# Newsletter platforms privacy ratings

Tools for sending email newsletters and mailing lists.

| Name | Grade | Jurisdiction | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Forward Email](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/forward-email/) | B (84/100) | United States (Five Eyes) | 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. |
| [listmonk](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/listmonk/) | B (80/100) | Unknown | 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. |
| [Keila](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/keila/) | D (59/100) | Germany (Fourteen Eyes) | 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. |
| [phpList](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/phplist/) | D (47/100) | United Kingdom (Five Eyes) | 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. |
| [Mailchimp](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/mailchimp/) | F (34/100) | United States (Five Eyes) | Email marketing platform owned by Intuit for building mailing lists, sending newsletters and automated campaigns, and tracking opens and clicks. |
| [Buttondown](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/buttondown/) | F (28/100) | United States (Five Eyes) | Hosted newsletter service for writing and sending email newsletters in Markdown, with paid subscriptions, archives, custom domains and an API. |
| [Substack](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/substack/) | F (25/100) | United States (Five Eyes) | 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. |
| [Kit](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/kit/) | F (19/100) | United States (Five Eyes) | Email marketing platform for creators, formerly ConvertKit, with sign-up forms, landing pages, automated email sequences, paid newsletters and digital product sales. |
| [beehiiv](https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/beehiiv/) | F (13/100) | United States (Five Eyes) | Newsletter platform for writing, sending and monetizing email newsletters, with websites, paid subscriptions, referral programs and an ad network that places sponsors in newsletters. |

## Criteria

- **Open source** (weight 3): Is all the source code needed to run the product public?
- **No trackers or telemetry** (weight 3): Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
- **No ads or data sales** (weight 2): Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
- **Independent audit** (weight 2): Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
- **Transparency report** (weight 2): Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
- **Tells users about requests** (weight 1): Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?
- **TLS configuration** (weight 2, automated): Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
- **Security headers** (weight 1, automated): Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
- **Modern web standards** (weight 1, automated): Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?

Source: https://privacyratings.com/newsletters/