Methodology
How the numbers are recorded
Short version: the same eight list sizes every week, monthly and annual kept apart, one assumption written down for send priced vendors, and a confidence rating on every single cell.
The dataset in numbers
- Verified cells
- 53
- Off the vendor page, or two trackers agreeing
- Derived cells
- 36
- Calculated from a published rule
- Estimate cells
- 24
- Sources disagree or the stop is interpolated
Breakpoints
These never move. That is what makes one week comparable to the next.
- 500 contacts
- 1,000 contacts
- 2,500 contacts
- 5,000 contacts
- 10,000 contacts
- 25,000 contacts
- 50,000 contacts
- 100,000 contacts
Fixed breakpoints, every week
Every vendor is priced at the same eight list sizes: 500, 1,000, 2,500, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 contacts. The breakpoints never move, which is what makes one snapshot comparable to the next.
A list size that falls between a vendor's own tier stops is recorded at the stop the vendor would actually bill, which is the stop above. Where that matters the cell note says so.
Monthly and annual are separate numbers
Two prices are recorded per cell: the month to month price, and the per month cost of paying for a year up front. Several vendors show only the annual figure by default and label it per month, which makes them look cheaper than a monthly biller will pay.
When a vendor publishes no annual price, the annual column is left empty. It is not filled with a guess.
Send based vendors need an assumption
Brevo prices on emails sent per month, not on list size, so it cannot be placed at a contact breakpoint without an assumption. SideBySend assumes four sends per contact per month, which is one weekly campaign and nothing else.
Automations, welcome sequences and transactional mail all add volume on top of that. A Brevo bill for a list that runs sequences will be higher than the number in the table.
Confidence is recorded per cell, not per vendor
Each cell carries one of four ratings. Verified means the number came off the vendor page or was corroborated by two independent trackers. Derived means it follows from a published rule. Estimate means the sources disagree or the stop is interpolated. Not published means the vendor sells nothing there.
Mixing these ratings in one table is deliberate. A pricing table that looks uniformly confident is lying somewhere.
What is not in the numbers
Add ons are excluded: SMS credits, dedicated IPs, branding removal, extra CRM pipelines, transactional email sold as a separate product. Tax is excluded. Nonprofit and promotional discounts are excluded unless a vendor publishes them as standing pricing.
Feature parity is not claimed. The cheapest paid plan at a given list size may not include automation, landing pages or extra seats. Plan names are shown in every cell so the comparison stays honest.
Corrections
A wrong cell gets fixed in the next snapshot, and the correction is written into the changelog rather than quietly overwritten. The point of the archive is that old numbers stay readable.
The weekly loop
Updating the dataset is a data edit and a rebuild, not a content rewrite.
- 1Open each vendor pricing page and read the eight breakpoints off the calculator or table.
- 2Update the cells that moved, and update the verified date only on the cells actually rechecked.
- 3Bump the snapshot number and snapshot date.
- 4Add a changelog entry for anything that moved, and one line for the snapshot itself.
- 5Rebuild and deploy, which republishes the timestamps.
Confidence ratings
- Verified
- Read from the vendor pricing page, or the same number reported by two independent trackers.
- Derived
- Calculated from a rule the vendor publishes, such as a stated annual discount or a tier ceiling.
- Estimate
- Sources disagree, or the breakpoint sits between published stops. Rough figure, use it as a range.
- Not published
- The vendor publishes nothing at this point, so no number is shown.
Assumptions that could be wrong
What this site is not
Not a review site. There is no scoring of deliverability, no template gallery walkthrough and no verdict on which platform is better. Those judgements go stale, and plenty of other sites already make them.
Not a lead generator either. There are no affiliate links on this site today, no vendor links dressed up as recommendations, and no ranking that changes for money. If commission links are added later, the footer disclosure says so and the numbers stay where they are.