Guild, by Typeset Tools Coming soon
Grown by writers.
Not ad budgets.
Building an audience as a writer online has never been harder. Social feeds and paid placements reward volume over craft, and search engines now answer with AI summaries instead of sending readers to your work. Guild connects independent writers who have something to say, so each of you can share a point of view with the other’s readers, and your growth isn’t tied to the whims of a feed.
Guild is under construction. Waitlist sign-ups get first dibs.
Why Guild
Why we’re building Guild
The belief
At the heart of Guild is the belief that human creativity is worth rewarding. Creativity is an expression of our shared humanity, yet we find ourselves in a cultural and economic moment where it’s often devalued and overlooked because AI and spammy marketing tactics have reduced its role online to a game of exploitation and algorithm manipulation.
The problem
Every platform writers depend on is now optimized to reward whoever spends the most or produces the most, not whoever writes the best. Algorithmic feeds surface volume. Paid placements surface budget. AI tools make it cheap to flood both.
The opposite way
Guild works the opposite way: writers grow each other’s audiences directly, by recommending the peers they’d actually vouch for. No feed decides who you reach. Another writer who read your work does. That’s slower than buying subscribers, and it’s the only kind of growth that’s actually worth having.
No platform lock-in
Unlike recommendation engines built into platforms like Substack and Beehiiv, we don’t lock you into only recommending publications that happen to be on the same platform as you. We also hold members to strict quality requirements, so you’ll never be asked to promote slop or find yourself mentioned in a slop-filled publication.
The founding cohort
We’re starting small, with writers who want a say.
Guild is still being built. Even before you can log in, you can join the waitlist for access, and take our human-first content pledge when it opens.
We’re writers solving for writers, so the first group of members, 50 to 150 of them, will have a direct line to us while we build. Tell us what’s confusing, what’s missing, and what you’d change, and we’ll change it where it makes sense.
0
members today.
Coming soon: founding cohort applications open.
Some platforms inflate their membership numbers with bot and inactive accounts to make a splash at launch. We don’t. We only want flesh-and-blood humans, though think how good that number will look once you’ve signed up.
How it works
How it works
Guild works by matching you with other writers who have similar audiences to yours, regardless of the platform they are currently using.
Once you select and approve the publications you want to promote, we give you custom links and scripts to set up once. After that they keep working in the background, with no need to update your links or embeds as your recommendations change.
You and your fellow Guild mates drive subscribers to each other, and we keep track of the flow of referrals to make sure there’s an even balance of referring and receiving.
Curious how this works in practice? Join the waitlist! More details coming soon.
Illustrative demo: try clicking Subscribe. Nothing here is real, and no one is actually subscribed.
This is a made-up publication. Clicking Subscribe sends nothing anywhere.
Compared
How Guild compares
Substack, beehiiv and SparkLoop already offer recommendations. Here’s how they differ from what we’re building. Competitor details come from each company’s own help and pricing pages, checked October 2026. Guild’s column describes the plan for launch.
| Feature | Substack | beehiiv | SparkLoop | Guild (planned) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Built into Substack | Built into beehiiv | A separate service that connects to your email platform | A separate service, open to any newsletter platform |
| Free recommendations between peers | Yes | Yes, on every plan | Yes | Yes, in the Free plan |
| Pay-per-subscriber placements | Not listed | Yes, on paid plans, with a 20% fee | Yes. 20% commission plus 3.5% fees on Partner Network payouts | No, by design |
| How you get in | Turn recommendations on for your publication | Automatic checks: public, posted in the last 60 days, name and logo set | Apply to become a partner | Application reviewed by hand |
Sources: Substack, beehiiv, SparkLoop pricing guide and Partner Network page. Features and fees change; check each company for current terms.
Waitlist
Join the waitlist
Applications for the founding cohort open on a rolling basis. Tell us about your publication and we’ll reach out when your spot opens.
I’m a Writer
Apply to the founding cohort. We review by hand. Expect a real reply, not an autoresponder.