How to Use MailerLite to Sell a Paid Newsletter Subscription

The short answer: connect Stripe in MailerLite's Integrations tab, create a recurring product in the Stripe dashboard, add it to a landing page with the Products block, set buyers to join a "Paid members" group on checkout and leave it on cancellation, start a welcome automation on that group, and send paid issues to the group only. It needs the Comfort plan or higher, from $12 a month for 500 subscribers on monthly billing (pricing page, checked on 24 October 2026).

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The job: some of your free readers would pay for more, and you want to take their money without a second tool for memberships. MailerLite does the email, the page and the group logic, and Stripe takes the payment. The product itself is described in the MailerLite glossary entry.

Line these up:

1. The numbers, before you build. For example, 300 paying readers at $5 a month is 300 x $5 = $1,500 a month before Stripe's fees. Against that, Comfort for a 1,000-subscriber list costs $19 a month on monthly billing (pricing page). Stripe will not process a price under $0.50, and MailerLite reads only flat rate or package pricing (Stripe article).
2. A Stripe account, or the details to open one. The connection can create one for you, and your business details go in during setup.
3. Your free list, already in groups. Paid members will be a group of their own; know which group your free readers sit in, so the two can be told apart in every send. Then decide the single number you will watch: the size of the paid group, a month from launch.

Six steps to the first paying reader

1. Connect Stripe

Click the Integrations tab on the left, scroll to Stripe, click Use, then Connect Stripe, and follow the prompts in the pop-up to log in or create the account (Stripe article). Back in MailerLite, Stripe settings show Account management and the payment method configuration used at checkout.

2. Create the subscription in Stripe

In the Stripe dashboard, open the Product catalog and click Add product. The name, description and image appear in MailerLite and can only be changed in Stripe. Enter the price, open More pricing options, choose Flat rate or Package pricing, select Recurring and the billing period, and save. Any other pricing model and the product will not show up in MailerLite. Recurring purchases accept cards only; one-time purchases also take methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact and SEPA (Stripe article), which matters if many of your readers pay that way in the Netherlands or Belgium.

3. Create the paid group

On the Subscribers page, open the Groups tab, click Create group and name it, say, "Paid members" (groups article). A subscriber can sit in several groups and is counted once toward your plan limit, so a free reader who upgrades does not cost you twice.

4. Sell it on a landing page

Open the landing page builder, go to the Elements tab, find the Special section and drag in the Products block. Click Add products from your store and pick the subscription. In the Product view tab, set Action after checkout to Add to group, choosing Paid members, and set Action after cancel to remove them from it, which MailerLite recommends for recurring products (Stripe article). Then, under Sites, open the page and its Stripe tab to edit the automatic Subscription started and Subscription canceled emails.

5. Welcome new members by automation, with an agent drafting it

Create a workflow with the Joins a group trigger and select Paid members. Tick the option for subscribers to exit when they leave the trigger group, so a cancelled member stops receiving the welcome series (triggers article).

This is the step an AI assistant can take. MailerLite's MCP server connects Claude through Connectors, then Manage connectors, then MailerLite, Connect, Approve and Authorize; it works with Claude's Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, and with ChatGPT, Cursor and VSCode (MCP guide). Ask it to draft a three-email onboarding automation for the Paid members group. MailerLite builds campaigns as drafts and sends nothing without your explicit confirmation (MCP page). The human check is that confirmation: read each email, fix anything that promises what the paid issues will not deliver, and only then activate the workflow.

6. Send paid issues to the group

When you schedule a campaign, select Paid members as the target group (groups article). Free issues go to the free group and can carry the offer too: add the subscription as a Digital product in MailerLite, then use the Import from stores element in the Drag & Drop editor (Stripe article).

What the law says about emailing your payers

Paying members are customers, and that changes what you may send them. Article 13(2) of the ePrivacy Directive lets a business that collected email addresses in the context of a sale use them to market its own similar products, as long as people can object easily and free of charge, both when the address is collected and in every message (consolidated text on EUR-Lex). A second publication of your own is close to that line; someone else's product is not. Free readers stay on the consent they gave when they signed up.

What the help centre warns about

• The wrong Stripe pricing model. Only flat rate or package pricing appears in MailerLite's Stripe blocks.
• A price under $0.50. Checkout fails with a 1011 error (Stripe article).
• Stripe products in campaigns. They have to be added as Digital products in MailerLite before an email can show them.
• Double opt-in across several forms. Only the automation tied to the form where someone confirms will fire, so a group trigger is the safer start (triggers article).

Checkout is the part every payment integration makes smooth, because that is where the money moves. The cancellation path is the part you have to build yourself: the Action after cancel setting and the exit option on the welcome automation are what keep a former member from being treated as a current one.

FAQ

What happens when a member cancels?

MailerLite runs the Action after cancel you set on the Products block, such as removing them from the paid group, and sends the Subscription canceled email, which also goes out when payments fail, per the Stripe article.

Can the MCP connection send an issue by itself?

No. MailerLite says campaigns are always drafts first and nothing gets sent without your explicit confirmation; you can also end the connection from your MailerLite settings at any time (MCP page).

Does a member in two groups count twice?

No. Subscribers can belong to several groups and are counted once toward the plan limit, according to the groups article.