How to Set Up Flodesk From Scratch (And What Has to Exist Before Anyone Can Integrate It)
"Can you connect my Flodesk to the new site?"
Yes. As soon as there is something to connect.
That is not me being difficult, it is the actual sticking point. Most of the time when a client asks for a Flodesk integration, we log in and find an account that was opened months ago, a logo that never made it in, and zero forms. There is nothing to embed. An email platform with no opt-in built inside it is a login, not a list.
So here is the whole setup, in order, including the parts people get wrong. Work through it yourself if you want to. The instructions are all here and I have not held anything back. Or read it, count the steps, and decide it is worth handing over. Both are fine with me.
First, what an integration actually is
When we say we are integrating your email platform with your website, we mean one specific thing: a form that lives on your site, connected to a group inside Flodesk, connected to an automated email that fires when someone fills it in.
Three pieces. All three have to exist.
Flodesk gives you four form types, and only two of them are things we can put on a website. Inline forms sit inside your page content, so they look like part of the site. Popup forms float over the page. Full page forms are a standalone landing page with their own URL, which is what you use when you do not want to send someone to your site at all. Link in bio is a Flodesk-hosted page for Instagram.
Only full page and link in bio come with a shareable link. Inline and popup are embed code only. So when we ask for opt-ins that are embedded or full page, that is why. Those are the two that can actually live in a website build.
Step 1: Pick the right plan (this is where the first mistake happens)
Flodesk restructured pricing on December 2, 2025. The old flat unlimited plan is gone. There are now four tiers, and the price scales with how many subscribers you have. All prices are in USD.
Free gives you forms, landing pages, link in bio, and segmentation. What it does not give you is email sending. You can collect people and you cannot email them. That is a mailing list you are not allowed to mail.
Lite unlocks unlimited sends, starting around $25 a month at 1,000 subscribers. Two catches. Flodesk branding stays on your emails, and you get one automated workflow.
Pro starts around $28 at the same list size and gives you unlimited workflows plus the ability to remove Flodesk branding.
Everything adds checkout, so you can sell digital products directly.
That one-workflow limit on Lite is the thing that trips people. One workflow covers one path. The moment you have two opt-ins doing two different jobs, say a general newsletter signup and a freebie download, you need two workflows, which means you need Pro. Most people find this out after they have already built the first one and cannot figure out why the second will not save.
For an established service business with a freebie and a newsletter, Pro is the real starting point. The $3 difference is not the decision. The branding removal alone is worth it if you have just paid for a brand.
Step 2: Load your brand in before you build anything
Flodesk lets you save your brand colours, fonts, and logo so every email and form pulls from one place. Do this on day one.
If you skip it and build six emails and four forms first, you are hand-correcting hex codes across every one of them later. It is the same principle as choosing your paint before you buy the furniture.
Step 3: Connect a real sending email
Send from an address at your own domain. Not hello.yourbusiness@gmail.com. A proper hello@yourbusiness.com.
Gmail and Yahoo tightened their sending requirements a while back, and a free email address as your marketing sender is now a fast way into the spam folder. If you do not have a domain email set up yet, that is a prerequisite, not a nice-to-have.
Step 4: Authenticate your domain
This is the technical one. Stick with me.
Authenticating tells the big inbox providers that Flodesk has your permission to send email on your behalf. Without it, your emails get filtered, and you will never know, because nothing looks broken on your end. You will just quietly have terrible open rates.
In Flodesk, go to My Account > Domain setup > Authenticate now. You get two routes.
The automatic route lets Flodesk detect your DNS provider and add the records for you once you authorize it. If it works, take it.
The manual route means copying records into your domain host yourself. You will be adding DKIM and SPF as CNAME records, and DMARC as a TXT record.
Four things that go wrong here, every time:
Flodesk's SPF is a CNAME, not a TXT. Most email platforms hand you a TXT SPF record. Flodesk does not. Add theirs as its own separate record and do not try to merge it into an existing TXT SPF, because you will break both.
You only get one DMARC record per domain. If you already have one, skip the one Flodesk gives you. Theirs is for people starting from nothing.
GoDaddy appends your domain automatically. So you have to trim it off the Name field, entering fdesp rather than fdesp.yourbusiness.com. Paste the full value and the record silently fails.
Cloudflare needs proxy turned off. Set those records to DNS Only or the traffic never reaches Flodesk.
Then you wait. DNS changes take up to 48 hours, your domain will sit at Pending, and it is normal for DKIM and DMARC to clear first while SPF lags behind.
I know this is a lot. It is also the step most DIY setups skip entirely, and it is the one that decides whether your emails land.
Step 5: Build your segments before you build your forms
A segment is a group inside your list, sorted by how someone got there. Not by who they are. By what they did.
Build these before you touch forms, because when you create a form Flodesk asks which segment it feeds, and if the segment does not exist yet you will end up dumping everyone into one undifferentiated pile.
Three to start with: people who signed up for your newsletter, people who downloaded your freebie, and current or past clients. That is enough to send different things to different people, which is the entire point.
Step 6: Build the opt-ins
Now build the forms and point each one at its segment.
One thing you need to know going in: double opt-in is on by default for Flodesk accounts created after April 2, 2025. That means the person has to click a confirmation link in a separate email before they land in your segment and before any workflow fires.
So they fill in your form, they do not get the freebie, and they email you asking if it is broken. It is not broken. They have an unclicked confirmation email sitting in their inbox. You can turn double opt-in off, or you can keep it and set expectations on the form itself. Either is defensible. Not knowing which one you have is not.
Step 7: Embed it on Squarespace
Flodesk gives you two pieces of code for an inline form.
The header code goes into Squarespace under Settings > Advanced > Code Injection for the whole site, or under Page Settings > Advanced > Page Header Code Injection if you only want it on one page. You add this once. It does not matter how many forms you eventually build.
The inline code goes into a Code block on the page, wherever you want the form to appear.
Two things worth knowing before you start. Code Injection requires a Squarespace Business plan or higher, so on Personal you cannot do this at all. And your inline form often will not render in edit mode, which sends people into a panic. Preview the live page before you assume it failed.
Popups are simpler. Header code only, no Code block needed.
Step 8: Host the freebie and build the delivery
Your freebie needs to live somewhere with a real link. A PDF in Google Drive with sharing on, a Dropbox link, or a hidden page on your own site. Personally I would use a page on your site, because it keeps the traffic yours and it is one more thing Google can see.
Then build the workflow: someone joins the freebie segment, they get an email with the link.
And then turn it on. Building a workflow and publishing a workflow are two different clicks, and an unpublished workflow looks completely finished from the inside.
Step 9: Write the welcome sequence
Three to five emails, sent over the first week or two after someone joins.
The first one delivers what they came for and tells them what to expect. The middle ones give them a reason to keep opening, usually a real story or something useful they can act on. The last one makes an offer or points them somewhere specific.
I am going to be straight with you about this step. Everything above it is a task. You can follow instructions, click the right buttons, and get it right. This one is not a task. This is copywriting and sales strategy wearing a technical costume, and it is where most DIY Flodesk setups quietly fall apart. The account works perfectly. The emails just do not do anything.
Step 10: Test the whole path with a real email
Use an address that is not yours and not connected to your business, and go through it the way a stranger would. Fill in the form. Confirm the double opt-in. Wait for the freebie. Click the link. Check it on your phone.
Then check whether it landed in Promotions or Spam, because that is the actual test of whether Step 4 worked.
What we need from you before we can integrate Flodesk into your site
If you are working with us and you want Flodesk connected to your new site, here is the short version of what has to be done on your end first:
A paid Flodesk plan, with your brand colours, fonts, and logo loaded in, and your domain authenticated.
Your segments built, so we know where each form is supposed to send people.
At least one opt-in built as an inline or full page form, pointed at the right segment, with a workflow behind it that is published and live.
Without those three, there is nothing for us to embed. We will still put the code block on the page, and it will sit there collecting nobody.
What this actually costs you to do yourself
Realistically, a first-time setup done properly takes most business owners somewhere between six and ten hours spread across a week, and that is not counting the 48-hour wait on DNS or the time spent writing the sequence.
We do the whole thing for $550. Platform setup, branded template design, lead capture built and integrated into your site, and the welcome sequence configured. One to two weeks.
If your website is already with us, this is the version that makes sense, because we are already in your Squarespace account and we already have your brand files.
"Our website is very professional and has the functions we need, we even implemented email marketing which was a key part of the process for us. Once we rebranded with MWD's help, we got a lot of traction and interest from potential customers." — Delia Durber
If you are setting it up yourself, use our code
Flodesk gives 25% off your first year through our referral link.
Start your Flodesk account with 25% off or use the code MYWOLFDESIGN at checkout.
Two limits worth knowing. It applies to the first year only, and it only works on new accounts. If you already have a paid Flodesk plan, the code will not apply.
This is a referral link. If you sign up through it, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We recommend Flodesk because it is what we set up for clients.
