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Weekly

Send your newsletter to everyone in a subscriber sheet

AI drafts your newsletter, you approve it, and it goes to every subscriber in your sheet through SendGrid, with each send logged.

Runs
Weekly
Apps
Google Sheets, SendGrid
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
sheet read; Mail Send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every Monday, draft this week's newsletter from my notes and email it to me for approval. Once I approve, send it through SendGrid to everyone in my Subscribers sheet and log each send.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A local bakery collects email addresses at the counter in a shared sheet. The owner means to send a weekly note about new bakes and opening hours, but writing it and sending it to a growing list takes an evening they don't have.

Each Monday a draft is written from the owner's short notes and emailed to them first. Once they approve, it goes out through SendGrid to everyone in the sheet in batches, and every send is logged so nobody is missed or emailed twice.

What you get out of it

  • A newsletter that goes out every week

    A draft waiting in your inbox makes it far easier to send than starting from a blank page.

  • You approve every issue

    Nothing reaches subscribers until you've read it and said yes.

  • Reliable delivery to the whole list

    SendGrid handles volume and sender reputation, and sending in batches keeps you within its limits.

  • The sheet stays your list

    Add or remove people in the sheet as you always have; each issue goes to whoever is on it that day.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every Monday, ClickRuntime reads this week's notes and AI writes a newsletter draft.

  2. The draft is emailed to you for approval, and nothing goes to subscribers until you approve.

  3. Once approved, it is sent through SendGrid to everyone in your subscriber sheet, in batches.

  4. Each send is logged, so if a run is interrupted no one gets the issue twice.

Before it runs live

  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use
  • Connect SendGrid

What you get

RunsWeekly
Send your newsletter to everyone in a subscriber sheettoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · This week at Northwind BakeryPumpkin loaves are back from Thursday, and we're open late on Friday for the street fair.

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Google Sheets and SendGrid steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
newsletter_to_a_sheet_of_subscribers.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, ai, state, notify

SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    values = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values()
    draft = state.get("draft")
    if not draft:
        notes = values.get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Notes!A2:A").execute().get("values", [])
        text = ai.generate("Write a short, warm weekly newsletter from these notes:\n" + "\n".join(r[0] for r in notes if r),
                           max_output_tokens=700).text
        state.set("draft", {"text": text, "approved": False, "sent": []})
        notify.email_me("Newsletter draft for approval", text + "\n\nReply via your approval link to send.")
        return {"status": "awaiting approval"}
    if not draft["approved"]:
        return {"status": "still waiting"}
    emails = [r[0] for r in values.get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Subscribers!A2:A").execute().get("values", []) if r]
    todo = [e for e in emails if e not in draft["sent"]][:500]
    key = credentials.secret("SENDGRID_API_KEY")
    for email in todo:
        http.post("https://api.sendgrid.com/v3/mail/send", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {key}"},
                  json={"from": {"email": "news@northwind-bakery.example"}, "subject": "This week at Northwind Bakery",
                        "personalizations": [{"to": [{"email": email}]}], "content": [{"type": "text/plain", "value": draft["text"]}]})
        draft["sent"].append(email)
    state.set("draft", draft if len(draft["sent"]) < len(emails) else None)
    return {"sent": len(todo)}

FAQ

Common questions

How do I give it notes for the issue?
Add a few lines to a Notes tab in the sheet during the week, such as new products or events. The draft is written from those.
How do I approve the draft?
The email you receive includes an approval link. Until you click it, nothing is sent to subscribers.
What happens if the send stops halfway?
Each address is logged as it is sent, so the next run picks up where it left off without repeating anyone.
What permissions does it need?
sheet read; Mail Send. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it runs (weekly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Send your newsletter to everyone in a subscriber sheet” from your assistant

Copy the prompt above, or connect your assistant first. Free plan, no credit card.