Affiliate Disclosure

Effective date: 2026-06-04 Publisher: Global Pioneers LLC, doing business as Letterbench.

This page exists to comply with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's "Endorsements and Testimonials" guidelines (16 C.F.R. Part 255) and equivalent rules in other jurisdictions. We disclose every commercial relationship that could influence what we recommend.

Lead disclosure

Letterbench earns commission on some links to newsletter platforms and adjacent tools. When you click a link marked rel="sponsored" or labeled "affiliate" on letterbench.com and subsequently sign up or purchase, we may receive a one-time or recurring commission from that vendor. Your price is the same whether you use our link or go to the vendor directly.

Where the money comes from

As of the "Effective date" above, our active affiliate relationships are:

| Vendor | Program | Status | Commission shape | |---|---|---|---| | Beehiiv | Beehiiv Partner Program | Active | Per signup + recurring revenue share | | AWeber | AWeber Advocates | Active | Per signup + recurring percentage |

Our pending/in-flight affiliate applications (as of 2026-06-04):

| Vendor | Network | Status | |---|---|---| | Sparkloop | Direct | Application submitted 2026-05-28 | | Canva | Impact Radius | Application submitted 2026-05-28 | | MailerLite | Direct | Application submitted 2026-05-28 |

We are not currently affiliated with: Substack, Kit (formerly ConvertKit), Ghost, Mailchimp, Brevo, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit Commerce, Buttondown, or any platform not listed in either table above. Links to these vendors on our site are unmonetized.

When a pending application becomes active, this page is updated within 7 days and any retroactive affiliate-link swaps on previously published content are noted in the page's last_updated field.

How affiliate relationships affect our content (and how they don't)

What we do:

• Clearly mark every affiliate link in HTML using rel="sponsored noopener" so search engines and browsers can identify them as commercial.
• Include this disclosure on every page that contains affiliate links, with a visible link to this page near each affiliate link.
• State commission relationships in the Methodology section of every comparison article.
• Recommend Beehiiv and AWeber at the subscriber tiers and use cases where the underlying data favors them — not at every tier.
• Recommend competitor platforms (Substack, Kit, Ghost, MailerLite, etc.) when the data favors them, even though we earn nothing on those signups.

What we don't do:

• Accept paid placement in rankings or comparison articles. No vendor has ever paid us to appear, to rank higher, or to be characterized favorably.
• Accept gifted accounts or other compensation that influences editorial decisions. Software accounts we use for testing are normal paid accounts unless explicitly disclosed.
• Use "sponsored content" formats that mimic editorial. Any sponsored content we ever publish would be clearly labeled "Sponsored" in the page header and excluded from rankings and comparison tables.
• Hide affiliate relationships behind link shorteners or generic redirect URLs designed to obscure the destination.
• Allow vendors to preview or influence reviews, rankings, or benchmark editions before publication.

Editorial standard

Our rankings and recommendations are based on a published methodology applied consistently across all platforms — affiliated and not. Where the methodology produces a recommendation that earns us no commission (e.g., recommending Substack for writers starting from 0 readers in 2026), we publish it anyway.

We publicly argue against using our highest-revenue affiliate (Beehiiv) in specific situations:

• For sub-2,500-subscriber free-only publications, MailerLite is often cheaper.
• For writers starting from 0 readers, Substack's discovery network does real work that Beehiiv cannot match.
• For ownership-focused publishers, Ghost is structurally better.

This is intentional. If a recommendation engine that always recommends what makes the recommender the most money would be useful, you wouldn't need this site.

Disclosure in emails

Newsletters sent to subscribers from Letterbench include explicit affiliate-relationship disclosures wherever affiliate links appear. The same standard applies: clear, conspicuous, in close proximity to the link, in plain language.

FTC compliance

Per FTC guidance, our disclosures are designed to be:

• Clear and conspicuous: the disclosure label next to affiliate links is in our base body-text size (12px or larger), in our standard body-text color (not greyed out), and immediately adjacent to the link.
• In close proximity: disclosure appears next to the affiliate link itself, not buried in the footer or a separate page (this page is the comprehensive disclosure; per-link disclosure is rendered inline).
• In plain language: we say "affiliate link" or "Letterbench earns commission" — not euphemisms like "partner link" or "preferred provider."
• Unavoidable: the disclosure is visible on every page that contains affiliate links, not gated behind a "Show more" toggle.

Reporting concerns

If you believe a Letterbench page presents an affiliate link without adequate disclosure, or if a vendor recommendation seems inconsistent with our stated methodology, please email editorial@letterbench.com. We respond to editorial concerns within 5 business days and publish material corrections in the article's correction log when warranted.

Contact

Editorial questions: editorial@letterbench.com Corrections: corrections@letterbench.com Partnership inquiries (vendors): partners@letterbench.com

Postal: Global Pioneers LLC, Letterbench Editorial, New York, NY, United States.

This page is reviewed quarterly alongside the rest of the site's editorial standards. Material changes (new affiliate relationships, terminated relationships, methodology shifts that affect monetization) are reflected within 7 days. Last reviewed: 2026-06-04. Next scheduled review: 2026-09-04.