in is a huge win. It saves you from having to pay for another subscription for a sales page or cart tool. For selling mini-sessions or a preset pack, it’s all you need. It simplifies all the different tools you pay for. I personally use Flodeck Checkout to sell my Lightroom Presets and eBooks.

4. It’s a Fair Deal That Grows With You. The new pricing just feels right for a small business. You can start for a low price when your list is small. You only pay more when you’re actively growing and (hopefully) making more money. It’s a partner for your business, not a penalty.

5. It Fits My Modern Marketing The way I run my business and my email marketing systems has changed. Flodesk has changed with me. The connections to places like Canva unlock even more potential for my business and how I automate things. I know I can build a system that works, from an Instagram comment all the way to a thank-you email, and Flodesk is the engine running it all.

The Verdict (And the Fine Print)

Flodesk has successfully grown up. It went from being a simple, disruptive tool to a mature, powerful platform. It managed to add serious power, like e-commerce and deep integrations, without losing the beautiful, simple design that made us all sign up in the first place.

Flodesk gives you gorgeous design, powerful automation, and simple pricing that grows with you. It’s the only platform I’ve found that gets what a visual artist, who is also a very busy entrepreneur, really needs.

Now, for full transparency: I am a Flodesk Partner.

I’ve been a huge fan and supporter of this platform for years, long before I was a partner. It just means that if you decide to sign up using one of my links, I might get a commission. It doesn’t cost you anything extra. You should know that I only recommend tools that I personally pay for, use in my own business, and truly believe in. My recommendation is based on years of real-world use.

If you’re a photographer who’s been putting off starting an email list, or if you’re just plain frustrated with your current tool, I can’t recommend Flodesk enough.

Get 25% off your first year with my link and the coupon code SCOTTWYDEN.

It’s the rare tool that’s as beautiful as your work, as simple as you need, and as powerful as you want your business to be.

Hanging out at the Flodesk partner dinner in New York City, October 2025. Photo by William Adwin.