3 best personal branding newsletters to subscribe to
We curated the best personal branding newsletters on positioning, content, and audience growth. Find the ones that turn attention into a business.
Find newsletters worth your inbox by topic, platform, how often they arrive and what they cost. Navid's picks come first, and each one opens its own page.
This is a list of the best personal branding newsletters.
In fact, it has 3 of them, with Navid's picks first.
So if you want personal branding newsletters worth your inbox, you'll love this list.
We curated the best personal branding newsletters on positioning, content, and audience growth. Find the ones that turn attention into a business.
Here's what's inside:
- Founder OS by Matt Gray
- Step by Step by Chris Donnelly
- The Saturday Essay by Justin Welsh
Each one comes with what it covers, who it's for, how often it arrives and where to subscribe.
What are the best personal branding newsletters?
Here's the list at a glance, with what each one focuses on and what it costs.
- Writer
- Matt Gray
- Price
- Free
- Writer
- Chris Donnelly
- Price
- Free
- Writer
- Justin Welsh
- Price
- Free
Top 3 personal branding newsletters
1. Founder OS by Matt Gray
Founder OS arrives every Saturday with a single system: a repeatable process for content, distribution, or audience growth, written out in enough detail to run yourself.
The systems framing is what separates it. Rather than "post consistently," you get the actual operating procedure — cadence, formats, and the decisions behind them.
Best suited to founders treating their own audience as a serious channel. If you want inspiration rather than process, look elsewhere.
Who it's for: Founders, entrepreneurs, creators, and business professionals looking to grow their personal brand and generate revenue online.
Why subscribe: Get high-impact strategies for content creation, automation, and monetization — designed to help you scale without burnout.
How often: Weekly (Every Saturday)
Price: Free
Platform: HubSpot
Key lessons:
- A strong personal brand creates long-term business opportunities.
- Content systems and automation help you scale without burnout.
- Monetization works best when you deliver consistent, high-value content.
Subscribe to Founder OS · More about Founder OS
2. Step by Step by Chris Donnelly
Step by Step covers business growth, personal branding, and social strategy, with the credibility of someone who has actually run and sold the companies he is describing.
The format does what the name suggests — ideas get broken into sequences you can follow rather than principles you have to translate.
Strongest on the intersection of the two: using a personal audience to grow a company, which is the thing he has done most recently and writes about most convincingly.
How often: Weekly
Price: Free
Platform: Kit
Subscribe to Step by Step · More about Step by Step
3. The Saturday Essay by Justin Welsh
The Saturday Essay lands once a week and does one thing properly rather than several things briefly. Justin Welsh writes about independent work: building an audience, systems that hold up without a team, and turning both into revenue.
It was called The Saturday Solopreneur until the framing widened. The subject is now less about the label and more about the arrangement — living and working on your own terms, whatever the business is called.
Welsh has built a genuinely large solo business and writes from inside it, so the constraints he designs around match his readers'.
Who it's for: Solo creators who want to build profitable online businesses without the overwhelm.
Why subscribe: Justin provides specific frameworks for one-person businesses instead of generic advice.
How often: Weekly
Price: Free
Platform: Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Key lessons:
- Focus on mastering one platform before expanding to others.
- Create content systems that scale without consuming all your time.
- Build multiple revenue streams around your core expertise.
Subscribe to The Saturday Essay · More about The Saturday Essay
Final thoughts on personal branding newsletters
The best personal branding newsletter is the one you open every time it arrives. Pick 2 or 3 from this list, read them for a month, and keep the ones you look forward to.
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