I tried every top email marketing tool

I appreciate that the author disclosed it, but the reason they went to all this effort is likely that they expect to make money as an affiliate for the platforms that they recommended.

Affiliate-driven reviews introduce a major bias into the author's opinion, as they have incentive to speak more positively about platforms that are likely to pay the most.

And email marketing platforms pay a lot in affiliate fees. Just scanning some of the recommendations, if someone signs up for MailerLite through this reviewer's link, they'll pay the reviewer 30% of that subscriber's fees forever.[0] I wouldn't be surprised if the reviewer's top pick is coincidentally the platform with the highest-paying affiliate program.

The thing that really woke me up to affiliate-influenced reviews was the 2017 article, "The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare."[1] The reporter figured out that top YouTube mattress reviewers just gave positive reviews to whichever company paid the most in affiliate fees, and when one company lowered their fees, the reviewers retroactively downranked them for contrived reasons.

[0] https://www.mailerlite.com/affiliate

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...

I see these same affiliate listicles every time I try to find software for any use case these days. Basically every Saas category has now turned into a giant affiliate marketing cesspool. Doesn't matter if it's GPT-written blogspam on Google search or highly produced "creator" content on Youtube...it's all the same motivation behind the content: buy via my link.

As much as people hated the display advertising common on the old internet, I'd actually argue this is far worse.

Instead of clear delineation between what's an ad and what's content, combining the two together just creates even more sinister incentives. Even the most good-hearted, honest and trustworthy "creators" can't escape those incentives over time. I've seen so many of my favorite creators head down that path I just expect it at this point.

Even the formerly trustworthy Wirecutter has lost its reliability post-NYT acquisition, clearly favoring products that offer affiliate payouts.

Instead of criticizing my article, you’re criticizing me.

Does the content of my article seem dishonest?

I agree affiliate content should be read skeptically but you also have to be realistic: why would anyone go to all this work if not for some financial incentive?

I wasn’t criticizing you specifically, but yes, your article does seem dishonest.

Your evaluation criteria was downright silly (1), you didn’t actually try most of these tools, and your “top pick” has the highest affiliate payout (and longest affiliate window) on the list.

In fact, I have no idea how this article hasn’t been flagged since low quality affiliate listicles generally don’t make the front page here.

(1) Strict pricing models and not supporting web fonts like Inter are features, not bugs. Cheap platforms have crap quality shared IPs and 70%+ of inboxes (including most Gmail/outlook clients) don’t support web fonts at all. You’re designing something nobody will see correctly: https://www.caniemail.com/features/css-at-font-face/