Methodology · Transparent
How we recommend
Our quiz does not ask which box you fit in and then look up a pre-chosen answer. It reads the needs behind your answers, scores every platform on those needs, and lets the result fall out of the math.
The one rule
A platform's score is built from features only. The commission a platform pays us is never an input. Substack pays us nothing and can still win your quiz. Kit pays us 50% and still loses when it does not fit your needs.
How the score is built
- Your answers turn on a set of features. Pick "make money from paid subscriptions" and we light up the subscription fee, paid tiers and digital-product features. We score only the features your answers turn on, not all 53. That is what stops the biggest catalog from winning by default.
- Each lit feature gets a weight. A feature that is central to your goal weighs more than a minor one.
- Price weighs, it is not a wall. Your ambition for the newsletter sets how much price counts. A capability gated on a plan above that level is discounted, not erased, so a tool you would grow into still stays in the running.
- Deal-breakers disqualify. Say you publish a podcast: a platform without podcast hosting drops, even if it is strong everywhere else.
- We show your top 2. Two options, because the second-best is often a better fit once you weigh your own priorities.
A worked example
Say you are leaving Substack, you sell paid subscriptions, and you want this to become a meaningful side income. The quiz lights up: subscription fee, paid tiers, one-click import, custom domain, data export. It then scores each platform on those five needs, with price weighed to match your ambition, and ranks the rest. A platform that charges 0% on your paid subscriptions and imports your Substack in one click rises to the top, because those are the needs you turned on, not because of what it pays us.
What never enters the math
- Commission rates. Detailed per-vendor in our how we make money page.
- Cookie length, payout terms, or whether we are even enrolled in a program yet.
- Which platform we personally like. That opinion lives in our written reviews and comparisons, clearly as opinion, never wired into the quiz.
Honest limits
A feature score cannot capture everything. Two platforms can match your needs on paper while one simply feels better to write on. That kind of judgment lives in our reviews, not in the calculator. The quiz is the fast, honest first cut; the articles are where we argue.
The feature weights in this first version are our considered estimate. As real people complete the quiz, we will recalibrate them against what actually fits. If a recommendation ever feels off, tell us: contact@ownletter.com.