What’s the Difference Between RSS, Feeds, and Newsletters in 2025?

I still get this question all the time, “What are all these subscribe buttons on websites?”

You’ve probably seen:

• Email icons
• RSS feed icons
• Big “Subscribe” buttons everywhere

Let’s break them down.

The Email Envelope Icon

This one can be tricky because it does two different things:

• It can open a contact form so you can send the site owner a message.
• Or it can open your email program directly to start a new email to them.

It does not automatically sign you up for anything.

RSS Feed Icon

This one’s simple. It always points to the site’s RSS feed — a machine-friendly version of the site’s content.

To you, it looks like gibberish. But to apps and tools, it’s gold.

Back in the day, people used feed readers like Bloglovin’ to keep up with blogs. Today, RSS is mostly used behind the scenes by email marketing services.

Your email marketing service (like MailerLite or ConvertKit) uses your feed to find new blog posts so it can automatically send them to subscribers.

Blogs Via Email

This is an automated email version of your blog. Every time you publish a new post, the email tool grabs it from your feed and sends it to readers. The problem is – we do not use readers any longer! So we ask our readers if they’d like to receive the new posts (automatically) by email? You put up a subscribe form, connect it to your email marketing program. And they connect to your rss feed. And voila – you have automated blog posts!

This is our subscription form:

You will be subscribed to our newsletter; in our case, we only send newsletters. You can send ‘Blogs via Email’ or Newsletters. Which we cover below:

Newsletters

This is where the magic happens.

A newsletter is something you write manually – not just blog post rehashes. It might include tips, personal stories, or curated resources.

People subscribe (like in the form above) because they want to hear from you. A good newsletter builds trust, loyalty, and long-term relationships – not just traffic (but it does build traffic too!)

Further Discussion

Now that you know what emails and newsletters and feeds are, let me make the case that you should be sending newsletters!