# Scribeless

> Scribeless is a handwritten direct mail platform that generates realistic handwriting with AI and reproduces it on premium FSC-certified stationery at production facilities in North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany, then mails each piece with a local postmark; pricing is a single per-card rate from £1.99 down to £1.19 that already includes domestic postage, with QR tracking, 50-plus integrations, and an API included.

- Category: Corporate Gifting & Direct Mail (https://saastracker.org/categories/direct-mail-gifting)
- Website: https://www.scribeless.co
- Starting price: £1.99 per card, domestic postage included
- Free plan: No
- Free trial: No free trial; physical samples are available so you can judge the handwriting before committing
- Founded: 2018, HQ: United Kingdom, Ownership: Venture-backed, founder-led
- Profile last reviewed: 2026-08-22
- Canonical profile: https://saastracker.org/products/scribeless

## Overview

Scribeless was started by two University of Bristol graduates, Robert Van Den Bergh and Alex Robinson, who built software that generates handwriting convincing enough that they used it to raise their own seed round: they wrote to investors with the product and closed £400,000 led by RLC Ventures, with Ascension Ventures and SuperSeed participating, after winning £25,000 at the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards. It is the European entry in a category otherwise dominated by Arizona robotics companies.

The commercial design is the most legible in the category. There is one number per card and it already includes domestic postage: £1.99 for the first 499, £1.79 from 500, £1.59 from 1,500, £1.39 from 3,000, and £1.19 from 5,000, with custom quoting above 10,000. Nothing is bolted on afterwards. Where the note is going changes the underlying stamp cost the company absorbs (£0.59 in the US, £0.70 in Canada, £0.91 in the UK, £0.97 in the eurozone, £1.30 elsewhere), and US campaigns above 1,000 pieces can use pre-sorted stamps at £0.30 to bring the effective cost down further.

Geographically it does something none of its US competitors do: it prints and mails from facilities in North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany, so a letter to a Berlin prospect gets a German postmark and a domestic transit time rather than arriving as international mail from Phoenix three weeks later. Most campaigns turn around in one to two business days on premium FSC-certified stock, and the platform ships worldwide from whichever facility is closest.

The honest caveat is the technology. Handwrytten and Simply Noted hold real ballpoint pens; Scribeless describes AI-generated handwriting reproduced through advanced printing, positioned as indiscernible from a human hand rather than as robotic penmanship. Reviewers and the company's own testimonials support the claim that most recipients believe it was written by hand, but there is no ink indentation to feel. Request a physical sample and decide for yourself, because that single question determines whether Scribeless belongs on your shortlist or not.

## How it works

1. You build a template in the platform: choose a handwriting style, add images, dynamic artwork, a QR code, and whatever brand controls you need. Templates are reusable, so a campaign shape is designed once and run repeatedly.

2. Recipients arrive by CSV upload or through a live connection to a CRM, ecommerce platform, marketing automation tool, or the API. Scribeless advertises more than 50 integrations, which is what allows a note to fire from a purchase, a lifecycle stage, or a lapsed-customer trigger rather than a manual export.

3. The job routes to whichever production facility is closest to the recipient across North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. Each piece is produced on premium FSC-certified stationery and mailed domestically from that country, so it carries a local postmark and moves at domestic speed. Most campaigns turn around in one to two business days.

4. Tracking runs off the QR code printed on the piece plus campaign-level analytics: sends, scans, unique scanners, repeat engagement, campaign volume, and an ROI view. Because the scan is tied to the individual recipient, this is the signal you carry back into the CRM to argue the mail influenced pipeline.

## Best for

European and multi-country teams who need mail to land domestically in several markets, and any small business that wants one all-in per-piece price with postage included rather than a rate card plus a postage line plus a platform fee.

## Not the right fit for

- Buyers who insist on real pen indentation; Scribeless uses AI-generated handwriting reproduced by printing, not a pen-holding robot, so it fails the thumb-smudge test that Handwrytten and Simply Noted pass.
- Anyone without mailing addresses, since there is no email-first choice link and no address collection from the recipient.
- Teams wanting a gift catalog, recipient choice, or spend approval workflows; this is direct mail, not a gifting governance platform.
- US-only high-volume senders chasing the absolute floor on price, where Simply Noted's flat-rate unlimited plan and 50,000-card tier go considerably lower.
- Buyers who need pricing in dollars with no currency exposure; the rate card is published in pounds sterling and the exchange rate is your problem, not the vendor's.

## Features

### Handwriting and materials

What the piece actually looks and feels like when it lands.

- **AI-generated handwriting**: The core technology generates realistic handwriting rather than repeating a fixed font, varying letterforms across a batch. The company positions it as indiscernible from a human hand; it is printed rather than penned, which is the honest distinction to test with a sample.
- **Multiple handwriting styles**: Styles are selected per template, so a nonprofit appeal and a B2B follow-up can carry visibly different hands rather than one house style across every campaign.
- **Premium FSC-certified stationery**: Materials are sourced to FSC certification across all production facilities, which matters both for the feel of the piece and for buyers with sustainability reporting obligations.
- **Direct mail with envelope, or postcard**: Both formats are priced on the same volume rate card, so choosing between an enclosed letter and a postcard is a design decision rather than a budgeting one.
- **Custom stationery design**: Branded card fronts, dynamic artwork, and embedded images are configured within the template builder rather than requiring a separate design engagement.
- **Local postmarks**: Because production is in-country, the piece carries a domestic postmark for its destination market. A German recipient gets German mail, not a foreign envelope that reads as bulk before it is opened.

### International production and delivery

The genuine differentiator against every US competitor in this category.

- **Facilities across five markets**: Production sites in North America, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, with jobs routed to whichever is closest to the recipient.
- **Domestic postage included in the price**: The quoted per-card rate already covers the stamp, so there is no separate postage line to model. This alone makes cost comparison against US vendors easier than it looks.
- **Destination-specific stamp economics**: The absorbed stamp cost is published by market: £0.59 for the US, £0.70 for Canada, £0.91 for the UK, £0.97 for the eurozone, and £1.30 for the rest of the world, so you can see where the margin sits.
- **Pre-sorted US postage**: For US campaigns of 1,000 pieces or more, pre-sorted stamps at £0.30 are available, which cuts the postage component roughly in half on high-volume American sends.
- **One to two business day turnaround**: Most campaigns are produced and mailed within one to two business days, which makes trigger-based sends timely enough to reference a recent event.
- **Worldwide shipping**: Destinations outside the five production markets are served from the nearest facility at the rest-of-world rate, so global campaigns are possible even where local production is not.
- **Bulk shipping to your own facility**: Pieces can be produced and shipped to you in bulk rather than mailed individually, which is how teams that want to add an enclosure by hand or ship with a product run the workflow.

### Automation and integrations

Getting a piece triggered by something that already happened in another system.

- **50-plus integrations**: Live connections to CRM, ecommerce, and marketing automation platforms, which is a materially broader native surface than most handwritten-mail vendors publish.
- **API access included**: The API is listed among the standard included features rather than reserved for a higher tier, so programmatic sending does not require a plan upgrade.
- **CSV upload**: The manual path for one-off campaigns and list-based sends where no integration exists.
- **Reusable templates**: Handwriting style, artwork, QR code, and brand controls are saved as a template so recurring campaigns run without redesign.
- **Team invitations**: Colleagues can be invited into the account without a per-seat licence being the pricing mechanism, which is unusual in a category built on seat fees.
- **Recurring campaign subscriptions**: For programs that run continuously rather than in bursts, subscriptions and pre-purchased credits are offered as alternatives to buying campaign by campaign.

### Tracking and attribution

Turning a mailed piece into a number somebody will accept.

- **Tracking QR codes**: A QR code on each piece ties a scan back to the individual recipient, which is the only genuinely first-party signal physical mail produces.
- **Unique scanner and repeat engagement metrics**: Reporting separates unique scanners from repeat scans, so you can distinguish reach from intensity rather than reading one inflated total.
- **Campaign volume and ROI reporting**: Campaign-level analytics aggregate sends, scans, and outcome data into a return view, which is the artifact you take into a budget conversation.
- **Per-send tracking events**: Send status is tracked through production and dispatch so you know what went out and when, rather than inferring it from an invoice.

## Use cases

- **European B2B team selling into three countries**: Prospects in the UK, Germany, and France all need a physical touch, and mailing from a US vendor means foreign postmarks, three-week transit, and pieces that read as junk. Outcome: Each piece is produced and posted domestically from the nearest facility with a local postmark and one to two day turnaround, at a single per-card rate with the stamp already included.
- **Ecommerce brand running win-back campaigns**: Lapsed customers ignore email entirely, and the team needs a channel that reaches them without a per-piece cost that ruins the unit economics. Outcome: The ecommerce integration triggers a handwritten piece at a defined inactivity threshold with a QR discount code. At 5,000-plus pieces the rate is £1.19 including postage, and unique scanner counts show exactly who came back.
- **Nonprofit fundraising team**: Donor appeals have to feel personal to convert, but the organization cannot justify a per-piece cost that eats into the donation it is asking for. Outcome: A reusable template with a handwriting style and a QR donation link runs at volume pricing, on FSC-certified stock that supports the sustainability story the appeal is making.
- **Real estate or home services operator**: Neighborhood-level outreach has to look hand-addressed to get opened, and the operator wants to run it monthly without a printing supplier relationship. Outcome: Templates plus CSV uploads run a recurring campaign at £1.79 to £1.59 per piece all in, with QR scans proving which streets responded before spending more on the next round.

## Pricing

Pay per piece on a published volume rate card in pounds sterling, with domestic postage already included in the quoted price. No platform fee, no seat licence, and no subscription required. Pre-purchased credits and recurring subscriptions are optional.

- **1 to 499 pieces**: £1.99 per piece, postage included. Domestic postage included; 50-plus integrations and API access; Tracking QR codes and campaign analytics; Custom stationery design; Local postmarks from in-country facilities. No minimum order gate, so a first campaign can be small.
- **500 to 1,499 pieces**: £1.79 per piece, postage included. 10 percent volume discount; Everything in the base rate; Team invitations; Reusable templates.
- **1,500 to 2,999 pieces**: £1.59 per piece, postage included. 20 percent volume discount; Pre-sorted US postage available above 1,000 pieces; One to two business day turnaround.
- **3,000 to 4,999 pieces**: £1.39 per piece, postage included. 30 percent volume discount; Bulk shipping to your own facility available; Recurring campaign subscriptions.
- **5,000 to 9,999 pieces**: £1.19 per piece, postage included. 40 percent volume discount; Best published rate; Custom quoting above 10,000 pieces.

Add-ons:

- Pre-sorted US postage (£0.30 per piece): Available on US campaigns of 1,000 pieces or more, replacing the standard £0.59 US stamp cost.
- Pre-purchased credits (Quoted): Buy a block up front for recurring programs.
- Recurring campaign subscription (Quoted): For continuously running programs rather than campaign-by-campaign buying.
- Bulk shipment to your facility (Quoted): Produced pieces shipped to you rather than mailed individually, for hand-added enclosures or product inserts.

Billing notes:

- There is no platform fee and no seat licence anywhere in the published model. You pay per piece, colleagues can be invited into the account, and the API is included rather than gated behind a plan.
- Postage is included in every quoted price, which is the single most useful thing about this rate card: the number on the page is the number you pay. Handwrytten and Simply Noted both quote handwriting and postage separately, so their headline prices look cheaper than they are.
- Pricing is published in pounds sterling. If you are a US buyer, your real cost moves with the exchange rate and the vendor carries none of that risk.
- The absorbed stamp cost varies by destination (£0.59 US, £0.70 Canada, £0.91 UK, £0.97 eurozone, £1.30 rest of world), so the vendor's margin differs sharply by market even though the price you pay does not.
- Worked example for a $25 gesture: Scribeless does not sell gifts, so the comparable send is a piece plus a gift card you source. At the base rate that is £1.99 all in including postage, plus £0.30 if you use pre-sorted US postage at volume, plus the $25 face value of whatever you enclose. There is no platform cut on the gift and no markup, but bulk shipping to your own facility is the practical route for enclosures, which adds handling labour on your side.
- There is no unclaimed-gift refund concept because there is nothing to claim. A piece that is never opened is spent, unlike a choice-link gifting platform where unredeemed value comes back as credit.

Value assessment: Once you normalize for postage, Scribeless is priced right in the middle of the handwritten-mail pack for domestic US sending and clearly ahead of everyone for anything outside the United States. A £1.99 all-in piece is roughly comparable to Handwrytten's $3.75 card plus a stamp, and considerably more than Simply Noted at real volume. What you buy for that money is the postage headache disappearing, in-country production in five markets, the API and 50-plus integrations included with no upgrade, and no seat fee for the team. For a European or multi-country business it is the obvious choice; for a US-only high-volume operation it is being outpriced.

## Strengths

- Domestic postage is included in the quoted price, so the rate card is the real cost. Nobody else in this category makes comparison this easy.
- Production facilities in North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany mean local postmarks and domestic transit times in each market, which no US-only competitor can offer.
- More than 50 integrations plus API access included as standard rather than reserved for a higher plan, so trigger-based sending is available at the entry price.
- Attribution reporting is genuinely more developed than the category norm: unique scanners and repeat engagement are separated rather than reported as one inflated scan total.
- One to two business day turnaround makes trigger-based mail timely enough to reference something that just happened.
- No platform fee, no seat licence, and team invitations included, which is the friendliest structure in the category for a small business.
- Premium FSC-certified materials across every facility, which supports the sustainability reporting some buyers now need.

## Limitations

- The handwriting is AI-generated and printed rather than written by a pen-holding robot, so it lacks the ink indentation that Handwrytten and Simply Noted deliver. Whether that matters is a sample-request question, not a spec-sheet one.
- Pricing is in pounds sterling, which leaves US buyers carrying currency risk on every campaign.
- At high US volume the price is not competitive with Simply Noted's 50,000-card tier or its flat-rate unlimited plan.
- No gift catalog, recipient choice, spend controls, or approval workflows, so it cannot serve as a company gifting program.
- Mailing addresses are mandatory; there is no email-first flow that collects the address from the recipient.
- The company is small and lightly funded, having raised roughly £400,000 in a 2019 seed round, so enterprise procurement support and a large roadmap should not be assumed.
- Detailed stationery specifications, exact format dimensions, and API documentation are not fully published on the marketing site, which means more back-and-forth with sales than the transparent pricing page would suggest.

## Comparisons

- **Scribeless vs Handwrytten**: Handwrytten writes with a real pen in Arizona and lets you buy a single card for $3.75 plus postage with deeper native CRM connectors. Scribeless prints AI handwriting from facilities in five markets with postage baked into a £1.99 all-in rate. Choose Handwrytten if you are US-only and the pen indentation matters to you; choose Scribeless if you mail into Europe or several countries at once and want one number per piece with no postage arithmetic.
- **Scribeless vs Simply Noted**: Simply Noted runs roughly 225 pen-holding robots and goes down to $0.84 a card plus $0.82 postage at 50,000, or a $497 flat-rate unlimited plan. Scribeless tops out at £1.19 including postage and does not compete at that volume. Pick Simply Noted for high-volume US-only sending where cost per touch dominates; pick Scribeless when destination coverage, in-country postmarks, and a single all-in price matter more than the last thirty cents.
- **Scribeless vs Lob**: Lob is a developer-first direct mail API for postcards, letters, and checks at industrial scale, free to 6,000 pieces a year with postcards around 90 cents. Scribeless is a handwriting product where the entire point is that the piece does not look machine-produced. If you are mailing transactional documents or mass offers, Lob wins on cost and control. If the piece has to pass as personal, Lob cannot do it and Scribeless can.
- **Scribeless vs Goody**: Goody sends actual gifts to an email address or phone number and lets the recipient supply their own shipping details, with a free Starter plan covering the US, Canada, and UK. Scribeless mails paper and needs the address in advance. Use Goody when you lack addresses and the gift itself is the gesture; use Scribeless when you have addresses, want a per-piece cost near two pounds rather than the value of a gift, and need the piece to land locally in Europe.
- **Scribeless vs Giftpack**: Giftpack is an AI-driven gifting platform with a multi-million item catalog across 220 countries, a free tier for 250 recipients, and a $99 per month Premium plan. Scribeless sends handwritten mail with no gift attached and no platform fee. Choose Giftpack when the gift and its recipient-matching are the product; choose Scribeless when a well-written note in a locally posted envelope is more appropriate than a gift, which in regulated industries it very often is.

## Implementation

- Setup time: A day for a first campaign. Build a template, choose a handwriting style, upload a CSV, and pieces are produced within one to two business days. Wiring up a CRM or ecommerce integration takes a few hours more.
- Learning curve: Low. The template builder is the whole interface, and the volume rate card removes the plan-selection decision that complicates most competitors. The judgement required is editorial, not technical: a handwritten-style piece that reads like a marketing email defeats the purpose.
- Onboarding: Self-serve from the pricing page for standard volumes, with sales involvement above 10,000 pieces or for bulk shipping and subscription arrangements. Requesting a physical sample first is essential here more than anywhere else in the category, because the printed-versus-penned question is the whole buying decision.
- Migration: Switching from another handwritten-mail vendor is a CSV and a template rebuild. The meaningful migration work is on destination routing: if you were previously mailing Europe from a US vendor, expect delivery times and response rates to change enough that your old benchmarks are not comparable. Rebase your control group after the switch rather than reading the improvement as campaign performance.

## Platform, API & security

- Platforms: Web platform, API, CSV upload, CRM and ecommerce connectors
- API: API access is listed among the standard included features alongside 50-plus integrations covering CRM, ecommerce, and marketing automation platforms. Detailed developer documentation is not fully published on the marketing site.
- Compliance: UK and EU GDPR applicable as a UK-based processor, FSC certification on stationery materials
- Data residency: UK-headquartered with production facilities in North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany; specific data hosting regions are not published.
- SSO: Not advertised.
- Security notes: As a UK company processing recipient names and addresses for EU and UK residents, GDPR obligations apply and a data processing agreement should be requested as part of procurement. No SOC 2 report or public trust center is advertised.

## Support

- Channels: Email support, Sales contact for volume and custom arrangements, Help center
- Documentation: Help center covering campaign setup, templates, integrations, and shipping, with sales handling detailed specification questions.
- Community: No formal user community.

## Company

- Founded: 2018
- Founders: Robert Van Den Bergh, Alex Robinson
- Headquarters: United Kingdom
- Ownership: Venture-backed, founder-led
- Employees: Not disclosed; small privately held team
- Funding: Approximately £400,000 raised in a 2019 seed round led by RLC Ventures with Ascension Ventures, SuperSeed, and strategic angels participating, preceded by a £25,000 prize from the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards. The founders famously closed the round by writing to investors using their own product.

Funding history:

- Competition award (2019): £25,000. Won the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards against a field of more than 2,000 businesses.
- Seed (2019): £400,000. Led by RLC Ventures with Ascension Ventures, SuperSeed, and strategic angel investors participating.

Timeline:

- 2018: Founded by University of Bristol graduates Robert Van Den Bergh and Alex Robinson, building software that generates realistic handwriting for direct mail.
- 2019: Wins £25,000 at the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards, then raises a £400,000 seed round led by RLC Ventures after pitching investors with handwritten letters produced by the product itself.
- 2021: Expands production beyond the UK, adding facilities to serve North American campaigns with domestic postage and local postmarks.
- 2023: Adds continental European production in France and Germany, making in-country posting available across the largest EU markets.
- 2025: Integration surface passes 50 connectors covering CRM, ecommerce, and marketing automation, with API access included as standard.
- 2026: Runs a five-tier volume rate card from £1.99 down to £1.19 with domestic postage included, plus pre-sorted US postage at £0.30 for campaigns above 1,000 pieces.

## Integrations

CRM platforms (50-plus integrations advertised), Ecommerce platforms, Marketing automation tools, API, CSV upload

## FAQ

### What is Scribeless?

Scribeless is a handwritten direct mail platform. It generates realistic handwriting with AI, produces the piece on premium FSC-certified stationery at facilities in North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany, and mails it domestically from the nearest country so it carries a local postmark. Pricing is a single per-piece rate that already includes postage.

### Is the handwriting written with a real pen?

No, and this is the most important thing to know before buying. Scribeless uses AI-generated handwriting reproduced through advanced printing, which the company positions as indiscernible from a human hand. Handwrytten and Simply Noted use robots that hold real ballpoint pens, so their pieces have ink indentation you can feel. Request a physical sample from Scribeless and decide whether the difference matters for your recipients.

### How much does Scribeless cost?

Between £1.99 and £1.19 per piece depending on volume: £1.99 for 1 to 499, £1.79 from 500, £1.59 from 1,500, £1.39 from 3,000, and £1.19 from 5,000 to 9,999, with custom quoting above 10,000. Domestic postage is included in every one of those prices, and there is no platform fee or seat licence.

### Is postage really included?

Yes, domestic postage is included in the quoted rate, which makes Scribeless the easiest vendor in this category to budget for. The stamp cost the company absorbs varies by destination (£0.59 US, £0.70 Canada, £0.91 UK, £0.97 eurozone, £1.30 rest of world). For US campaigns above 1,000 pieces, pre-sorted stamps at £0.30 are available as a cheaper option.

### What does a $25 gift cost to send through Scribeless?

Scribeless sells mail, not gifts, so the comparable send is a handwritten piece plus a gift card you source yourself. That is £1.99 all in for the piece including postage plus the $25 face value, with no platform fee and nobody taking a cut of the gift. If you want an enclosure, the practical route is bulk shipping the produced pieces to your own facility and inserting them there, which adds labour on your side.

### Can Scribeless mail internationally?

Yes, and this is its main advantage. Production facilities in North America, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany mean pieces are posted domestically in each of those markets with a local postmark and domestic transit time. Everywhere else is served from the nearest facility at the rest-of-world rate. No US-based competitor in this category can do this.

### Can a send be triggered from my CRM or ecommerce platform?

Yes. Scribeless advertises more than 50 integrations covering CRM, ecommerce, and marketing automation tools, plus API access included as standard rather than reserved for a higher plan. A lapsed-customer threshold, a purchase, or a lifecycle stage change can trigger a piece without a manual export.

### How do I attribute a mailed piece to pipeline?

The QR code on each piece ties a scan back to the individual recipient. Reporting separates unique scanners from repeat engagement, which is better than the single scan-count number most vendors report, and campaign-level analytics roll sends, scans, and volume into an ROI view. As always with physical mail, the strongest evidence comes from holding out a control group rather than from the platform's own attribution.

### What happens if the piece is never opened?

You have spent the money. There is no unclaimed-gift refund mechanism here because there is nothing to claim. That is a structural difference from choice-based gifting platforms like Loop and Tie, where unredeemed gift value returns to your account as credit. The offset is that the sum at risk is about two pounds, not the value of a gift.

### Will a handwritten piece breach the recipient's gift policy?

A letter or card by itself almost never triggers a corporate gift policy, which is one of the underrated advantages of mail over gifting in regulated industries. The moment you enclose a gift card you are in cash-equivalent territory, which most financial services, healthcare, and public sector employers cap or ban. Sending the note alone sidesteps the question entirely.

### How fast does a campaign go out?

Most campaigns are turned around in one to two business days, then move at domestic postal speed in the destination country because they are posted locally. That is fast enough for trigger-based sends to reference a recent event rather than arriving as an unexplained artifact three weeks later.

### Who founded Scribeless and how is it funded?

It was founded by Robert Van Den Bergh and Alex Robinson, University of Bristol graduates, and is based in the United Kingdom. It won £25,000 at the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards in 2019 and raised roughly £400,000 in a seed round led by RLC Ventures with Ascension Ventures and SuperSeed participating. The founders closed the round by writing to investors using their own software.

## Editorial verdict

Scribeless is the right answer for anyone whose recipients are not all in the United States, and it is the easiest vendor in this category to buy from: one price per piece, postage included, API and integrations at the entry level, no seat fee, no platform fee. The in-country production network is a real structural advantage that no Arizona robotics company can match, and the attribution reporting is more thoughtful than the category norm. The catch is the technology. This is AI handwriting reproduced by printing, not a pen pressed into paper, and if your buyer's test is running a thumb over the ink then Handwrytten or Simply Noted will pass where this will not. Order a sample first. If it convinces you, and you mail into Europe at all, Scribeless is the strongest option here.

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Source: SaaSTracker (https://saastracker.org), an independent editorial project. This profile is compiled from public information, carries no peer reviews or paid placement, and was last reviewed 2026-08-22. Awards are judged on published criteria: https://saastracker.org/methodology