How newsletter points and rankings work

Everything your readers do earns points, and so does writing. One rule covers all of it: every action is worth a fixed number of points, and everything it touches gets them. When a subscriber reads your email, that subscriber, the email, its author and your newsletter each get 1 point.

What earns points

Action	Points	Who gets them
Someone subscribes from your page, a form or the directory	+5	Your newsletter. If they joined from an email's page, that email and its author too. If a friend's invite link brought them, that friend too
A subscriber reads, likes, comments on or shares an email	+1 each	The subscriber, the email, its author and your newsletter
You send an email to 10 or more people	+3	The email, its author and your newsletter
Someone unsubscribes	-5	Takes back the 5 their joining gave
A new subscriber's address bounces within 7 days of joining	-5	Takes back the 5 their joining gave

A few rules keep it fair:

• Once per person per email. Read, like, comment and share each count once per person per email.
• Joining counts once. Rejoining doesn't score again, and leaving takes back only what joining gave.
• Your own team never scores. You and your team reading, liking or subscribing to your own newsletter earns nothing.
• Only organic subscribers count. People you import, add by hand or invite give no subscriber points.
• One scoring send a day. Only the first email you send each day (UK time) earns its 3 points.

Spam reports and bounces

Seven days after an email goes out, once late spam reports and bounces have arrived, we check its rates. This only applies to emails delivered to 200 people or more. If the rates are high, the email, its author and your newsletter lose points. Your readers never do.

Spam reports (of delivered)	Hard bounces (of sent)	Points
Under 0.05%	Under 1%	0
0.05% to 0.08%	1% to 2%	-5
0.08% to 0.1%	2% to 3%	-10
0.1% to 0.2%	3% to 5%	-20
0.2% or more	5% or more	-40

The two are checked separately, so one email can lose points for both. An email at 0.2% spam or 5% bounces also pauses your sending straight away. See Sending reputation.

How you're ranked

Rankings are points earned inside a window: the last 30 days, the last 90 days or all time. Nothing else counts. If two newsletters have the same points, they're listed by name.

• The leaderboard and topic pages rank newsletters by points. To appear, a newsletter must be listed in the directory and not opted out of the leaderboard. The 30 and 90 day boards show points earned in the window ("+48 pts"); all time shows the total.
• "#3 overall" and "#1 in Tech" on your page come from the 30-day board.
• Newsletter of the Month goes to the newsletter with the most points earned in a calendar month (UK time). It gets a gold badge on its page.
• Recommendations rank newsletters by their points in the last 30 days, so a newsletter that's growing and sending gets shown more. Pro newsletters get a small boost on top.
• Your emails are ranked among your own emails by all-time points, in the Emails table and on each email's Stats tab.
• Authors earn points from the emails they write, and their profile shows their total.

Where to see your points

• Home: each newsletter's points and place.
• A newsletter's Stats tab: where its points came from.
• The Newsletters and Emails tables: a Points and a Rank column.
• A subscriber's Stats tab: their points, level and place among your subscribers.

Leaderboards update every hour, and subscriber levels once a day.