About BylineBase
A small independent desk that reads blogging platforms’ pricing pages so you do not have to, and writes down what it finds with the date attached.
BylineBase reviews places to publish writing. That is the whole remit. We do not cover website builders in general, shop platforms, or the wider business of getting a site online — only the specific question of where a person who writes should put what they write.
How a platform gets assessed
Three things decide a score here, weighted in this order.
The bill, over time. Not the advertised monthly figure but the real one: what you pay in year one, what happens when the introductory domain renews, and what the plan above costs when you outgrow the one you are on. Annual-billing rates are always identified as annual-billing rates.
The writing experience. Whether the editor helps or interrupts, especially for long pieces. This is the most subjective part of the assessment and we say so rather than dressing preference as measurement.
The exit. What the export produces, and whether any other software can read it. A platform that makes leaving painless has made a promise about how it intends to treat you while you stay.
What this desk will not do
We do not publish load times, Lighthouse scores or throughput figures for other people’s platforms. Running that kind of testing credibly requires controlled conditions this desk does not have, and inventing the numbers would be worse than omitting them. Where we judge a platform’s technical behaviour, it is an assessment of documented capability.
We do not invent testimonials. There are no fabricated user quotes anywhere on this site.
We do not soften a verdict for a partner. The highest-rated platform in the field guide is free software you can run yourself, which should tell you something about how the ranking is built.
Dates, and why they are everywhere
Every price on this site carries a date it was last read at source, and the site’s FACTS file records the URL each figure came from. Platforms change terms without announcement — a plan renamed, a limit lowered, a feature moved between tiers — and a review with no date on it is a review you cannot trust. When we re-read a page and something has moved, the piece is updated and the date changes with it.
If you find a figure that has drifted since we last looked, the contact page is the fastest way to tell us. Corrections are made the same week.
How this is paid for
Some outbound links to platforms are partner links. If you subscribe through one, this desk earns a commission and you pay exactly what you would have paid anyway. That revenue covers the time spent reading pricing pages and the cost of keeping the site up. It buys nothing else — not a placement, not a score, not a kind word. The affiliate disclosure has the detail.