Getting started

Your dashboard

The Dashboard is the first page you see after signing in. It gives you a quick picture of the publication you are working in.

The three cards at the top

Subscriber growth charts how many people subscribed and unsubscribed over time, and the net change. You can download the chart as a PNG or the numbers as a CSV.

Last newsletter performance shows how your most recent newsletter did: Sent, Delivered, Open rate, Unique opens, Click through rate, Unsubscribe rate and Bounce rate. Until you send your first newsletter it says "No newsletters sent yet".

Continue growing is a short setup checklist. It disappears step by step as you finish:

• Finish your publication settings: add a logo and a one-line description under Settings, General Info.
• Customize your post template: choose the fonts, colours and layout of your emails in the template library.

Resources for you has a Quick link with your publication's homepage address and a Copy button, handy for sharing on social media.

Finding your way around

The menu on the left is grouped by what you want to do:

• Publish: Newsletter and Website
• Audience: Subscribers and Tools (automations, surveys, polls, subscribe forms, the preference centre and more)
• Monetize: Paid Subscriptions
• Grow: Recommendations and Referral program
• Settings, at the bottom: publication details, emails, domains, imports, billing and your team

The New button at the top of the menu starts a new post.

If you joined someone else's publication as a team member, you may see fewer menu items. Each item only appears if your role allows it.

Switching between publications

The publication switcher at the top of the page shows the publication you are working in. Click it to see:

• My Publications: the ones you own
• Collaborated Publications: the ones you were invited to
• Invitations: any invitations waiting for you to accept

Choose a publication to switch to it. Everything you see and do afterwards applies to that publication.

Creating a publication

1. Open the publication switcher and click New publication.
2. Fill in Publication Name and Set Subdomain Name.
3. Pick up to three topics under What is your publication about? and choose How often do you plan to publish.
4. Answer two short questions, How did you hear about us? and What are the primary goals for this publication?, and continue.
5. The last screen shows the Launch plan with a 30-day free Max trial. Click Continue to finish.

Your new publication becomes the active one as soon as it is created.

If the New publication button is greyed out, you have reached the number of publications your plan allows. The switcher shows the limit, for example "Your plan allows 3 publications".

Choosing your subdomain

Your subdomain is your publication's address on Inkwave. It is also the first part of the address your emails are sent from. While you type a name, the subdomain fills itself in from it (lowercase, with spaces turned into hyphens). You can change it before you continue.

A subdomain must:

• be 3 to 63 characters long
• use only lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens
• not start or end with a hyphen
• not contain two hyphens in a row (--)
• not already be used by another publication
• not be a reserved name

As you type, a tick means "Subdomain is available". A cross shows the reason it can't be used, such as "Subdomain is already taken" or "This name is reserved".

Reserved names

Some names are kept for Inkwave itself, so nobody can use them to look like an official Inkwave page or address. They include names like these:

• product pages: www, app, admin, api, docs, help, support, status, blog, news
• email and sign-in: mail, email, noreply, login, signup, account, verify
• payments: billing, pay, checkout, pricing, upgrade, subscribe
• test and preview names: dev, test, staging, demo, preview
• trust and legal: inkwave, security, privacy, legal, terms, contact, about

Only exact matches are reserved. A name that only contains one of these words, such as my-docs, is fine.

Once setup is finished, there is no setting to change the subdomain, so choose it with care. You can still show your publication on your own domain later. See the Custom domain and DNS guide.

Troubleshooting

"This name is reserved": the subdomain is on the reserved list above. Try a variation, such as your publication's name plus a word.

"Subdomain is already taken": another publication uses it. Subdomains are first come, first served.

"Your plan allows N publications per owner": you already own as many publications as your plan includes. Upgrade one of your publications' plans to create another.

I was invited but can't see the publication: open the publication switcher and look under Invitations. The invitation has to be sent to the email address you signed in with.