Hamsterra vs BookFunnel

100 readers per campaign, 100 invitation emails in any 30 days, 500 MiB of files, 1 pen name. No time limit.

No free author plan is listed in the published price grid. The lowest plan is First-Time Author at $30 a year.

No trial: the Free plan has no end date.

No free trial is listed. The 30-day full refund is a refund policy on paid plans, not a trial.

Subscription: Stash €8 a month before VAT (UK consumers: €9.60 including 20% VAT), Hoard €15 a month before VAT (UK consumers: €18 including 20% VAT). No per-book or per-reader fees.

Subscription per account, yearly or monthly by plan, from $30 a year. Extra downloads cost $5 per 1,000; audiobooks are a separate add-on.

Open sign-up after email verification. No book approval before publishing.

Open sign-up on a paid plan. Certified Mail ARCs may only go to vetted, engaged readers and are not for marketing.

Invitations to readers who opted in on Hamsterra, counted against the invitation limit. No import of an existing contact list.

All plans: private download links with limits or expiry, sent by the author’s own mailer. Mid-List and above: Certified Mail to up to 500 ARC-team members a month.

Published campaigns appear in the public ARC catalogue while eligible for listing. No paid promotion.

BookFunnel says it is “not a promotional platform” and has no reader list. Group promos are shared by the authors taking part.

No private, link-only or invite-only campaign setting.

All landing pages are private, reachable only by link; Certified Mail links are unique per reader.

The author approves or declines each application, manually or automatically, with an optional form.

No reader application step found. The author supplies the Certified Mail recipient list and can add or remove readers.

Contacts with consent history and tags; CSV export of eligible contacts who opted into the author’s reader list; blocked readers. No contact import or notes.

A CSV of emails collected per page and a Certified Mail download CSV exist; a reader record across campaigns is not publicly confirmed.

EPUB and PDF download. No browser reading, no Send to Kindle, no audiobooks.

EPUB, PDF and media files. Readers download, email or send to Kindle, or use the BookFunnel app or browser Cloud Reader; audiobooks are an add-on.

Readers add up to 10 review links; reminder rules. Self-reported, not checked on review sites.

Certified Mail sends a reminder and a release-day review request; tracking whether a review was posted is not publicly confirmed.

Up to 5,000 characters with any result.

No reader-to-author feedback feature found on the checked pages.

1 open magnet on Free; 5 or 20 on paid plans.

All plans deliver magnets from the author’s own sign-up form. Mid-List and above collect emails on BookFunnel and sync to 4 or 6 mailing lists.

5 giveaways at a time on Free; on paid plans the limit follows the giveaway rating.

A Promotions board for multi-author newsletter and sales promos, with tracking links. New accounts: up to 10 promos a month for 90 days.

Each campaign copy shows the reader’s name and a Copy ID; a free-book copy shows the reader’s email. Not DRM.

Mid-List and above: optional visible EPUB mark, by default “Book made for {{email}}”, and the email stamped on PDF pages. Simple download pages are not marked.

Last 30 days on Free; 12 months, sources and CSV export on paid plans.

Real-time download counts, a Certified Mail download report, and promo views, cover clicks and claims. Review outcomes are not publicly confirmed.