Over the last few days, a recurring question kept coming to me.

Are newsletter sponsorships a good fit for me and my newsletter’s subscribers?

I hate “selling” and even more the idea of “selling people.”

People subscribe to my newsletter to follow the journey. Opening to sponsorships makes me feel like I want to monetize from them.

How would people react if I openly talk about it? Would they be comfortable, or would they stop opening the emails?

Welcome, imposter syndrome. Please have a seat.

To newsletter sponsorships, or not to newsletter sponsorships—this is the dilemma.

One of my pillar values is never embracing shadow tactics to make people open more emails.

Thus, people can trust me.

I have a newsletter, and I need money to run it.

Bringing more money to the table would be too expensive for my poor pockets.

What if I accept only sponsors that are a good fit?

I don’t want to monetize for the sake of making money.

I want to sustain and scale the project, including switching to a better platform, getting an email@domain address, etc.

How much money will I need to grow the newsletter?

Accordingly to my current subscribers and the platforms needed, around $35-60/month, totaling a whopping 420-720$ per year.

Plus extra like domain and other expenses.

Hence, after taxes, a couple of sponsors per month could cover the amount needed.

Ding!

Here we go.

Reaching out and closing two deals every thirty days sounds feasible.

On which platform can I get paid for newsletter sponsorships?

I found three: Passionfroot, Gumroad, and LemonSqueezy.

Let’s evaluate them.

Passionfroot

Pros:

• 2% fees only, topped on the sponsor;
• platform specifically made for this purpose.

Cons:

• it’s not a Merchant of Records;
• collecting VAT number is not mandatory yet.

Gumroad

Pros:

• Merchant of Records;
• product variants and limits for the same product;
• I already know how it works.

Cons:

• expensive;
• 10% fees on earnings + 2.9% + 30¢ credit card fee;
• it’s a platform for selling products.

LemonSqueezy

Pros:

• 5% fee + 0.50$ on earnings;
• Merchant of Records;
• product variants as well.

Cons:

• it’s a platform for selling products;
• 0.5% fee + $2.50 per payout;
• I have yet to use it.

Earnings example on a 50$ product

Service	Product	Product Fees	Payout	Payout Fees	Earnings
Passionfroot	48$*	0%	48$	0%	48$
Gumroad	50$	5$ + 1.45$ + 0.30$	43.25$	0%	43.25$
LemonSqueezy	50$	2.50$ + 0.50$	47.50$	0.24$ + 2.50$	44.76$

Although I have yet to decide about opening to newsletter sponsorships, LemonSqueezy seems the most balanced platform, Gumroad the easiest one to set up, and Passionfroot the best for earnings and partnerships, despite the invoicing.