Connecting any newsletter platform

HeyNews can learn your writing voice from any newsletter with a public archive, not just beehiiv or Kit. Paste the archive URL and HeyNews imports your past issues. No API key or login needed.

Which platforms does this work with?

Any newsletter platform that publishes a public archive, including:

  • Substack
  • Ghost
  • Mailchimp (public archive pages)
  • ActiveCampaign (public archive pages)
  • Medium
  • Campaign Monitor
  • ConvertKit (public broadcast pages)
  • Any custom-hosted newsletter site

Connecting your archive

  1. Go to Connections & imports in the sidebar
  2. Open Past issue sources
  3. Click Connect Newsletter Archive
  4. Paste your newsletter archive URL or RSS feed URL (e.g., yourname.substack.com or yourblog.ghost.io)
  5. Click Check URL and wait a moment while HeyNews locates your issues
  6. If found, you'll see a preview: the newsletter name and how many issues were found
  7. Optionally enter a label so you can identify this connection later (e.g., "My Mailchimp Newsletter")
  8. Click Connect Newsletter

HeyNews imports up to 50 of your most recent issues.

A newsletter archive attaches to your current publication so those past issues train the same AI Writer. It doesn't start a new publication and it doesn't count against your paid newsletter connections, so you can add archive history to a publication that already has a beehiiv or Kit connection without using a slot.

What HeyNews does with your archive

Once connected, HeyNews:

  1. Imports your past issues
  2. Feeds those issues into your AI Writer so it can learn your voice
  3. Uses links from those issues to help find recurring sources and RSS feeds
  4. Checks for new issues every hour and imports them automatically

Your archive connection appears under Past issue sources with the latest sync result and the last time HeyNews checked it. Open Voice & past issues for the cumulative history available to your AI Writers.

How HeyNews finds your content

HeyNews treats the URL you paste as a discovery starting point. If you paste a known platform homepage, such as a beehiiv publication homepage, HeyNews can try the platform's public archive route before falling back to generic scraping.

HeyNews tries a few paths, in this order:

  1. RSS feed: For Substack, Ghost, and most blog platforms, HeyNews finds the RSS feed directly. If you paste an archive page URL instead of the feed, it looks for a feed link on the page.
  2. Substack profile: For URLs like substack.com/@yourhandle, HeyNews reads Substack's public profile posts and imports the real newsletter issue URLs.
  3. Sitemap: If no feed is found, HeyNews checks the site's sitemap for individual issue links.
  4. Page map: If both RSS and sitemap fail, HeyNews maps links on the archive page to locate issues.
  5. Archive page: For archives that load content in a different way, including some beehiiv public archives, HeyNews reads the archive page directly to find issue links.

When HeyNews finds a more specific place for the archive than the exact URL you pasted, it keeps your original URL for context and checks the discovered feed or archive URL from then on. That way, adding the same newsletter as both a homepage and an archive URL does not create two connections. HeyNews only stores safe public archive, feed, and homepage URLs for this check.

If you pasted a sub-page URL like yoursite.com/archive and none of those paths work, HeyNews tries the main site (yoursite.com) before giving up. Subdomains stay intact, so yoursite.substack.com/archive retries as yoursite.substack.com, not substack.com.

Still can't find issues?

If HeyNews cannot find issues automatically, it offers a manual connection option. This connects the archive with zero imported issues and starts watching for new content going forward. HeyNews starts learning your voice as soon as it picks up its first few issues.

RSS works for most platforms. The other paths are fallbacks for archives that are harder to read.

What's not supported

  • Private or paywalled archives: HeyNews can only read content that's publicly visible without logging in.
  • Adaptive Optimization: this requires open rate and click data, which public archives don't provide. Adaptive Optimization is only available with a beehiiv or Kit connection.

Removing a connection

  1. Go to Connections & imports in the sidebar
  2. Find the newsletter archive connection
  3. Click Remove

Removing the connection stops future checks. Issues already imported for your voice profile stay in your account.

Troubleshooting

"We couldn't find newsletter issues at that URL" Try pasting a more specific URL, such as your RSS feed URL directly (e.g., yourname.substack.com/feed or yourblog.ghost.io/rss). Some archives don't expose a standard feed link on their homepage. If discovery still fails, use the manual connection option to connect with zero issues and have HeyNews watch for new ones. A completed check with no usable issues stays visible on the connection card, so you can remove it and reconnect with the correct RSS or archive URL.

Issues imported but writing style doesn't seem right Voice matching improves with more examples. If fewer than 10 issues were imported, try adding more issues by connecting a different URL or checking whether your archive has more publicly visible content.

New issues aren't showing up HeyNews checks every hour. If a new issue is not showing, check the card under Connections & imports > Past issue sources for the last checked time. If it shows an error, try removing and re-adding the connection.