Paved vs Who Sponsors Stuff: should a newsletter wait for brands or pitch them?

Paved is a free marketplace where brands book your flat-fee slots, but its Marketplace needs 50,000 subscribers; under that, its free Booker page is open to anyone. Who Sponsors Stuff is a sponsor database you pitch from: a free plan with about 10% of it and no contacts, or Sales Pro at a price you ask for. Pick Paved to be found, Who Sponsors Stuff to pitch.

By Ryan Doyle, founder of Book a Sponsor · Published 12 November 2026

Every fact about Paved and Who Sponsors Stuff comes from its own pages, read 12 November 2026, and links to its source.

Book a Sponsor (bookasponsor.com) pitches brands to sponsor newsletters.

Paved and Who Sponsors Stuff, side by side

Checked 12 November 2026. Sources: Paved's publisher page and FAQ, Paved's Booker page and FAQ, Paved's sign-up article (subscriber minimums), Paved's Ad Network payouts article, Who Sponsors Stuff's Sales Pro page, Who Sponsors Stuff's sign-up page and plan list, Who Sponsors Stuff's terms of service.

	Paved	Who Sponsors Stuff
What it is	A newsletter ad marketplace, a pay-per-click ad network and Booker, a free booking page	A database of brands that sponsor newsletters, run by Email Revenue Solutions, an outside ad sales team
How you get sponsors	Brands find your profile and book direct partnerships at your rates; the Ad Network fills spare slots with pay-per-click ads	You search sponsors by keyword or vertical, then contact them yourself
Price to you	Free: no subscription fees; Booker is free, and Stripe adds 2.9% on every transaction	A free plan; Sales Pro has no public price (a contact form) and is billed yearly in advance
What it takes from your deals	No commission is stated on its publisher or Booker pages	Nothing: it plays no part in your deals
Subscriber minimum	50,000 for the Marketplace; 1 million monthly impressions for pay-per-click ads; none for Booker	None stated
Free way to start	A free profile and a free Booker page	The free plan: roughly 10% of the database and 10 new sponsors a week by email
Brand contacts	None: brands come to you	Direct contacts for decision-makers, on Sales Pro only
Who does the selling and the paperwork	Brands book you; Paved handles invoicing, contracts and payouts, and you approve bookings and creative	You or your sales team: it supplies names, contacts, ad images and alerts
How you get paid	Booker pays out same day through Stripe; Ad Network earnings are paid net-60 once you reach $1,000	The brand pays you directly
Size of the data	Not stated for brands; it calls itself the largest newsletter ad marketplace	Its Sales Pro page says 10,000+ sponsors with contacts and 500+ newsletters; its sign-up page says 4,000+ sponsors and more than 250 newsletters
Refunds	Nothing to refund: no subscription	No refunds on cancellation, per its terms (last updated April 25, 2022)
Where it falls short	Under 50,000 subscribers only Booker is open, and a brand has to find you	No price on the page, a yearly bill, and you send every pitch

What each one costs on a $300 sponsorship

$300 is the median main-slot price newsletters of 5,000 to 19,999 subscribers print (121 newsletters, read 11 November 2026).

Paved Booker: Stripe's 2.9% is $8.70, so you keep $291.30. Paved's pages publish no commission of their own.
Paved Marketplace (50,000+ subscribers): Its pages state no subscription and no commission, and Paved handles the invoicing. Ask what share it keeps before you count on the full price.
Who Sponsors Stuff Free: Nothing, but the free plan has no contact details, so you still have to find the person who buys the ads.
Who Sponsors Stuff Sales Pro: Nothing from the deal. The yearly price is on request: divide the quote by $300 to see how many slots cover a year.

What is the real difference between Paved and Who Sponsors Stuff?

Who starts the conversation. On Paved a brand finds your profile or your Booker page and books you, and Paved runs the paperwork. With Who Sponsors Stuff you get the list of brands already buying newsletter ads, the ads they ran and, on Sales Pro, the person to email, and then you write and send the pitch.

So the question is your list size and your time. At 50,000 subscribers or more, Paved's Marketplace puts you where brands shop. Below that, Booker is a free page Paved says it matches with brands, and a database you pitch from starts deals on your schedule, if you will send the emails.

When Paved is the better pick

You have 50,000 subscribers or more and want brands to book flat-fee placements without a pitch from you.
You want invoicing, contracts and payouts handled, and every ad reviewed by Paved before it runs.
You want spare slots filled with pay-per-click ads from matched advertisers, and can wait for net-60 payouts.
You want a free booking page today: Booker has no subscriber minimum and pays out the same day.

When Who Sponsors Stuff is the better pick

You or a sales person will send the pitches, and you want to choose the brands yourself.
You want to see who is buying newsletter ads now: it says it sees about 20 new sponsors a day.
You want the ad creatives brands ran elsewhere, with landing pages and tracking codes, to tailor your pitch.
You run a team: Sales Pro is built for professional sales teams, with CSV files for your CRM and custom alerts.

If neither fits

Maybe you are under Paved's minimum, and you won't write and send pitches from a database. Book a Sponsor emails the brands that sponsored newsletters like yours and introduces you when one replies, on a plan from $19 a month. It takes nothing from your deals and collects no payments, so it works alongside a Paved Booker page. See Book a Sponsor vs Paved and Book a Sponsor vs Who Sponsors Stuff.

For other options like each one, see the Paved alternatives and Who Sponsors Stuff alternatives pages, or the plan-by-plan Paved pricing and Who Sponsors Stuff pricing.

Sources

Paved's publisher page and FAQ, read 12 November 2026
Paved's Booker page and FAQ, read 12 November 2026
Paved's sign-up article (subscriber minimums), read 12 November 2026
Paved's Ad Network payouts article, read 12 November 2026
Who Sponsors Stuff's Sales Pro page, read 12 November 2026
Who Sponsors Stuff's sign-up page and plan list, read 12 November 2026
Who Sponsors Stuff's terms of service, read 12 November 2026
Newsletter sponsorship rates by list size, our read of newsletters' rate pages, 11 November 2026

Questions

Is Paved or Who Sponsors Stuff better for a small newsletter?

Under 50,000 subscribers Paved's Marketplace is closed to you, but Booker, its free booking page, has no minimum. Who Sponsors Stuff has no stated minimum: its free plan shows about 10% of the database, and contacts need Sales Pro (pages read 12 November 2026).

Which one costs less?

Paved is free to join, and Booker adds Stripe's 2.9% per transaction. Who Sponsors Stuff is free to browse, and Sales Pro is billed yearly at a price it doesn't publish, with no refunds on cancellation (read 12 November 2026).

Does Paved or Who Sponsors Stuff pitch brands for me?

No. On Paved brands come to you; with Who Sponsors Stuff you send the pitches. Its parent company, Email Revenue Solutions, sells ads for newsletters as an outside sales team, separately.

Can I use Paved and Who Sponsors Stuff together?

Yes. Nothing on their pages rules it out: a free Paved profile or Booker page can take bookings while you pitch the brands you find in Who Sponsors Stuff.

How much do newsletters charge for a sponsorship?

The median main slot at 5,000 to 19,999 subscribers is $300 (121 newsletters, read 11 November 2026); the rates page has every list size.

Or have the brands that already buy pitched for you

Paste your newsletter. Book a Sponsor lists the brands that sponsored newsletters like yours, finds the person who buys the ads, and emails them every day from its own mailboxes. You get the replies and close the deal.

$1 card check gets 200 emails, then a plan from $19/mo · first sponsor reply inside 30 days or your money back