How to use Quillo

Quillo is a Substack publishing studio. The typical first-run looks like this:

1. 1Buy Quillo, then create your account with the same email you used at checkout.
2. 2Connect your Substack publication and keep your session fresh.
3. 3Add your own AI provider key (or write manually).
4. 4Draft in the AI Composer, review in Drafts, then push to Substack.

The Library is where source material lands before it becomes a newsletter. Everything you add shows up in the Inbox tab, and you can move items on or delete them as you work through your list.

This is the core loop: pick sources from your Library, write the draft (by hand or with AI), check the preview, then push it to Substack and publish or schedule it.

1. 1Open the Composer from the Studio, or select items in your Library and send them to the Composer.
2. 2Write it yourself, or describe the newsletter and let the AI draft it for you.
3. 3Review the preview, edit the subject and body until it reads the way you want.
4. 4Save the draft, then push it to Substack from Drafts.
5. 5Publish immediately or schedule a send time — both from Quillo.

Writing with AI (optional)

AI is entirely optional — you can type the whole newsletter yourself. If you do use it, you bring your own provider key (see AI keys) and choose how it writes:

You can also select text inside the editor and use the inline AI assists to rewrite, tighten or expand just that part. AI output is a starting draft — always read it before you send.

Preview and edit

The Composer has a rich editor by default. Turn Rich editor off if you prefer writing raw markdown — you then get a rendered preview underneath so you can see how the post will read. Edit the subject line and body as much as you like before saving.

Push, publish or schedule

Open Drafts and use Push to Substack. The draft appears in your Substack dashboard, and you get an Open draft link to check it there. From the same row you can then Publish now, or Schedule a send time (and Unschedule if plans change).

Build a Substack subscribe form in the Studio, style it with a live preview, then paste the snippet on any web page — or use the WordPress shortcode if you have the Quillo plugin installed.

Step 1 — Create the embed and pick a template

Open Studio → Embeds, create a new embed and choose Form. Start from one of the presets (Minimal Light, Bold Dark, Editorial Serif, Brutalist Pop, Aurora Glass, Noir & Gold, and more). A template just fills in colors, fonts and radius — you can change every value afterwards.

Step 2 — Basics

• Name — internal label so you can find this embed later.
• Substack publication URL — where subscribers are sent, e.g. https://yourname.substack.com.
• Layout — Inline, Card or Minimal.
• Active — turn this on to serve the form. An inactive embed stops rendering on your site.

Step 3 — Copy (the words people read)

Set the heading, description, button label, email placeholder and the success message shown after someone subscribes. Pick the text alignment (left, center, right) with the three alignment buttons.

Step 4 — Typography, surface and button colors

• Typography — choose the font family (system, sans, serif options such as Cormorant Garamond).
• Surface — background, text, border and accent (focus ring) colors, plus corner radius. Use Per-corner if you want different radii on each corner.
• Button — button background, button text and hover background.
• Each color field has Presets and, where it makes sense, Gradient helpers — so a background or button can be a CSS gradient, not just a flat hex.

Step 5 — How the form appears

Under Display, choose one of four behaviours:

• Inline — sits in the page where you paste it.
• Inline after a delay — appears in place after a few seconds.
• Popup modal — timed — opens after your chosen delay.
• Popup modal — on exit intent — opens when the visitor moves to leave the page.

Pick a popup design template (Centered Card, Slide-in Corner, Bottom Banner, Exit Rescue, Editorial Morning, Studio Split, and more). Each template is a starting point; the options you get next depend on what you selected.

For popups you can then fine-tune: exit-intent sensitivity, how often it shows again, position (center, bottom-right slide-in, bottom banner), backdrop color and opacity, close on backdrop click, close on Esc, what happens after a visitor dismisses it, and an optional image or logo with alt text, position and size.

Step 6 — Lead magnet: deliver a file or link

Turn on Show a download / reward after success to build a lead-gen form: the visitor gives their email, gets subscribed to your Substack, and then sees your reward. Set the reward title, an optional description, the button label and the file or link URL.

Host the file wherever you like (Google Drive, Dropbox, your own site) — Quillo shows the link after a successful subscribe.

Step 7 — Spam protection

• A honeypot field is always included and invisible to humans — nothing to configure.
• Email validation is on by default; you can reword the invalid-email message.
• Optional: paste a Cloudflare Turnstile site key for stronger bot protection. The site key is public and safe to embed. Leave it empty to disable.

Step 8 — Install it on your site

Scroll to Install snippet and press Copy. It is self-contained HTML — no external scripts — so you can paste it into any page, template or block editor. You can also grab it any time from the embeds list with the Get code button.

Want to show your latest Substack posts instead of a form? See Embed a newsfeed below.

Every subscribe form keeps its own record of what happened: who signed up, whether the signup reached your newsletter, and how well the form converts. Open Studio → Embeds → your form and scroll to Entries & form analytics.

Entries: view, retry, export

• Email, captured time and source page for every submission, newest first. One reader is always one row per form.
• Status — delivered means the signup was submitted to your newsletter, pending means it is captured and still being confirmed, failed means your newsletter rejected it (for example an invalid address).
• Retry re-sends any entry that is not delivered, from Quillo's server, with sensible spacing so a temporary block can clear.
• Export CSV downloads that form's entries so you can import them into your newsletter manually at any time — even during an outage on their side.

Form analytics: what each number means

• Views (30d) — one count per reader per day, no matter how many times they reload the page.
• Submissions (30d) — submits that passed the email check.
• Conversion — submissions ÷ views, as a percentage.
• Delivered / pending — the current delivery state of stored entries.
• This month's usage — how much of the monthly analytics allowance the form has used, with a warning once you pass 80%.

These come from your own forms only. Bot submissions caught by the honeypot, instant machine submits, throwaway inbox addresses, invalid addresses and repeat submissions by the same reader are not counted as new entries. Counting is generous but not unlimited: on a very high-traffic month a form can reach an analytics ceiling and stop counting for the rest of that month — the form itself keeps working and every signup is still delivered exactly as before.

Stored entries are kept for 12 months and then removed automatically, so old reader addresses do not sit in Quillo forever. Export a CSV any time you want your own copy. Storage is also capped at 50,000 stored entries per account; past that, new signups still deliver to your newsletter, they simply are not archived — so export regularly if you are anywhere near that number.

Turning entry storage on or off

Store entries for this form is a per-form switch. Turn it off for delivery-only behaviour: signups are still sent to your newsletter, they are just not kept in Quillo. Keeping entries is part of a paid Quillo plan, because stored reader addresses are data we hold on your behalf and keep access-controlled.

What happens if my plan ends

Your published forms keep working and keep subscribing readers — nothing on your site breaks. What stops is the studio: signing in with an ended plan takes you to Settings, so the Entries view, the builder and the rest of Quillo stay locked until you renew, and new signups are delivered but no longer stored. Nothing already saved is deleted — renewing brings it straight back. Export your entries to CSV before your plan ends if you want them in hand in the meantime.

A newsfeed embed shows your latest Substack posts on your own site — styled to match your brand, with a live preview while you build it.

Step 1 — Name, publication URL and Style

• Embed name — internal label so you can find it later.
• Publication URL — e.g. https://yourname.substack.com. Posts are fetched from here.
• Theme template — Light, Dark, Paper, Midnight, Sepia, Mint, Indigo, Rose, Brutalist, Glass, Magazine, or Custom for your own colors, radius and font.
• Card style — Bordered, Shadow, Ghost or Flat.
• Alignment — left, center or right text.
• Fields to show — image, subtitle, author, premium badge, date, reactions and comments. An orange-marked toggle means that field is visible; the preview updates instantly, so you never have to guess.
• Use the desktop / mobile buttons above the preview to check both widths, and the Active switch + Save at the top right when you are done.

Step 2 — Posts: fetch, choose and reorder

Open the Posts panel and pull posts in one of two ways:

• Connected — fetch from the Substack publication you connected in Quillo.
• From URL — fetch from the publication URL you typed above, no connection needed.

Tick posts in Available to add them, press Remove to take one out, and use the arrows in Selected to reorder — the first post becomes the hero in layouts that have one. Up to 25 posts can be selected.

Step 3 — Layout (5 styles)

• Cards — image + text, one per row.
• Compact — a tight title list.
• Grid — 2-up, uniform tiles.
• Magazine — big hero post plus a grid.
• Masonry — Pinterest-style staggered columns.

Click through them and keep whichever reads best in the preview.

Step 4 — Behavior

• Open links in new tab — keep visitors on your page.
• Show header — add a heading above the feed, e.g. “Latest posts from Brian Jackson”.
• Show footer button — a call-to-action such as “View all posts” pointing at your Substack URL.

Step 5 — Embed code

Open Embed code and pick whichever fits your site — you only need one.

Change anything later and press Save — the live embed updates. No need to re-paste the snippet.

Substack has no public publishing API, so Quillo publishes using your own Substack login session. The Chrome extension is what fetches that session and keeps it fresh — it is the recommended and supported way to connect. Follow the six steps below once and publishing keeps working.

1. 1

   Install the Quillo extension in Chrome

   Download extension (.zip)

   1. Unzip the downloaded file into a folder you will keep (do not delete it).
   2. Open chrome://extensions in Chrome.
   3. Turn on Developer mode (toggle, top right).
   4. Click Load unpacked and select the unzipped folder.
   5. Pin Quillo to the toolbar so the popup is one click away.

   Chrome cannot auto-update an extension installed this way. The popup tells you when a newer version exists — download it again, unzip over the same folder, then click the reload icon on chrome://extensions. Your saved token survives the update.

   

2. 2

   Generate your Quillo access token

   Open Settings → Access tokens, type a label such as Chrome extension, and click Generate token. Copy the token (it starts with qext_) — it is shown in full only once. One token per device or site, so you can revoke a single one later.

   

3. 3

   Paste the token into the extension popup

   Click the Quillo icon in the Chrome toolbar, paste the token into Quillo token, and click Save token. The popup confirms the token was stored.

   

4. 4

   Stay signed in to Substack in that same Chrome profile

   Log in to substack.com in the same Chrome profile where the extension is installed. You do not need to keep a Substack tab open — the extension reads the session from Chrome itself. Just don't sign out of Substack in that profile.

5. 5

   Click “Sync Substack cookie now”

   Open the popup and press Sync Substack cookie now. The extension sends your Substack session to Quillo and, on the first sync, Quillo can detect your publication automatically — so most people never type a publication URL or a cookie at all. After that the extension refreshes the session in the background on its own.

   If the popup reports that no publication could be detected, add your publication URL once in Settings → Substack (for example https://yourname.substack.com) and press sync again.

6. 6

   Confirm in Settings, then publish

   Back in Settings → Substack the setup checklist should read Ready to publish and the card should show Connected with your publication URL. If it hasn't caught up yet, press I've just synced — check now or Test connection. Then push a draft from Drafts.

   

Fallback for non-Chrome browsers: connect manually

Use this only if you cannot use Chrome or a Chromium browser. It works, but nothing refreshes the session for you: when Substack rotates the cookie, publishing stops until you paste a new one. This path is not guaranteed.

1. Log into Substack in the same browser you use with Quillo.
2. Open the Substack tab and press F12 on your keyboard, or right-click anywhere on the page and choose Inspect. This opens the developer tools.
3. Open the Application tab (called Storage in Firefox).
4. In the left sidebar, expand Cookies, then click https://substack.com.
5. Find the row named substack.sid and copy its value.
6. Go back to Quillo, open Settings → Substack, paste the value into the substack.sid cookie field, check the ownership box, and click Connect Substack.
7. Repeat this whenever publishing reports that the session needs a refresh. There is no automatic refresh outside Chrome.

Quillo does not bill you for AI usage. You add your own provider key and we call the provider directly. Keys are encrypted server-side.

The plugin pulls your WordPress posts into Quillo. You then edit and publish them from Quillo — there is no direct posting from WordPress to Substack.

Step 1 — Install the plugin

Step 2 — Connect (recommended: one-click)

1. In WordPress admin, open Settings → Quillo.
2. Click Connect to Quillo. WordPress creates an application password for Quillo automatically.
3. WordPress asks you to authorise the connection — approve it.
4. You are redirected back to Quillo, where you click Allow to finish linking the site.
5. Your site now appears in WordPress → Your posts.

If you land on “Your site is connected to Quillo”

Some hosts strip the return address WordPress sends us, so we can't hand the token back automatically. Your site is already connected — do not start over. Click Copy & open WordPress settings (this copies the token to your clipboard; it does not install it), then in WordPress under Settings → Quillo paste it into Replace token if the page shows a token error, or under Have a token already? if the site isn't connected yet, and save. WordPress checks the token with Quillo before storing it, then the card turns green with your plan and last sync.

Issuing a token always replaces the previous one for that site, so a stale token can never linger in Quillo — plugin 0.4.6 or newer is needed for the Replace token box.

Requires WordPress 5.6+ with Application Passwords enabled (default) and HTTPS.

Step 2 (alternative) — Connect manually

Use this if the one-click flow is blocked by your host or security plugin.

1. In Quillo, open Settings → Browser extension and generate a token, then copy it.
2. In WordPress, go to Settings → Quillo, click Have a token already?, paste the token and click Connect.
3. In WordPress, go to Users → Profile of a user with the Administrator role, scroll to Application Passwords, create one named “Quillo”, and copy the generated password.
4. Back in Quillo, open Settings → WordPress sites and fill in the Site URL, an optional label, the WordPress username and that Application Password, then click Connect site.

Step 3 — Pull posts into Quillo

1. Open WordPress → Your posts and pick your site in the left column.
2. Search if you have many posts.
3. Click Import as draft to pull a post into Quillo — one by one, or as many as you like.
4. Use View to open the original post on your site first if you want to check it.

Step 4 — Edit and publish from Quillo

Step 5 — Auto-send new posts (optional)

Shortcodes — embed your forms and newsfeed

No website? Build one shareable page at thequillo.com/p/your-handle and put it in your social bios. It reuses what you already built in Quillo: your subscribe form and your newsfeed. Nothing new to design, nothing to host.

Step 1 — Create the page and pick your URL

1. Open Pages and click New page.
2. Type the URL you want (for example jane-doe). Quillo checks it live. If it's taken or reserved you're told immediately and offered three alternatives you can click.
3. The page starts as a draft — nobody can see it until you switch Published on.

Start from a template

You don't have to build a page block by block. When you create a page, pick one of the templates under Start from a template — Blank (the classic default), Signup First, Editorial, Profile Card, Midnight, Newsfeed Showcase or Growth Hero (serif headline with a red call to action and a social-proof line). Each one sets the starting blocks plus a matching theme: colours, corner radius, content width and heading, name and body text styling.

Already have a page? Open it and press Templates in the top bar, choose a look and press Apply template. Applying replaces the page's blocks and styling, but it keeps the subscribe form and newsfeed you already connected, and nothing is written until you press Save — so you can look at the preview first and simply reload the page to back out.

A template is only a starting point. Every control described below still applies on top of it, so you can change any colour, font size, alignment or block afterwards.

Step 2 — Add and rearrange blocks

A page is a stack of blocks. Add what you need, reorder with the arrows, hide a block temporarily with the eye icon, and preview everything live beside the editor. Use the phone and monitor buttons above the preview to check both widths — the page is responsive on its own, so the newsfeed drops to one column and cards stack on small screens without you configuring anything.

Under Style you can set the content width and open Heading / Subheading / Name / Body text to change size, weight, line height, letter spacing, case, underline, italic and colour. Every block also has a Block appearance panel for its own alignment, background, text colour, padding, border and corner radius — including the subscribe form and the newsfeed, whose alignment you can override for this page only. Leave any control untouched and it simply follows the theme.

• Profile image — paste an https image URL (round or square). Quillo doesn't host images, so use your Substack avatar URL or any image you already have online.
• Name & Substack — your name plus a “Read on Substack” link.
• Heading & subheading — your pitch in one line and one paragraph.
• Social links and button links — up to six buttons for anything else (podcast, shop, portfolio).
• Subscribe form — pick any active embed from Embed Studio. It's the same form, with the same spam protection and lead magnet.
• Newsfeed — pick any active newsfeed. It renders the posts you already selected, so the page never has to call Substack when a visitor loads it.

Step 3 — Publish and share

Turn on Published, hit Save, then use Copy link. That's the link for your Instagram, X, TikTok or LinkedIn bio. Change the URL later and the old link stops working — pick one you're happy with.

Allow search engines is on by default, so your page can be found on Google. Switch it off if you only want the page reachable by people you send the link to — the link keeps working exactly the same, it just asks search engines not to list it. Empty pages are never indexed.

Own your page — download the HTML

Download HTML gives you one self-contained file: all styling is inline, and the subscribe form is the same standalone markup that posts straight to Substack. Put it on your own domain, any static host, or edit it by hand. No lock-in, and no Quillo account needed for the downloaded copy to work.

One honest caveat: the downloaded file is a snapshot. New Substack posts won't appear in the downloaded newsfeed until you export again — the hosted /p/ page updates whenever you refresh your newsfeed in Quillo.

Pages terms — what's allowed

Public pages are hosted on our domain, so a few rules are non-negotiable. Break them and the page is taken offline.

• No phishing or deception. Don't collect passwords, card numbers or other credentials, and don't imitate a login screen for any service.
• No impersonation. Don't present yourself as someone else's publication, brand or staff. Handles that impersonate Quillo or well-known services are reserved.
• No spam, malware or illegal content, and no adult or graphic material.
• Only your own content. You're responsible for the text, images and links on your page; images are hot-linked from wherever you host them.
• Moderation. Anyone can use the footer link to report a page. We review reports and may unpublish a page without notice. Unpublishing never deletes your content — you can keep editing or download the HTML.

Technical limits so pages stay fast and free of abuse: up to 5 pages per account, 12 blocks per page, 6 button links per block, and only http(s) links — scripts, custom HTML and embeds from other sites are not accepted.

What Quillo is built for, what it supports, and the most common issues — answered honestly.