Rules
Top Newsletters is a public leaderboard for newsletters. There are no ads, no featured slots, and no revenue share. You pay to stand above everyone else. Rank is the bid — nothing else.
How ranking works
- Bids are whole US dollars, $2 minimum, $1 at a time, paid with Stripe.
- Paying less than #1 still puts you on the board at whatever rank that bid can take. Equal bids stay in the order they were placed — the older bid keeps the higher rank.
- Enter the same newsletter URL again to raise that listing back to #1. The new bid must be at least $1 above the current top bid; you only pay the difference. Someone else cannot take your rank by paying that difference.
- Substack, Beehiiv, Ghost, Kit, and Buttondown links are keyed by the publication, so different newsletters do not share a bid. Tracking query strings are ignored.
- A leaderboard takeover costs 2× the current #1 and locks the first page for 3 hours. Only one takeover can be live at a time.
What you can list
- A newsletter homepage — Substack, Beehiiv, Ghost, Kit, Buttondown, or a custom domain.
- Chat and invite links are not allowed — Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Messenger, Signal, and similar. The board is for newsletters, not group chats.
- Links to sexual content are not allowed. If it is porn, NSFW, or an adult platform, it does not belong on the board.
- Query parameters are stripped from listing links. Affiliate, referral, and tracking URLs will not work.
- Link shorteners are not allowed. If you submit one, it is replaced by the URL it redirects to.
After you pay
- Your listing is public. Clicks go to the URL you submitted, without query parameters.
- A completed Stripe payment is what claims the rank.