A recommendation is a choice you make for your readers
Kit’s help center describes the Creator Network as a way to recommend creators your audience may be interested in, so that when people subscribe to your list they see your recommendations and can decide to join those creators’ lists too. Subscribers decide, but you decide what they are offered.
The same pages describe free recommendations, paid recommendations and automatic Smart Recommendations, and a creator can end up showing a mix. This article offers a short check to run before you fill your slots: slots, offers, words and track.
It is editorial synthesis built from five Kit help pages, not a Kit feature, and it does not estimate what recommendations will earn or bring in.
Choose how many to show, using your own subscriber flow
Kit’s overview and join guide disagree on the active pool limit. Kit’s overview describes a pool of 20 active recommendations, while its join guide describes 100; both describe a maximum of five recommendations displayed to a subscriber. These are different units, and the pool limits conflict. Check the current limit in your own account rather than choosing one document as definitive.
The overview’s historical arithmetic illustration assumes 100 new subscribers a day and 20% following a recommendation, then divides 20 referrals among ten or two creators. That is Kit’s illustration, not a conversion benchmark, a prediction of equal distribution, or a claim that 20 recommendations are displayed. Use observed results from your own flow.
The slot count is also an editorial limit. A long list can dilute each recommendation and make the choice harder for the reader, while a short list lets you describe each one with care.
Separate free recommendations from paid ones
Kit’s management page says free recommendations are recommendations you give other creators without receiving financial incentives, and paid recommendations are ones you give creators who offer financial incentives for sending quality subscribers their way. For a paid recommendation you can view its referral criteria, and you must be approved to recommend it.
The page also describes an Auto Pilot setting that adds paid recommendations you are pre-approved for, so you keep showing them if the budget for another runs out, and a Preferred status that prioritizes a paid recommendation subject to conditions such as geography and remaining budget. By default, your paid slots show one of your paid recommendations at random.
Smart Recommendations are automatic recommendations. The page describes five editable outgoing recommendation slots on all plans that you can set to show free or paid recommendations, with a way to block creators you do not want to receive recommendations from. This outgoing-slot configuration does not establish eligibility to receive incoming Smart Recommendations; the reporting guide scopes that incoming feature to paid-plan users.
Write your own description, and decide what to say about payment
The management page says you can add a customized description of why you are recommending a paid recommendation, and that your description replaces the default bio. It also says paid recommendations will not appear unless you customize your recommendation slots to display them.
The paid-enablement guide describes the label and setup. Kit’s paid-enablement guide, dated November 13, 2024, describes a Sponsored tag on paid recommendations and requires a SparkLoop connection and account approval before paid use. Preview your own current flow. As an editorial recommendation, describe the paid relationship clearly; the tag is not a guarantee of legal compliance.
For a hypothetical example, imagine an independent newsletter writer on spreadsheets who recommends one charting newsletter without payment and one course-tool newsletter that pays for referrals. A one-line description of why each fits, with the paid relationship stated for the second, lets readers weigh the recommendation knowing the arrangement.
Know what subscribers see about you, and track the result
Kit’s join page says that when other creators recommend you, subscribers see the profile picture, profile heading, optional byline and bio you set for your newsletter site. Check them before you turn recommendations on, since they are what readers of other lists see about you.
For results, Kit says the Subscribers page in your Creator Network settings reports on subscribers you received through recommendations, and that those subscribers are associated with a form named Creator Network. You can use that form to add them to a segment, send a broadcast or trigger an automation.
The reporting guide explains the reporting categories. The reporting guide dated June 24, 2026 distinguishes Incoming/Subscribers and the Creator Network form for subscribers received, Outgoing for free recommendations sent, and My Paid Recommendations for paid referrals. Net revenue reflects confirmed referrals after applicable fees; confirmation requires the creator’s conditions to be met. Pending referrals are not confirmed earnings. Report retention is not established by these sources. The earlier article on newsletter referral rewards and the one on Substack Creator Match cover related growth choices on other platforms.
Plan the slate with the newsletter, and keep a short record
Decide who to recommend when you plan the newsletter, not when a request arrives. If you plan your content with a creator tool such as Launchvibes, add the recommendation, whether it is free or paid, and the sentence you will use to describe it to the idea.
Keep a short record: who you recommend, which are paid, the description you wrote, the date you chose them, and what the Creator Network report showed. Kit updates its help pages, and the management page read for this article shows a September 23, 2026 update, so a dated note shows what you relied on.
Check the current pages and your own settings again before changing your slate. This article describes what the pages say at the time of writing and does not settle what disclosure your situation requires.