Shown, not told

Example scores real blogs against a fixed six-dimension rubric and publishes every number, including its own.

One send per teardown. 4,112 subscribers, 52% open rate, published monthly.

Latest teardown · No. 41

Aug 12, 2026 · Rubric v1.0
Composite
3.2
/ 5

Ranks 19th of 41 blogs scored to date. Median composite across the set is 3.0.

Hub strength
4
Discovery
3
Craft
4
Monetization
2
Distribution
3
Compounding
3
Teardown · Ghost · 14 min read

A 240-post archive with clean typography and no email capture above the fold on any of its top ten entry pages. The craft is already paid for. The conversion layer was never built.

Three prioritized fixes
01

Put an inline capture unit in the top ten entry posts

Capture 0.4% to 1.8%
02

Build tag hubs for the four recurring subjects

Discovery 3 to 4
03

Price the sponsorship slot that is already being given away

Monetization 2 to 4

Platform and algorithm changes that move publisher numbers.

Aug 11, 2026 · 3 min
Discovery

Worth shipping a full-text feed before you touch the sitemap again.

Aug 6, 2026 · 2 min
Distribution

The smaller the list, the less the network sends back.

Jul 29, 2026 · 4 min
Distribution

Authentication is now the price of landing in the inbox.

Platform reference, scored by what each choice costs you in the rubric.

Ghost wins on time to publish. WordPress wins on everything you add later.

Affects Craft and Monetization

The redirect map matters more than the export file.

Affects Hub strength

Sending is a commodity. Owning the list and its data is not.

Affects Distribution loop

Canon

Method
The rubric, v1.0

Six dimensions, what each is worth, and what a 1 and a 5 look like.

Report · July 2026
Example's own numbers

4,112 subscribers, $3,180 revenue, 2 audits sold, 1 refund issued.

Benchmarks
41 blogs, measured the same way

Median capture rate 1.1%. Median LCP 2.4s. Median 3 internal links per post.

Audit
The paid version

Same rubric, your site, private, with the implementation sequence written out.

The score set

Every teardown resolves to one composite out of 5, built from six sub-scores weighted equally. The set is the point: one score says little, forty-one scored the same way say what a category looks like.

Ghost · Aug 12, 2026
3.2
4
3
4
2
3
3

Clean archive, no capture unit on any top entry page.

WordPress · Aug 5, 2026
3.7
4
4
4
3
4
3

Strong tag hubs. Sponsorship priced under comparable inventory.

Substack · Jul 29, 2026
2.5
2
3
4
2
2
2

Everything rents the platform. No owned hub to compound into.

Ghost · Jul 22, 2026
4.0
4
4
5
4
4
3

Best craft score in the set. Compounding held back by a flat archive.

Static · Jul 15, 2026
3.0
3
3
4
2
3
3

Fast and well built. Nothing asks the reader for anything.

WordPress · Jul 8, 2026
2.8
3
2
4
3
3
2

Good writing buried under a search-only navigation.

Next teardown · Aug 26

Read the score before the subject does

Each send is one scored blog, the three fixes, and what changed on the sites scored earlier. Nothing else goes out.

Twice monthly. Unsubscribe link in every send. The list is never rented or shared.

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