SparkLoop

SparkLoop turns a newsletter's own audience into revenue by paying it to recommend other newsletters, either inside the email or on the page somebody lands on after subscribing. The same network runs the other way, so a publisher can buy subscribers from it as well as sell them. Both sides sit on the free plan. It works with the mainstream sending platforms rather than replacing one.

The platform is free, and the page says so three times: paid recommendations, partner programs and free cross-recommendations are each marked as included at no cost. One item carries a price, a newsletter referral programme add-on at $2,000 a year. What the page does not publish is the money that actually moves through the network, since the buying side reads only as paying for quality, engaged subscribers with no per-subscriber figure attached. Earnings therefore depend on rates you see after joining.

A newsletter with a few thousand engaged readers and no advertisers, which is the point where recommendation revenue starts to be worth collecting and a direct sponsorship is still out of reach. It suits publishers whose audience is coherent enough that another newsletter would want it. A general-interest list of a few hundred people will find the payouts too small to notice.