Newsletter platform privacy ratings
Tools for sending email newsletters and mailing lists.
9 newsletter platforms are rated against 9 public criteria, and 9 have enough evidence for a letter grade. Of the 8 with a known jurisdiction, 7 are based in a Five Eyes country, and 8 in the wider Fourteen Eyes.
Open-source newsletter platforms only · Criteria for this category · Suggest an addition · Markdown
| Name | Grade | Score | Data | Jurisdiction | Open source | No trackers or telemetry | No ads or data sales | Independent audit | Transparency report | Tells users about requests | TLS configuration | Security headers | Modern web standards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Email service whose paid plans include outbound SMTP, which can send newsletters and mailing lists from a list tool such as listmonk. Newsletter sending needs approval for each domain. Subscriber lists and campaigns are managed in the separate tool. |
Grade B | 84 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not tested yet |
Self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager distributed as a single binary with a PostgreSQL database, with a web dashboard, templates, subscriber lists and transactional email API. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Open source newsletter tool with a visual and Markdown editor, sign-up forms and subscriber segments. It can be self-hosted or used through Keila Cloud, a hosted service run by Keila GmbH in Germany. |
Grade D | 59 | 100% | Germany Fourteen Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | Partial | No | Yes | No | Not tested yet |
Open source newsletter and mailing list manager written in PHP, installed on your own web server. phpList Ltd in the UK also runs a hosted version at phplist.com. |
Grade D | 47 | 100% | United Kingdom Five Eyes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Partial | Not tested yet |
Email marketing platform owned by Intuit for building mailing lists, sending newsletters and automated campaigns, and tracking opens and clicks. |
Grade F | 34 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial | Yes | No | Not tested yet |
Hosted newsletter service for writing and sending email newsletters in Markdown, with paid subscriptions, archives, custom domains and an API. |
Grade F | 28 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | Partial | Yes | No | No | No | Partial | No | Not tested yet |
Publishing platform for email newsletters, podcasts and video where writers can charge for subscriptions, with a reader app, comments and a social feed called Notes. |
Grade F | 25 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Not tested yet |
Email marketing platform for creators, formerly ConvertKit, with sign-up forms, landing pages, automated email sequences, paid newsletters and digital product sales. |
Grade F | 19 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | Partial | No | No | No | Yes | No | Not tested yet |
Newsletter platform for writing, sending and monetizing email newsletters, with websites, paid subscriptions, referral programs and an ad network that places sponsors in newsletters. |
Grade F | 13 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Not tested yet |
Questions
What is the most private option among newsletter platforms?
No pick has been made yet. The table above is sorted by score, based on public evidence.
How are newsletter platforms rated?
Each entry answers 9 questions: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, independent audit, transparency report, tells users about requests, TLS configuration, security headers and modern web standards. Answers need links to evidence. See the full criteria.
Does jurisdiction matter?
Jurisdiction decides which laws can compel a provider to hand over data. Each entry shows its country and whether it is in the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes. The data a provider can hand over depends mostly on what it stores and who holds the keys. Read about jurisdictions and the CLOUD Act.