How to sell digital products through your newsletter and automate the entire process

Automate Sales and Delivery of Digital Products with Your Newsletter

TL;DR: You can turn your newsletter into a powerful storefront by connecting tools like Beehiiv, Stripe, and Make. With simple automations, you can sell digital products or services, deliver them instantly, and segment subscribers, without needing a full ecommerce setup.

Quick Hits

• Substack raises $100 million, intensifying the race to attract more creators to its platform.

• Beehiiv launches a new site displaying top websites built with their new editor. You can submit yours.

A step-by-step example to turn your newsletter into a product storefront

We’re entering a new era for newsletter monetization.

While sponsorships and ads will continue to play a role, I believe the real long-term opportunity is in something a lot more direct: selling your own digital products and services, straight through your newsletter.

A newsletter isn’t just a content channel. It’s a high-trust, direct line to people who already care about what you’re building. That makes it the perfect storefront.

You don’t need a fancy website. You don’t need to run ads or build an ecommerce funnel from scratch. You already have the audience, the attention, and the context. You just need to connect the dots.

Let me show you what that can look like in practice

We recently helped a knowledge creator set up an automated system to sell digital products directly through their newsletter. The setup was powered by beehiiv, Stripe, and Make, and it streamlined the entire purchase and delivery flow end to end.

Here’s what happens:

1. A subscriber clicks a product link inside the newsletter.

2. They land on a simple sales page that explains the offer—what’s included, who it’s for, and what they’ll get.

3. On that page, there’s a CTA button that takes them to a custom Stripe checkout page.

4. Here’s where it gets interesting: the Stripe form includes custom fields where the subscriber can choose between different digital products or bundles.

5. Once the payment goes through, Make picks up the data and kicks off the automation.

6. The subscriber is immediately tagged in Beehiiv, added to the right segment based on their purchase, and sent a personalized delivery email with access to the exact product they selected.

7. Then we follow up with a feedback email a few days later—and yes, that’s automated too.

All of this happens in the background. From click to delivery, the process takes less than a minute. No manual handoffs. No extra steps.

This kind of setup is exactly what we mean when we say your newsletter can be your storefront. It’s a direct channel, built on first-party data, where you can sell products, deliver value, and deepen your relationship with your audience—all without leaving your inbox ecosystem.

Automating the Sale

What makes this even more interesting is that you can automate a lot of it.

Let’s say you’re selling:

• A Notion template

• A digital guide or ebook

• A paid webinar or mini course

• A service with a fixed scope

• Even a productized consulting offer

You can plug that directly into your newsletter flow using platforms like Zapier, Make or n8n.

You can also use other platforms like Gumroad to sell your products, but you’ll also need to connect some flows to your newsletter in order to keep everything tight and smooth

Until next week,

Dani