Stacker vs Zeffy

About

Stacker is a data journalism and content marketing platform that produces fact-based, data-driven news stories using publicly available datasets — generating thousands of articles annually about topics ranging from local housing markets to national health trends — and distributes this content through a network of 3,000+ media partners including regional newspapers, digital publishers, and local TV station websites. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Chicago, Stacker combines editorial data journalism with a content syndication model that gives media organizations a steady stream of data-verified, royalty-free content.\n\nStacker's editorial team uses public datasets (Census, BLS, CDC, USDA, sports statistics, real estate data) to create template-driven data stories — "The 25 cities with the highest median household income," "States with the lowest vaccination rates" — that are locally relevant when filtered by geography and consistently accurate because they cite official sources. Media partners (newspaper chains, local TV websites, regional digital publications) embed these stories in their sites through an iframe or CMS integration to supplement their original local reporting.\n\nIn 2025, Stacker also operates a content marketing division (Stacker Studio) where brands commission custom data journalism content about topics adjacent to their products — financial services companies creating content about debt statistics, healthcare companies creating health trend content — as a brand-safe, editorial-quality content marketing format. Stacker competes with traditional content marketing agencies, ThoughtLeadership content syndication platforms, and data-driven PR firms for content marketing budget. The 2025 strategy focuses on growing Stacker Studio brand partnerships, expanding the media distribution network, and developing AI-assisted data story generation to scale content production.