Finally, Somebody Has Done It!

I've always wished there were a way to track the ROI of all the upvote bots so that people can make an informed decision of which bot they want to support. And it's finally been done. iSTEEMd.com is a tool that not only shows you the ROI (return on investment) each bot pays their delegators, but it also provides you with information about payout percentages, anti-spam efforts, trust score, performance score, reputation, and more. It's your one-stop shop for learning about different upvote bots and allows you to get the best bang for your buck when choosing who to delegate to.

My first thought was that this was another tool created by @yabapmatt, but after reaching out to him I learned that this was created by someone else. Whoever it is, we commend your efforts @isteemd! I think we've needed this for a while.

How Does It Work?

If you go over to their website (http://isteemd.com/) you will see a list of different upvote bots. Keep in mind that not all bots are listed here. Some have chosen not to become listed for whatever reason. But for the bots that are listed, you will see several factors that help to rank them. And @isteemd even has their own proprietary algorithm to score each bot which factors in Delegation Amount Received, Daily Payouts Given to Delegators, Delegator Retention, Delegator Upgrade Rate, Bot Downtime, and Bot User Satisfaction. These factors are weighted differently depending on their importance.

The chart on the main page allows you to learn everything you would want to know about an upvote bot before making the decision to delegate your hard-earned Steem Power to them. It also holds bot owners much more accountable, which I'm all for.

Why Do We Need This?

As they mentioned in their introductory post, lack of trust might keep people from deciding to delegate to certain bot owners. Before, you really couldn't tell who was paying out what percent; you just had to trust their word.

Today, in the current scenario, a lot of trust issue prevails in the mind of delegators looking for a lucrative passive income by delegating their hard earned SP to the bid based voting bots of steemit. Many bots promise 100% earning distribution to their delegators, but there is no easy way for a delegator to check whether the bot really does payouts as promised. Moreover, it would take an ample amount of time even for a seasoned delegator to compare the payouts given by all the bots and then choose the best paying bot in order to maximize his returns.

This is a great point. I've noticed several bots who even have their upvote settings inaccurate on www.steembottracker.com. So what's to keep them from providing you with inaccurate information about payouts? Well, luckily now you can just go on over to http://isteemd.com to check the current payouts of each bot who has decided to become listed! Each time a payout is made, the numbers are updated for that bot so that you have accurate numbers to go by.

How Are They Compensated?

Here's the best part. Originally they had planned to take a very small percentage of the delegation to pay themselves for providing the service. But recently they picked up a HUGE sponsor (@thejohalfiles) so that they can provide the service completely free to everyone. I appreciate all they're doing for providing transparency on the blockchain and want to help support them in any way that I can. And that's exactly why I'm sharing this with you today!