How We Make Money
The short answer: sponsors support this site in return for a clearly labeled spot, and nothing they do touches what a record says. The longer answer starts with why Sole Brief exists at all, because that's the only reason anyone would pay for it.
A sponsor can buy a place on the page. Nobody can buy what the page says.
Records are built from each platform's own published terms and public records, checked and dated, and the same rules apply to every platform, sponsor or not.
Why people are here
More people than ever are looking for a second income.
Rent, groceries and everything else cost more than they did a few years ago, and a lot of people are doing something about it on the side. Selling foot content is one of those somethings. It can be done without showing your face, it costs almost nothing to start, and real money moves through the platforms that host it.
of US adults have a side hustle, and 35% of them use the money for everyday living expenses.
Bankrate survey, reported July 9, 2025. Checked October 8, 2026.
of Canadians have a side hustle, and 57% of them started it for bills or essentials.
Omnisend survey of 1,029 Canadians, March 2026. Checked October 8, 2026.
People who decide to try it all hit the same wall next: which platform? Which one actually pays, what does it take, and who's behind it?
What we found when we went looking
It isn't that everyone is lying. It's that almost nobody is checking.
We read the pages that come up when you search for where to sell, how much you can make, and how to stay safe. Here is what kept showing up.
The platforms are grading themselves
Most of what ranks is written by the marketplaces: their blogs, their "best sites" lists, their "alternatives to" pages about each other. Unsurprisingly, each one comes out on top.
Ads dressed up as news
Some of the top safety results sit on well-known news sites but are paid press releases from the platforms. AI answers then repeat them, sometimes years after they were written.
Numbers with no source
Payout claims, earnings promises and scam statistics get copied from site to site without anyone saying where they came from. Once a number has been repeated ten times, it starts to look like a fact.
Platforms that disagree with themselves
We've found marketplaces stating different seller shares on different pages of their own site. Even our sponsor's record shows places where its pages don't agree. That's published, like any other finding.
None of that makes selling foot content a bad idea. It means the person deciding where to sell is doing it with marketing in front of them instead of facts.
What we do about it
One place to check a platform before you trust it with your work and your money.
Sole Brief is an independent registry of the platforms where people sell foot content. For every platform we answer the same 44 questions from its own published terms and from public records, show the source and the date for every figure, and say plainly when a platform doesn't publish something or contradicts itself.
Facts, side by side
What each platform takes, how it pays, who runs it and what it promises, in the same format for every one. See the platforms.
Shown, not summarized
Every figure links to the sentence it came from, so you never have to take our word for it. How we check.
Your call, not ours
We don't tell you which platform to pick. Many sellers use more than one. We just make sure you're choosing with real information.
Where the money comes from
Sponsorship, on rules written before any money changed hands.
Sole Brief is supported by sponsorship. In return for a clearly labeled sponsor position, that support helps cover what this site costs to run, mostly the time it takes to build and re-check every record each month.
A labeled sponsor spot in set places on the site, and a disclosure at the top of its own record so you always know.
A rating or a ranking. The wording of any record. The removal, softening or delay of a finding. Any say over which platforms we cover or how we check them.
Before we publish a significant finding about its own platform, the sponsor hears about it first, the same courtesy any platform can have, so it can send evidence. It can't change the wording or hold the finding back. If the sponsorship ended tomorrow, no record would change. Only the sponsor spot and this page would.
What we will never do
The lines that keep the records worth reading.
Sell a ranking or a better link
Every record gets the same plain link out to the platform. No platform can pay for a bigger one, a higher spot, or a kinder sentence.
Hide a paid placement
Anything paid for is labeled where you see it. Sponsor content never sits inside a finding, a figure or a source.
Slip in automatic affiliate links
No plugin quietly turns words on this site into paid links. Every link out is placed by a person, on purpose.
Sell your email address
The Monthly Brief is free, and the list stays with us. Unsubscribe any time.
Every sponsor, now or later, signs up to these same rules before anything runs.
We only make money if Sole Brief is genuinely useful to the people choosing where to sell. That's the whole business. Questions about any of it? Contact the desk.
