All publisher problemsBuild my stack
We can't get it live, or leave
How do we avoid a project that never ships?
The short answer
The cost that surprises publishers most is implementation, not licence. Ask who does the work, how long it takes, and what leaving would actually look like.
Publishers have raised this 1,134 times across the mentions we analyse, naming 276 specific tools.
Find tools you can actually ship
We'll weight implementation effort and how cleanly you can leave.
What publishers reported
The tools this comes up about most, and what was actually said. Counted from public publisher mentions rather than our own verdict, and each quote is attributed to the tool it was about.
Google AdSense37 mentions
“Google adsense doesn't accept phone numbers from my country.”
Ezoic35 mentions
“And that day Ezoic didn’t respond to my call for help so I shut everything down and didn’t look back.”
beehiiv31 mentions
“Well… that experiment didn’t last. About four months in, I switched back to FluentCRM and I’ve been there ever since.”
Asana21 mentions
“Asana workspace to read-only/comment-off; redirect note in each project description pointing to Odoo; account closed after one clean settling month.”
Mediavine20 mentions
“Despite doing all this, I keep getting the "ads.txt out of date" error.”
Amazon Associates19 mentions
“Hi, I’m building an Amazon affiliate comparison site and I’m confused about the rules before getting API access.”
Draft2Digital17 mentions
“I've tried everything to upload an eBook to D2D, and nothing ever works. It doesn't accept my art, either from PDF or JPEG, or my Word doc.”
Ezoic16 mentions
“I told them to close my account”
AirOps16 mentions
“Allergic to learning curves (there definitely is one)”
Rakuten16 mentions
“Keep in mind that the brand must be part of Rakuten's network for you to receive cash back, and you must also activate the browser extension every time you place an online order.”
What to check before you sign
The questions that surface this problem while you can still walk away.
- Ask for a fixed implementation timeline with named owners
- Ask whether migration is included or billed as a separate project
- Confirm how you export everything if you leave
- Ask for references from a migration of comparable size
Not sure which of these applies to you?
Answer four questions about your newsroom and we'll shortlist the tools that fit. We'll carry this problem across with you.
