✦Flick
The Exit Gap Index

The distance between an advertised machine exit—and the human path a sender presents.

Google requires senders of more than 5,000 messages a day to personal Gmail accounts to offer one-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058) on covered marketing and subscribed mail. That requirement establishes an advertised request path for that scoped traffic, not sender honor. The Exit Gap method compares the machine and human paths only after its repeated-evidence gate is met.

🤖 The machine path

What a robot can read: the List-Unsubscribe route a message advertises. RFC 8058 one-click needs the companion POST signal and an HTTPS URI. We parse the raw header; that does not prove the sender processed a request.

🧑 The human path

What you get: a headless crawler walks the same unsubscribe link like a person would — counting clicks, catching login walls, guilt copy and preference mazes, screenshotting every step.

How grading works

The grade is the gap: your clicks minus the robot's clicks. Zero gap is an A; each extra step drags it toward F. A login wall is an automatic F — you can't leave an account you never made. Confirm-shaming and preference mazes each cost a letter.

  • Fail-closed. No sender is graded on fewer than 3 probes spread across ≥48 hours. Below that bar the answer is ungraded — never a guess.
  • Evidence or it didn't happen. Every published grade carries the raw List-Unsubscribe header, a step-by-step crawl log, and a screenshot per step.
  • Deterministic verdicts. The card copy is generated from a fixed template — no language model writes a grade.
  • A dispute link on every graded page. Think we got it wrong? One email, and we re-probe.
Current status

Capability inventory only; honor collection has not started. 4 of 150 work-list senders have a capability-only observation, and 146 have no published observation. No founder burner-mailbox cycle has run, so zero senders carry an honor grade. Capability is not honor; ungraded, not guessed.

Where every sender stands

Derived from the reviewed work-list, capability snapshot, and published grade records—not from the stale summary cache. Evidence state checked 2026-08-03.

TierSenders
Graded — cleared the 3-probe bar, evidence published0
Capability observed, ungraded — their mail carries a machine exit route; whether they honour it is unmeasured4
Grade pending — on the work-list, nothing measured yet146
Total work-list150

“Capability observed” means we have seen mail from that sender carry a machine unsubscribe route. It is not a grade, and it is not a claim that the sender honours the route. Only the graded tier makes a claim about behaviour.

The grade scale

AA — Effortless exit
BB — Minor friction
CC — Real friction
DD — Hostile
FF — Trapped
Example · sample card, not a real grade
Cexample-sender.com

"Machine route: 1 step. Human path: 4 clicks. Grade C."

A fictional sender, shown only to illustrate the card format. No real brand appears here until it has cleared the evidence bar.

Every sender on the work-list

All 150 senders queued for grading, ranked by evidence — the graded first, then those whose mail we have seen carry a machine exit route, then the rest. Filter by category or re-sort; the full list is here with or without JavaScript, and no letter is shown for a sender that has not cleared the bar.

SenderCategoryStatus
AmazonretailCapability observed
MediummediaCapability observed
Morning BrewmediaCapability observed
SubstackmediaCapability observed
1440 Daily DigestmediaUngraded
adidasretailUngraded
AirbnbtravelUngraded
AirtablesaasUngraded
AllbirdsfashionUngraded
American ExpressfinanceUngraded
Ars TechnicamediaUngraded
AsanasaasUngraded
ASOSfashionUngraded
Associated PressnewsUngraded
AtlassiansaasUngraded
AudibleentertainmentUngraded
AxiosnewsUngraded
Bank of AmericafinanceUngraded
BBCnewsUngraded
Best BuyretailUngraded
BloombergnewsUngraded
Blue ApronfoodUngraded
BonobosfashionUngraded
Booking.comtravelUngraded
BuzzFeedmediaUngraded
CalendlysaasUngraded
CanvasaasUngraded
Charles SchwabfinanceUngraded
ChasefinanceUngraded
ChipotlefoodUngraded
ClickUpsaasUngraded
CloudflaredevtoolsUngraded
CNNnewsUngraded
CoinbasefinanceUngraded
CostcoretailUngraded
Credit KarmafinanceUngraded
Delta Air LinestravelUngraded
DigitalOceandevtoolsUngraded
Disney+entertainmentUngraded
DockerdevtoolsUngraded
Domino'sfoodUngraded
DoorDashfoodUngraded
DropboxsaasUngraded
DuolingoentertainmentUngraded
eBayretailUngraded
EngadgetmediaUngraded
EtsyretailUngraded
EventbriteentertainmentUngraded
EverlanefashionUngraded
ExpediatravelUngraded
FidelityfinanceUngraded
FigmasaasUngraded
Financial TimesnewsUngraded
GapretailUngraded
GitHubdevtoolsUngraded
GitLabdevtoolsUngraded
GlossierfashionUngraded
GrammarlysaasUngraded
GrubhubfoodUngraded
H&MretailUngraded
HelloFreshfoodUngraded
HiltontravelUngraded
Hotels.comtravelUngraded
HubSpotsaasUngraded
HuluentertainmentUngraded
IKEAretailUngraded
InstacartfoodUngraded
IntercomsaasUngraded
JetBrainsdevtoolsUngraded
KAYAKtravelUngraded
LoomsaasUngraded
Los Angeles TimesnewsUngraded
Lowe'sretailUngraded
lululemonfashionUngraded
LyfttravelUngraded
Macy'sretailUngraded
MailchimpsaasUngraded
MarriotttravelUngraded
MashablemediaUngraded
MaxentertainmentUngraded
MirosaasUngraded
monday.comsaasUngraded
MongoDBdevtoolsUngraded
NerdWalletfinanceUngraded
NetflixentertainmentUngraded
NetlifydevtoolsUngraded
NikeretailUngraded
NordstromretailUngraded
NotionsaasUngraded
NPRnewsUngraded
Old NavyretailUngraded
Paramount+entertainmentUngraded
PatreonentertainmentUngraded
PayPalfinanceUngraded
PeacockentertainmentUngraded
PlatformermediaUngraded
PoliticonewsUngraded
PuckmediaUngraded
ReutersnewsUngraded
RobinhoodfinanceUngraded
SalesforcesaasUngraded
SemaformediaUngraded
SephorafashionUngraded
SHEINfashionUngraded
SlacksaasUngraded
SoFifinanceUngraded
Southwest AirlinestravelUngraded
SpotifyentertainmentUngraded
SquarefinanceUngraded
Stack OverflowdevtoolsUngraded
StarbucksfoodUngraded
StratecherymediaUngraded
StripefinanceUngraded
TargetretailUngraded
TechCrunchmediaUngraded
The AtlanticnewsUngraded
The Daily BeastmediaUngraded
The EconomistnewsUngraded
The GuardiannewsUngraded
The Home DepotretailUngraded
The HustlemediaUngraded
The InformationmediaUngraded
The New York TimesnewsUngraded
The New YorkermediaUngraded
The VergemediaUngraded
The Wall Street JournalnewsUngraded
The Washington PostnewsUngraded
theSkimmmediaUngraded
TicketmasterentertainmentUngraded
TIMEnewsUngraded
TripadvisortravelUngraded
TwitchentertainmentUngraded
Uber EatsfoodUngraded
Ulta BeautyfashionUngraded
UNIQLOretailUngraded
United AirlinestravelUngraded
USA TodaynewsUngraded
VenmofinanceUngraded
VerceldevtoolsUngraded
VicemediaUngraded
VoxnewsUngraded
WalmartretailUngraded
Warby ParkerfashionUngraded
WayfairretailUngraded
WIREDmediaUngraded
WisefinanceUngraded
YelpfoodUngraded
ZararetailUngraded
ZendesksaasUngraded
ZoomsaasUngraded

While you wait

Want to see the patterns we're grading, up close? Play the Unsubscribe Museum — the dark-pattern exit exhibits, hands-on. Or try Flick's swipe-to-decide demo and see what a calm inbox feels like. Flick is on the App Store for iPhone, too.

Spotted a sender with an exit worth grading? Tell us: hey@flicked.email.