You have a Claude API key, a Resend (or SMTP) provider, and the One Two Three Send plugin installed. From a fresh admin to a sent first issue takes about ten minutes. Here is the actual click-by-click flow.
This guide assumes you have already done the platform setup — register a domain, install WordPress, install both the free and pro plugins. If not, start with our launch guide first.
Step 1 — Configure the basics
Newsletter → Settings. Three tabs need attention before you write anything:
- General — From name, From email (must be on a domain you have verified with your provider), Reply-to. Two minutes.
- AI — Paste your Claude API key. Get one free at console.anthropic.com. Pay-per-token, ~$0.05–$0.30 per generated newsletter.
- Email Provider — Pick Resend (recommended — generous free tier) or SMTP. Click Test connection. You should get a green tick.
Optional but recommended: Subscriber tab. Paste the email you used to sign up for our daily newsletter and click Verify subscription. This unlocks auto-updates so future pro releases land via the standard WordPress yellow update banner instead of manual zip uploads.
Step 2 — Pick a template (optional)
Newsletter → Templates. The pro plugin ships with the Newsroom template — dated masthead, italic sensory opener, a feature article, three to four eyebrow-and-CTA sub-sections, footer. It is the format big editorial newsletters use because it works.
If you want something simpler — body text and one CTA — skip this step and the plugin will use your raw post content.
Step 3 — Draft the newsletter
Newsletter → All Newsletters → Add New. The standard WordPress block editor opens — write in Gutenberg the same way you would a blog post. Headings, paragraphs, lists, images, columns, embeds. Everything you can do in a normal post works in a newsletter.
On the right sidebar you will see three pro meta boxes:
- Newsletter — Subject line (this is what lands in the inbox), Tone (friendly / authoritative / casual / witty / formal / inspirational), Access (Free or Paid — Paid requires Stripe configured)
- Pre-send audit — runs ten checks: subject length, link validity, spam triggers, placeholder leaks, readability, read time, more
- Send — Send Now button
Two ways to write the body:
- Write it yourself — type into the Gutenberg editor as normal. Use blocks for structure. Save draft.
- Let Claude draft it — Newsletter → New Newsletter (the legacy editor route). Pick tone and length, leave Topic blank to auto-pick from your most recent posts. Click Generate. The draft opens for editing.
Whichever path you pick, the result is a normal WordPress post you can keep editing in Gutenberg.
Step 4 — Run the audit
In the right sidebar, click Run audit in the Pre-send audit box. The panel below the button fills with green PASS, yellow WARN, red FAIL rows. Each row tells you what to fix.
Common warnings:
- Subject length over 78 characters — Gmail truncates anything longer in the inbox preview
- Spam-trigger words detected — “free”, “guarantee”, “act now”, “limited time” all hurt deliverability
- Unsubscribe placeholder missing — pro auto-adds it at send time, but the audit confirms it is not literally typed in your body
- Read time over 8 minutes — newsletters under that get higher click-through
Fix anything red. Yellows are advisory — fix them if you can, ignore them if the warning does not apply to your specific issue.
Step 5 — Send
In the Send box, click Send Now. A confirmation dialog asks if you really want to send to all active subscribers. Click OK.
Two seconds later the page refreshes with a green notice: “Sent to N subscribers.” Done.
If your provider rejects any specific email (typo’d address, full inbox, etc.), the failure shows in your provider dashboard — Resend, MailerLite, Brevo all log per-recipient delivery. The plugin counts what was successfully accepted.
Schedule instead of sending now
If you want to write today and send tomorrow morning at 7:00, use Newsletter → Settings → Schedule. Pick a frequency (daily, weekly, monthly), day of the week, time, and check Auto-send. The pro scheduler then runs your draft through the editor pass + audit at send time, and only delivers if every check passes. Failures email you instead.
After your first send
Two things you only see post-send:
- Open-rate reporting — Newsletter → Dashboard shows the percentage of subscribers who opened, with a 24-hour rolling chart. The pro plugin adds a 1×1 tracking pixel per recipient (de-duplicated, salted-hash storage, no per-subscriber data retained beyond the hash).
- Public archive — if you turned on the archive in Settings, the issue is now live at
/newsletters/[slug]/for new visitors to read and discover.
That is the full loop: configure once, draft, audit, send. By your fourth or fifth issue you will stop reaching for the AI tools and the audit will pass on the first run. The friction goes away fast.
