📧 Quillrush Newsletter Studio for Sendy turns your WordPress dashboard into a full-blown newsletter creation studio for the Sendy + Amazon SES stack. Drag your latest posts into a beautiful responsive HTML email, pick the Sendy lists/segments to ship to, and send via your self-hosted Sendy installation, which forwards every message through Amazon SES. No HTML coding. No external SaaS. No paid tier.
⚠️ Requires a self-hosted Sendy install backed by Amazon SES. This plugin is the WordPress front-end — it does not replace Sendy or SES. If you don’t have Sendy + SES set up yet, see sendy.co and aws.amazon.com/ses.
✨ Headline features
- 🎨 Visual newsletter builder — drag posts in, see the rendered email update live.
- 📨 Two newsletter formats per campaign — The Roundup (subscriber-facing) and The Insider Brief (editorial pitch for media & partners).
- 📋 Auto-fetched Sendy lists & segments — pulled live via the Sendy API, shown as checkboxes with active subscriber counts. Cached 10 minutes; one-click refresh.
- 🧠 Remembers your last selection — the lists you sent to last time are pre-checked next time.
- 🔍 Infinite-scroll post search — AJAX-loads posts in batches of 10 as you scroll.
- 🖼️ Smart hero image — uses your uploaded banner if present, otherwise falls back to the first post’s featured image.
- 📱 Mobile-first responsive layout — 2 columns on desktop, single column on mobile (< 600px), auto-height cards.
- 📅 Three send modes — Save as Draft in Sendy, Send Immediately, or Schedule for a future date/time.
- 🕐 Timezone-aware scheduling — uses your WordPress timezone; shows current server time + zone next to the picker.
- ♻️ Auto-recovery for overdue campaigns — if WP-Cron didn’t fire on time, overdue scheduled campaigns are auto-sent on next admin page-load.
- 🛠️ Retry on failure — failed sends show the exact Sendy error + a one-click Retry Send button.
- ⚙️ Optional cron trigger — after each send, optionally hit
scheduled.php?i=BRAND_IDon your Sendy host so queued campaigns process without a server cron. - ✍️ Custom footer block — extra text/HTML above the footer in a highlighted box. Supports anchor tags + auto
nl2br. - 🌐 Social footer icons — Instagram, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), YouTube.
- 🗃️ Campaign history — every campaign stored as a
qrnss_campaigncustom-post-type entry with Status / Scheduled For / Error columns. - 🔒 WordPress-native security — nonces on every action,
manage_optionscapability checks,wp_safe_redirect()for all redirects.
📨 The two newsletter formats
🗞️ The Roundup — visual hero + 2-column story grid for your subscribers. Uses the “Custom Footer Text” highlighted box.
✉️ The Insider Brief — personal greeting, lead paragraph, centered hero with featured image, “What Else We’re Seeing” 2-column grid, “Why this matters” callout, “For Media & Collaborations” CTA block, and a centered About Us block. Built for media pitches & partner updates. All copy editable from Settings The Insider Brief — Template Texts.
Pick the format per-campaign on the Create Newsletter page (Design Settings Newsletter Format). Header and dark footer (logo, social, copyright, unsubscribe) are shared across both formats.
📋 Full settings reference
🔌 Sendy Connection Settings
- Sendy Installation URL — base URL of your Sendy install (e.g.
https://sendy.yourdomain.com/). - API Key — from Sendy Settings Your API Key.
- Brand ID (Optional) — from Sendy Settings Your Brand ID. Required by some Sendy versions and used for auto-fetching lists.
- Default From Name — pre-filled into every new campaign.
- Default From Email — pre-filled into every new campaign.
- Auto-Trigger Cron — checkbox. After sending, hit
<sendy-url>/scheduled.php?i=BRAND_IDso queued campaigns process without a system cron. - Show Article Excerpt — checkbox. Insert a 20-word excerpt between the post title and the “Read More” button.
🎨 Footer & Social Settings
- Footer Logo URL — logo shown in the dark footer band.
- Copyright Text — footer copyright line.
{year}is replaced with the current year. - Custom Footer Text — textarea, HTML allowed. Shown in a highlighted box above the footer in The Roundup. Newlines
<br>automatically. - “Read More Articles” Link — optional link below the post grid.
- Instagram URL / LinkedIn URL / X (Twitter) URL / YouTube URL — social icons in footer.
✉️ The Insider Brief — Template Texts (used only by The Insider Brief format)
- Greeting — e.g.
Hi [First Name], - Intro Paragraph — lead paragraph above the hero story (HTML allowed).
- Hero Section Label — small label above the hero (e.g.
Hero Story). - Grid Section Heading — e.g.
🔍 What Else We're Seeing - “Why This Matters” Heading + Body
- Collaboration Heading + Body — e.g.
📩 For Media & Collaborations+ CTA bullets and contact info (HTML allowed). - About Us Heading + Body — centered About block above the footer.
📅 Send modes
- 💾 Save as Draft in Sendy — POSTs to
create-campaign.phpwithsend_campaign=0. Campaign appears in your Sendy dashboard as a draft. WP logs status:draft. - 🚀 Send Immediately — POSTs to
create-campaign.phpwithsend_campaign=1. Sendy queues + dispatches via SES. WP logs status:sent. If Auto-Trigger Cron is on, also hitsscheduled.php?i=BRAND_ID. - ⏰ Schedule — stored as a
qrnss_campaignpost with statusscheduled. WordPress registers a one-offwp_schedule_single_eventfor the chosen datetime. When the event fires, the plugin sends via Sendy. Datetime picker is timezone-aware and uses your WP timezone setting.
🛟 Failure handling
Failed sends never silently disappear:
- ❌ Red admin notice at the top of the Campaigns screen.
- 📋 Exact Sendy error in the Error column.
- 🔁 One-click Retry Send button (CSRF-nonced).
- ♻️ Auto-recovery — overdue scheduled campaigns automatically send on next admin page-load.
🗄️ Campaign history (CPT)
Every campaign is stored as a qrnss_campaign custom-post-type entry. Admin columns:
- Title — subject line.
- Status —
draft(grey),scheduled(yellow),sent(green),failed(red). - Scheduled For — datetime if scheduled.
- Error — Sendy error message if the send failed.
🔌 Sendy API endpoints used
All requests go straight to your own self-hosted Sendy installation at the URL you set in Settings. The plugin never talks to any third-party SaaS — Sendy itself fans out to Amazon SES from your host.
api/lists/get-lists.php— fetch lists for the Create Newsletter screen (cached 10 min). Sends:api_key,brand_id.api/subscribers/active-subscriber-count.php— per-list subscriber counts. Sends:api_key,list_id.api/campaigns/create.php— Save as Draft, Send Immediately, scheduled fire. Sends:api_key,from_name,from_email,reply_to,title,subject,html_text,plain_text,list_ids,brand_id,send_campaign.scheduled.php(your Sendy host) — only when Auto-Trigger Cron is ticked. Sends:i=BRAND_IDquery param.
🔒 Requirements
- WordPress 5.8 or higher (tested up to 7.0).
- PHP 7.4 or higher.
- A reasonably recent self-hosted Sendy installation.
- Amazon SES configured inside Sendy (out of scope for this plugin).
