Trust · how this site works

How We Verify Prices (and How We Get Paid)

SendCosts exists because email marketing pricing is deliberately hard to compare. Our answer is a boring, strict process - published here so you can hold us to it.

Source hierarchy

Not all “official” numbers are equal. When sources disagree, we trust them in this order:

The vendor's pricing page itself, when it renders a readable table.
Official help and documentation that states a price for a named plan and list size.
A table the vendor published on its own domain (blog or comparison page) stating its own prices.
An official starting price - published, but only as an anchor; every per-tier cell it cannot support stays “Not published.”

Anything below this line - other review sites, aggregators, forums, search snippets, AI summaries - is never a source. If two sources within the hierarchy conflict (HubSpot's own pages currently state two different monthly Starter prices), we publish neither as fact and record the conflict.

The verification steps

Open the official source and read the price for a named plan at a named list size.
Record it with its date. The current full-check stamp is Oct 4, 2026; it appears next to every price it covers.
Enter only that cell. Adjacent tiers the source does not state are left blank - no interpolation, no averaging, no inference from the plan's shape.
Cross-check the vendor's other official pages for conflicts. Conflicts are flagged in our data, not silently resolved.
Mark what could not be read. Slider-only pricing is labeled “Not published” with the official starting price shown as an anchor. That label is a finding, not a gap in effort.

Why cells stay blank

A blank cell means one of three things: the vendor hides that tier behind a slider and publishes no table; the vendor publishes neighboring tiers but not that one; or the vendor's own pages contradict each other. In every case the alternative - estimating - would put a number in your budget that the vendor never promised. We would rather be incomplete than wrong.

Update policy

Rolling re-checks. Prices are re-verified on a rolling basis; when a figure changes, the new number replaces the old one and the stamp date updates.
No silent edits to meaning. A replaced price is gone, not averaged with its predecessor. Verdicts are revisited when the underlying verified facts change.
Reader reports welcome. If you spot a price that no longer matches the vendor's page, tell us via the About page and we will re-open the official source and either correct the cell or explain why it stands.
Current status: last full check Oct 4, 2026. Tools whose verified data was insufficient for the calculator (Moosend, Klaviyo, Campaign Monitor) are excluded rather than padded with estimates.

Affiliate disclosure

SendCosts is funded by affiliate commissions. Links marked rel="sponsored" may pay us if you sign up or buy, at no extra cost to you - vendor prices are identical with or without our links. Terms below are as published by each vendor, checked Oct 4, 2026.

Affiliate terms per vendor, as published by the vendors (Oct 4, 2026)
Vendor	Affiliate terms	Source
Kit (ConvertKit)	50% of referred customers' payments for the first 12 months; then +10% (Bronze, 10+ paying customers/yr), +15% (Silver, 50+), or +20% (Gold, 100+) lifetime recurring	kit.com/affiliate
ActiveCampaign	30% recurring, up to 12 months	activecampaign.com/partners/affiliate
GetResponse	40% Bronze / 50% Silver / 60% Gold, recurring 12 months	getresponse.com
MailerLite	30% lifetime recurring	mailerlite.com
AWeber	30-50% recurring while the account stays open	aweber.com (Advocate program)
HubSpot	30% recurring up to 1 year, capped at $1,000+ per sale	hubspot.com/partners
Constant Contact	Up to $105 one-time per new paid account	constantcontact.com (partner program)
Brevo	$5 per free account + $100 per paid account	brevo.com/partners/affiliates
Omnisend	20% monthly recurring	omnisend.com (official blog)
Sender	30% / 35% / 40% lifetime, by tier	sender.net
Mailchimp	No open affiliate program. Agency-only (Mailchimp & Co: 25% / 5%, requires 2+ connected paid clients) - cannot be used by a content site	mailchimp.com/help

Correction history, kept on purpose: early drafts of this site repeated a secondary-source claim that Kit pays “30%.” Kit's own affiliate page says 50% of first-year payments plus 10-20% lifetime recurring at volume tiers. We publish the vendor's number - and keep this note as a reminder of why the hierarchy above exists.

How affiliate links do and do not affect ordering

Never affected

Numbers & rankings

The calculator sorts by verified price, cheapest first - the sort key is the number, never the commission. A published price is identical whether or not the vendor has a program. Verdicts rest on verified structural facts (free-plan ceilings, billing units, published matrices).

Disclosed, not hidden

Coverage choices

We cover Mailchimp in depth although its agency-only program pays this site nothing. Where a recommended vendor does pay (Kit, at 50% of first-year payments), the rate is stated on the page next to the recommendation.

Your side

What a click does

Clicking a sponsored link may set a cookie on the vendor's domain (typically 30-180 days) so the vendor can attribute a later signup. It does not change your price, and we receive no personal data from it. See the privacy policy.

What we never do

Accept payment for placement, ranking, or reviews.
Copy prices from G2, Capterra, or other comparison sites.
Publish estimated or interpolated pricing - of any origin.
Sell visitor data. No accounts, no email capture, no third-party trackers.
Call a price “verified” without an official page we can re-open.