Last updated: 22 August 2026
We review tools. Tool vendors have money. You are right to want to know where ours comes from.
This page is the complete answer. If it ever stops being complete, that is a failure on our part and we would like you to point it out.
1. The short version
- This site does not carry advertising, and we have not applied to any advertising programme. We intend to apply to Google AdSense later; if ads begin to appear, Google selects them, we do not.
- This site does not currently carry affiliate links.
- Nobody has paid for an article here. No sponsored posts, no paid reviews, no paid placements inside articles.
- No vendor has been given the ability to change, approve or preview anything we publish about them.
2. What we participate in, and what we do not
Google AdSense — not applied for, not running. We have not applied to the Google AdSense programme. We intend to, and this page will say so on the day the application goes in. No advertisement is served on this site today. If ads begin to appear, Google selects and serves them. We will not choose them, we will not be told in advance what will appear, and we are not paid differently depending on what we conclude about any product. An advertisement appearing on this site will not be an endorsement by us, and we may well have criticised the advertised product elsewhere on the same site.
Affiliate programmes — none, at present. We are not currently enrolled in any affiliate programme, and no link on this site earns us a commission. If that changes, this page will say so before the first such link is published, and the About page will be updated in the same edit.
We are writing this section down now, while the answer is “none”, so that you can see when it changes.
3. What we will do if that changes
If we do join an affiliate programme, all of the following happen together, or none of them do:
- This page is updated first, naming the programme.
- Every article containing such a link carries a disclosure at the top, before the content — not in a footer, not below the fold, not in grey 10pt text. You should know before you read, not after you have clicked.
- The About page is updated in the same change, so the two never disagree.
- The recommendation does not change. See section 4.
4. The rule that matters more than any disclosure
A disclosure tells you money exists. It does not tell you whether the money moved the conclusion. So here is the commitment underneath it:
Our conclusions come out of the measurements, and the measurements happen before anyone is paid anything.
Concretely:
- We run the test first, record the evidence, and reach the conclusion from the logs. Commercial arrangements are applied afterwards, to a finished judgement.
- We will link to a tool we recommend against buying, and we will recommend against buying a tool we could earn from. If a cheaper or free option won on the numbers, the article says the cheaper or free option won.
- We do not choose article topics by commission rate. We choose them by what we actually needed to find out.
- If we ever cannot say the above honestly about a particular article, that article does not publish.
You do not have to take our word for this. Every article shows its raw measurements and its failures, and its Test Setup section is written so you can re-run it yourself. A bought conclusion is much harder to hide when the evidence is published alongside it.
5. Free products, trials and access
We currently pay for the tools we test, out of the site’s own costs.
If we ever accept a free licence, review unit, extended trial, credits, or any other consideration from a vendor:
- It is disclosed at the top of that specific article, stating what we received and from whom.
- It is disclosed even if we conclude the product is bad.
- It does not buy any right of review, approval or preview. No vendor sees an article before you do.
We would rather lose access to a product than lose the ability to describe it honestly.
6. Prices in our articles
When an article mentions what something costs, we state the date we checked, the plan or tier, and the currency. Prices move, and an undated price is a small lie that ages badly.
For the same reason, where a retailer’s terms require it, we do not hand-type prices or stock status pulled from a retailer’s site. If we ever show live retail pricing, it will come through the retailer’s own link or official API and will carry the retailer’s required accuracy notice — because a stale price on our page is a stale price in your decision.
7. Advertising is not editorial
We say this plainly because the two sit on the same page and can be confused. No advertising is running on this site, and we have not applied to Google AdSense. This is how advertising will work here if it starts, and how we already behave towards advertisers:
- Advertisements will be chosen by Google, not by us.
- Advertisements will be labelled as advertisements.
- We do not write articles to suit advertisers, and advertisers cannot buy editorial coverage here at any price. That one is true today and does not depend on any advertisement appearing.
- If an ad ever appears here and it is misleading or offensive, tell us — AdSense lets a publisher block categories and individual advertisers, and we will use that if we are ever in a position to. We have no such account today and no advertising is running, so there is nothing to block.
8. Questions
If anything on this page is unclear, or you suspect a commercial relationship we have not disclosed, write to us through the Contact page and ask directly. We will answer.
A site that reviews things people pay for has exactly one asset, and it is not traffic.