Small Shop Notes

Build Your First Email Signup Page and Welcome Email on systeme.io's Free Plan

Build Your First Email Signup Page and Welcome Email on systeme.io's Free Plan

the software is free; the sender domain may not be

About Alex: a pen name. There is no shop behind it, and no results are claimed. This is a walkthrough plus opinion, and I'll say which is which.

Say the last article ended with you finding that your leak is Reach: hardly anyone arrives, and the people who do arrive vanish. One answer is a small list of people who said "yes, tell me more" and who you can reach again without paying a marketplace for the privilege. That is where this guide starts.

I'm going to keep it small on purpose. There is a longer guide with a five-email series (it's linked at the end). This one is the minimal path: a page where someone leaves an address, a thank-you page, one email that goes out by itself, and a test to see that it actually does. If that works, you'll have the skeleton and can add to it later or not at all.

At a glance

What you will finish: a signup page with a thank-you page, one automatic welcome email, and a test log.

Who it is for: sellers whose leak is Reach, as found in Why Your Shop Isn't Growing. If your leak is somewhere else, fix that first (my judgement).

Time: plan an evening or two. That is my estimate, not a measured figure, and the slowest part is likely to be the sender address in Step 2, not the page.

Cost: the software plan is free and needs no card. Preparing a sender address on your own domain (the domain, plus a simple homepage on it) may not be free. Read the next section before you sign up.

What "free" does and does not cover

I like free things as much as anyone, and I trust a free plan more when someone tells me where it stops. So here is where it stops, as far as systeme.io's own pages say.

What is free. The pricing FAQ says the free plan allows up to 2,000 contacts, 3 sales funnels, 1 blog, 1 course, 1 affiliate program and 1 custom domain, with unlimited email sends. It says the plan never expires and needs no credit card, and each plan on the pricing page carries a "no credit card required" start button. For this guide, three of those matter: funnels (you need one), contacts (you will not be near 2,000), and sending (not capped).

The one rule. The same FAQ says other features have lower limits on the free plan, and names one automation rule and one email campaign. This welcome email will use your only automation rule. If you later want a second rule for anything else, you will either remove this one or pay. I would rather you know that on the first page than on the second evening, with the account half set up. (Whether a longer series fits in "one rule plus one campaign" is also not something I have been able to test.)

The sender address is the catch. Two things are easy to mix up here: the software plan, which is free, and what you need ready before it can send, which may not be.

The footer. The help says free-plan users cannot remove the "Sent with systeme.io" line at the bottom of emails; that line is an affiliate link for systeme.io. Removing it needs a paid plan. If you can live with that line, fine. If your brand can't, this plan isn't the one for you.

None of this makes the plan bad. It makes it "free software, possibly not-free setup", which is a different sentence from "free".

Step 1 — Decide whether free is really free for you

The previous section is the whole decision. Roughly:

If this is you My suggestion
You own a domain with a simple homepage, or are happy to set both up Carry on
You don't own a domain and don't want one Stop here. This tool won't send from a Gmail address, and the help shows no way round it (see the note below the table)
You already send email from another service that works Keep it, and use only the welcome-email text in Step 4
You need an unbranded footer Stop here, or check the paid plans yourself

(The help describes an automatic fallback address, but only for system "transactional" emails. I haven't verified whether a welcome email counts, so I wouldn't rely on it.)

Stopping here is a legitimate outcome. A guide that can only end in "continue" isn't helping you decide anything.

One more thing before the account. Whatever you promise on the signup page, the welcome email has to keep. So take two minutes with a pen and write down the one sentence you will put under the form: what the person gets, and roughly how often you will write. You will use it twice.

Step 2 — Create the account

Before the link, how the money works. The link below is an affiliate link, and I distrust advice that ends in "buy this", so here is how it works.

Disclosure. If you sign up to systeme.io through the link below, this site may earn a commission. That is optional. You can go to the official site instead, https://systeme.io/, and everything in this guide works the same way. I'm not pushing you either way, and nothing here depends on the link. The idea of this walkthrough (a form, a rule, one email) works with other tools too; the steps, though, are written for systeme.io. systeme.io (affiliate link)

Create a free account. The pricing page shows "no credit card required" next to the free plan, so if a card is asked for, stop and re-read what you are signing up for.

Then the sender. The help pages for this are help 272 (which addresses can send) and help 4247 (deliverability, which tells you to authenticate your domain on systeme.io with SPF, DKIM and DMARC records). I have not confirmed the menu path to the screen, so use the help centre search rather than my memory of anything. In outline:

  1. Have a working address on your own domain, such as hello@yourdomain.com, that can receive mail. If your registrar only sells the domain, set up forwarding or a mailbox first.
  2. Add the sender address in systeme.io and follow the verification it asks for.
  3. Copy the domain-authentication records exactly as your account shows them and add them where your domain's settings live. Do not type records from a tutorial, this one included.

Authentication can take a while to take effect, so I would do it before building anything and then work on the page while you wait. That ordering is my judgement. If a step stalls, a mistyped record is one possible cause, though I haven't seen yours.

Step 3 — Build a simple signup page

A note on names, once. The labels in the next three steps come from systeme.io's help pages, which carry "last updated" dates (listed at the end; all read on 25 October 2026). Software moves. If a button on your screen has a different name from the one here, trust your screen.

Create the funnel. In systeme.io's help, a funnel is a small group of linked pages. Go to Sites > Sales funnels > Create. A popup asks for a Name, a Domain and a Currency. Of the four funnel types, choose Build an Audience. The help calls it the simplest structure, with an Opt-in page and a Thank you page, meant to grow an email list.

(If you do not see a domain you can pick, that connects to the sender question above. I have not seen what the popup offers without one.)

Add the form. Open the opt-in page with Edit page. In the editor's sidebar, find the Form input element in the Form section and drag it onto the page. Click it, and set the Input type to email. The help states the form must contain at least one Email field. Names, last-name fields and the like are optional; the fewer fields, the shorter the page, and I would stay with email only on a first build (my opinion).

Add the button. Drag a Button element onto the form. Open its settings and look for Action when button clicked. Set it to Submit form. This one matters more than it looks: the help says the automatic email rule does not fire unless the button's action is Submit form.

Below it you will find a redirect question with three options: to the next step in the funnel, to a custom URL, or no redirection with a message shown on the page. For this build, choose the next step, so the visitor lands on the thank-you page.

Write the page. A headline that names what the person gets, the one sentence from Step 1 under the form, and a plain promise that they can unsubscribe. Leave out anything you wouldn't say aloud to a stranger.

Check the thank-you page. The Build an Audience type creates one for you. If you need to add one yourself, the help describes Add step, then the Thank you page from the Opt-in category, a template, and Edit page. On it, say what happens next, for example: "Your first email is on its way from hello@yourdomain.com. If it isn't there in a few minutes, look in Spam or Promotions."

Optional: double opt-in. The help describes a checkbox in the button settings, "Do you want to enable double opt-in on this form?". When it is on, the person gets a confirmation email and must click a link. Two behaviours are worth knowing before you choose.

If they don't click within 24 hours, they are deleted automatically. And all emails and automations are paused until they confirm, which means your welcome email will not leave until the click happens.

Double opt-in is set per form. For a first build, I'd leave it off and decide once you see what comes in. That's my preference, and some people reasonably prefer the reverse.

Open the page in a private window on your phone before moving on. Is the email field visible with the keyboard open? Can you tap the button?

Step 4 — Set the auto-reply

This is where the page and the email meet.

  1. In the funnel's left-hand list, select your opt-in page.
  2. Click the Automation Rules tab, then Add rule.
  3. Under Trigger, click the + icon and pick Funnel step form subscribed.
  4. Under Action, click + and pick Send email.
  5. Click the + icon to create the email. Write it (see below), click Save inside the email, then Save rule.

According to the help, once the rule is saved it is active. You can edit the email later with the pencil icon, and manage the rule from the three dots (edit, disable, delete). The help also says you can attach a file such as a PDF; it limits attachments to 5 MB.

The fallback. I could not verify that the Send email action is offered on the free plan: the help lists no free-plan restriction for it, but nobody has tried it in a free account (V02). If your account does not offer it, the longer guide uses a campaign route instead. That route is not verified here either. It also uses your rule, so it doesn't free anything up.

A welcome email you can paste

Keep it short. Here is a version with placeholders. The example below is imaginary: Maya is a made-up seller of budget spreadsheet templates, and this is only a model of the text.

Subject: Your spreadsheet is here
Preview: Here's what you signed up
         for, and what happens next.

Hi,

Thanks for joining. You asked for
[WHAT THE PAGE PROMISED], so
here it is: [LINK or ONE USEFUL
THING].

I'm [YOUR NAME]. I make [WHAT YOU
MAKE], and I'll write to you
[HOW OFTEN YOU SAID ON THE PAGE]. If
that's too much, the
unsubscribe link at the bottom works.

If you reply with one question about
[TOPIC], I read them.

[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR SHOP OR SITE]
[POSTAL ADDRESS, if you decide to
include one]

Four things to keep honest:

Leave first-name placeholders out for now, since the form only collects an address.

Step 5 — Test it

Don't test with the inbox you used to create the account; it knows too much. Register on your own page from a different address, ideally on a different provider, and ideally from your phone. The help recommends testing the funnel by registering on your own opt-in page.

Run these rows and write PASS, FAIL or NOT_TESTED with a time next to each. Write NOT_TESTED when it is the truth; a PASS for a row you skipped is worse than a blank.

# Check PASS means Result and time
T1 Submit the form on your phone with a second inbox You reach the thank-you page
T2 Wait for the welcome email It arrives from your own sender address
T3 Tap the link in the email It opens the right thing
T4 Look at the folder it landed in Record it; Spam is a FAIL to look into
T5 Read the footer You can see the unsubscribe option and the "Sent with systeme.io" line (or note its absence)
T6 Submit the same address twice Record what happens; don't assume

The "Sent with systeme.io" line in T5 is how you will learn whether the free-plan footer behaves as the help says (V04). Write down what you see.

A made-up log entry, to show how a failure might look. It is an example, not a result:

T2  FAIL   No email after 20 minutes.
           Check: button action was
           "Go to next step", not
           Submit form.
           Fixed. Retest 14:40.
T2  PASS   T2  PASS   Retest: arrived
           14:43 from
           hello@yourdomain.com

Change one thing at a time and retest only the row that failed.

Troubleshooting

Symptom Likely cause (from the help pages) What to try
Form submits, no email arrives Button action is not Submit form Open the button settings and set Action when button clicked to Submit form
Error "At least one email input is required" The form has no Email field Add a Form input with the Input type set to email
No email, double opt-in is on Emails and automations are paused until the contact confirms; unconfirmed contacts are deleted after 24 hours Click the confirmation link in the test inbox, or turn double opt-in off for the test
Test address suddenly gets nothing A trigger can fire at most 20 times for the same contact Use a fresh test address
Email won't save or send with a file Attachments are limited to 5 MB Compress the file or link to it instead
Sender address refused Gmail and several free-mail addresses can't send from systeme.io Use an address on your own domain
Rule can't be added The free plan has one automation rule (pricing FAQ; behavior untested) Check Automations > Rules for an existing one

Rule task history is kept for one month, according to the help, so if you are looking for last week's test, it may already be gone.

Where to go next

What this guide does not claim

It does not claim that this build works exactly as written: nobody has run it in a live account, and the labels come from help pages.

It does not claim that the Send email action is offered on the free plan, that a domain can be authenticated without extra cost, or what any domain costs. It does not claim that the free plan or its limits will stay as they are, that emails will reach an inbox, or that a list brings sales or income. It does not make a legal claim about email rules. Maya is imaginary.

Verification status

Until a real seller has run this guide in a free account and recorded the results, it stays experimental.

Sources. All read on 25 October 2026, as full help-page text from the official systeme.io Help Center unless noted: