---
title: "Email automations and welcome series"
description: "Build a series of emails that starts when someone joins a list, signs up through a form or does something in your product, then waits, branches and sends on its own."
url: "https://nextmail.sh/features/automations"
---

[Writing & sending](https://nextmail.sh/features.md#writing)

# Automations A series that sends itself.

Choose what starts it, lay out the emails, waits and yes or no questions, then publish. Each person walks the path at their own pace.

[Open mail](https://nextmail.sh/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://nextmail.sh/signup.md)[All features](https://nextmail.sh/features.md)

In short

## What is an email automation?

An email automation is a series of emails that sends itself. Something starts it for one person, such as joining a list, and timed steps decide what that person gets next and when.

How it works

## A trigger and a path of steps

It starts when a contact joins an audience, signs up through a form, does something your product reports, reaches a birthday, or is added by hand. Each step sends a published template, waits, asks a yes or no question, or updates the contact.

## See who is on which step

The People tab lists everyone who entered, the step each person is on and why anyone left. People already inside finish on the version they entered with, so publishing an edit never moves them.

## A report for every step

The Report tab counts the people who entered, finished and left, and for each email how many were sent, opened and clicked. Days are counted in the automation’s own time zone.

What you get

## In the product today

Custom fields

Keep your own values on a contact. A step can set one, and a yes or no step can read it.

Events from your app

Report what a contact did in your product to start an automation or to end a wait.

On the API too

The REST API, every SDK, the command line and the MCP server work with the same automations.

Good practice

## Getting the most out of it

1. 01
   
   Begin from a starting point
   
   Welcome series, trial follow-up, birthday greeting and win back each open as a draft you can change before anyone enters.
2. 02
   
   Set the hours before you publish
   
   Pick the time zone and the hours emails may go out, so a step that comes due at night waits for the morning.
3. 03
   
   Keep live automations within your plan
   
   A plan covers a set number of live automations. After a downgrade the newest ones beyond it pause, so pause the ones you can spare first.

Questions

## Asked often

Keep going

## Works well with

Audiences

Named lists of your contacts, filled by hand or from a CSV file, to send to and to watch grow.

Templates

A body written once, versioned, and sent many times: from the composer, from your own code, or by an agent.

Broadcast reports

Every send to an audience on a page of its own, with delivery, opens, clicks, unsubscribes and each person’s copy.

Start

## Your domain, your mail.

Point a domain at Nextmail and read it in a mailbox built around it. The free plan covers one domain.

[Open mail](https://nextmail.sh/mail/inbox) [Get Started](https://nextmail.sh/signup.md)[Read the reference](https://nextmail.sh/docs/knowledge/writing/automations.md)