Does SponsorCal find sponsors for me?+–
No. SponsorCal doesn't sell your inventory, pitch brands or introduce you to anyone. What it does is give the sponsor interest you already have somewhere to land: your rates published, your open issues visible, and a way to pay that isn't a thread of emails.
Does it work on Ghost Pro and self-hosted Ghost?+–
Yes, both. It goes in as an HTML card, which is standard editor functionality rather than a plan-level feature. It needs no theme access and no code injection, so it also works on tiers where those are restricted.
Do I need to write any code?+–
No. You copy one snippet and paste it into an HTML card. There is nothing to configure.
What do email subscribers see?+–
Not the calendar. Ghost is explicit that modern email clients disable embeds for security, iframes included, so no booking calendar renders inside a newsletter send. That's an email client limitation, not a SponsorCal one, and it applies to every embed you might put in a Ghost post.
Ghost gives you the fix in the editor: an HTML card carries its own visibility setting for web and email, so you can show the calendar on your site and hide it from the send. Link email readers to a standing Sponsor page instead, and the link travels while the calendar works on the web.
Ghost: can I use embeds in email newsletters? ↗
Will it slow my newsletter down?+–
No. It's server-rendered, cached for five minutes and lazy-loaded, so it only loads once a reader actually reaches it, after the rest of your post.
Will it change my theme or affect my search rankings?+–
Neither. It drops in with one tag and never touches your theme, CSS or layout. The embed is noindex, so it never competes with your own pages in search results.
Can sponsors pay inside the embed?+–
Your calendar is already sitting in an iframe inside your post, and Stripe advises against nesting checkout inside another frame, because some payment methods need to redirect at the top level to confirm. Checkout opens in a secure new tab instead, which keeps every supported payment method working.
While they pay, that issue is held for 10 minutes so the same slot can't be sold twice. If they don't finish, it goes back on the calendar.
Stripe: avoid placing Checkout within another iframe ↗
When do I get paid?+–
Your sponsor is charged the moment they book. Your payout releases 7 days after you publish the issue and mark it published. That gap is a dispute buffer, and it's the same on every booking.
Nothing runs until you approve their assets and publish.
What should I charge?+–
There's no universal rate. It moves with your list size, your niche, and what a sponsor is actually buying. We've written up how the published benchmarks work and where their numbers come from.
Newsletter sponsorship pricing →
What if I skip an issue or change my schedule?+–
Move the booking to another date from your dashboard, or refund it outright. A refunded booking frees the slot again, and your sponsor gets the full amount back.
What does it cost?+–
5% of a booking, and only when one is paid. Stripe's processing fees come out of that 5%, not your 95%. There is no monthly fee and no card required to set up.
Does it work outside Ghost?+–
Yes, anywhere you can paste an HTML embed: Webflow, WordPress, custom sites, your own landing page.
