Newsletter

A mailing list built into your site: a sign-up form with double opt-in, plain-text emails with replies to you, and a consent record you can export. No open tracking.

A small mailing list for your site. People sign up on your pages and confirm by email; you write to them in plain text, and replies come to you. Nothing is tracked: no open pixels, no rewritten links. The whole thing lives on the Newsletter tab of your site in the dashboard.

Before you can send

Two things, and a third if you import, each on the Newsletter tab:

  1. A sending address. Under Sending address, enter the address replies should go to. We send it a link; click the link and it is confirmed. Until then nothing goes out. Your emails come from newsletter@statichost.uk as “Your name via Static Host UK”, so they pass every mail provider’s checks without any set-up on your side. On Newsletter Plus you can send from your own address or your own domain instead; see below. One address per site, and an address can be used by one site only.
  2. A footer. Under Settings, write who you are and how to reach you, at least 20 characters. It goes at the bottom of every email, with our unsubscribe link under it.
  3. Your word on consent, if you import. Under Contacts, confirm once that everyone you add has agreed to hear from you and that you keep a record of it. This is needed before any import, and before a send while the list holds anyone you imported. A list built only from the sign-up form does not need it: everyone on it confirmed by email.

Getting people on the list

The sign-up form

Under Sign-up form there are two snippets. The widget is one script tag that draws the form where you place it, in your site’s colour. The plain form is ordinary HTML with no JavaScript. Both post to us. Each has a preview button; a sign-up made in the preview is a real sign-up.

Everyone who signs up gets an email with a link and joins the list only when they click it. The link works for seven days, and an address that never confirms is removed after 30 days.

After signing up, after confirming, and after unsubscribing, people see a plain page of ours. Under Settings you can name a page of your own site for each of the three instead; it has to be on the site’s main domain.

Importing people who already agreed

Under Contacts, import a CSV with the columns email, first_name, last_name and consent_date, and optionally company. Dates as 2026-03-01 or 01/03/2026. The people in it go on the list as subscribed, with the date you give as their consent date.

Rows that cannot be used are listed with the reason: an address that is not valid, a missing name, a missing or future date, a throwaway email domain, an address repeated in the file, or an address already on the list. Someone who unsubscribed is never re-added by an import.

Writing and sending

Press Write a new email. Subject and body are plain text; {{first_name}}, {{last_name}} and {{company}} anywhere in either are filled in for each reader. Save the draft, then:

  • Show as a reader sees it renders the email with your footer in place.
  • Send a preview to up to three addresses: your own, a collaborator’s, or the sending address. Nobody else, and ten previews a day.
  • Send goes to everyone subscribed, after you confirm.

Your first email on a list waits up to 24 hours while we look at it, then goes out on its own. Every email after that sends straight away, at about one a second.

Previous emails lists what went out and to how many. View shows who received it and who unsubscribed afterwards; Reuse starts a new draft from an old email.

What your readers see

Every email carries your footer, an unsubscribe link, and the headers mail apps use for their own unsubscribe button. On the free tier the From line reads “Your name via Static Host UK”, replies go to your address, and a line “Sent with Static Host UK” is added underneath.

The unsubscribe link opens a page with a button, and only pressing the button unsubscribes. That stops the link scanners in corporate mail systems from unsubscribing people by accident.

Someone who unsubscribes stays on your list, marked unsubscribed with the date, and gets nothing more. If they sign up again themselves and confirm, they are back on. You cannot bring them back by import.

Bounces and complaints

Our mail provider tells us when an email bounces or is reported as spam. A hard bounce marks the address as bounced and it gets nothing more. A spam report unsubscribes the address. If, over your last 500 emails, more than 5% bounce or more than 0.3% are reported as spam, sending on the list is suspended and you get an email saying so. Write to us to have it looked at.

Your records

Export CSV under Contacts gives every contact with their status, consent date and source, the date they confirmed, and the date and reason if they unsubscribed. That is your consent record; keep a copy. Remove on a contact deletes them and their record entirely, so it is for someone who asks to be forgotten; to stop mailing someone, they unsubscribe themselves. Deleting the list removes everyone on it.

Statistics shows the size of the list over time and, per email, how many were delivered, bounced, reported, failed, and how many unsubscribed afterwards. We never track opens or clicks, so there are no open rates: they are not accurate anyway, and we promised your readers their address is used for nothing else.

Limits and Newsletter Plus

Free on every site:

  • Up to 100 contacts and 4 emails in any 30 days
  • Sent through Static Host UK as “Your name via Static Host UK”, replies to an address you confirm
  • Plain-text emails

Newsletter Plus (£20 / site / month) adds:

  • Up to 1,000 contacts and 30 emails in any 30 days
  • Sending from your own address: our mail provider sends it a link to click, nothing else to set up. Not possible where your domain’s DMARC policy is enforced, as it is for most Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 domains; the dashboard tells you, and the next option is the way.
  • Sending from your own domain: two DNS records, and the emails are signed in your name. The domain has to be one of the site’s custom domains already. Works whatever your DMARC policy, because the records make our mail part of it.
  • Designed emails: a rich-text editor, pasted HTML, or your own HTML template with {{content}} and {{footer}} where the email and the footer go. Everything is cleaned before it is stored. Scripts, forms, embedded frames and anything that reaches outside the email are removed, and the editor tells you what went.

Turn it on or off per site whenever you like, or bundle it across many sites as a reseller.