Reader-funded. Nothing else.
Money Molecule has a single revenue model: people who like the work pay for it directly. That’s the whole list.
We do this because every other model for funding finance content quietly compromises the content. If our recommendations decide our paycheck, the recommendations stop being honest — even when we mean them to be. The only way to give plain, unconflicted advice is to not have a horse in any of the races.
Current state.
Today the site is self-funded by the founder. Every article, every calculator, the Molecule AI assistant, the goal tracker — all of it is free for everyone. There is no paid tier active yet.
When membership opens, it’ll be an optional “support the work + get extras” tier. The free tier stays generous (every article, every calculator, daily Molecule questions, the Sunday letter). Paid is a way to fund the writing, not a paywall around it.
What we will never take money for.
- Affiliate links.If we link to a financial product, we earn nothing whether you click, sign up, or fund the account. No referral codes. No partner programs. No rev-share deals. We don’t have any open today and we won’t in the future.
- Sponsored content.No paid articles. No “in partnership with.” No sponsored newsletters. The only people who can pay to put words on this site are the readers whose names appear in the corrections log when they’re right.
- Display ads. The site will never run banner ads, native ads, or programmatic ad units of any kind. There is no negotiation on this.
- Lead generation. No filling out a calculator and getting your email sold to a mortgage lender, an insurance broker, or a wealth-management firm. The calculators store nothing about you unless you explicitly save a result as a goal on your own account.
- Selling user data.Your goal tracker, your bookmarks, the questions you ask Molecule, your email — none of it is sold, rented, or shared. We use it to power the product you’re using and nothing else.
Tools that route to free services.
Our calculators sometimes route you to a service — say, Money You’re Owedlinking to IRS Free File or the CRA’s volunteer tax clinics. Every one of those routes is chosen because it’s a free, official, non-commercial path. We don’t take a cut for the click. We won’t link to a paid tax-prep affiliate even when the conversion would be profitable.
Found something on this site that conflicts with this policy? Email info@moneymolecule.com and we’ll either explain what you’re seeing or remove it. See also the Editorial standards.