Earnings disclosure

How to tell

Affiliate links carry an affiliate tag next to them, and any page containing one shows a disclosure notice at the top. Technically they are marked rel="sponsored" so that search engines and browsers can see the relationship too.

This is enforced by the site's build, not by our memory: a link is only rendered as an affiliate link when it is explicitly recorded as a joined programme, and that same flag is what produces the tag and the disclosure. An undisclosed affiliate link cannot ship by accident.

The rule that matters

• Verdicts are written first. Every recommendation on this site is decided before any affiliate programme is applied to. Joining one later never reorders a page.
• We recommend things that pay us nothing. Most of the catalog is open-source software with no affiliate programme at all. We recommend those tools constantly, including over commercial products that would pay us.
• Every page says when not to switch. Telling you to stay on the product you already have earns us nothing. We do it on every page anyway, because a comparison that never recommends staying put is an advert.
• We do not accept payment for placement, sponsored reviews, or "featured" positions. If that ever changes, it will be stated here and on the affected page before it goes live.

Current status

At the time of writing, this site earns nothing. No affiliate programmes are active and no links on the site are affiliate links. This page exists so the policy is published before any money is involved, rather than after. When that changes, the tools concerned will be marked and this section will list them.

Products we own

We build software as well as writing about it. Where one of our own products appears on this site, it is always marked our product, and a disclosure appears at the top of that page. This is enforced by the build — a product we own cannot be listed without the flag.

• Dedupe.dev — Removes duplicates from Excel, CSV, text and JSON entirely in your browser. dedupe.dev
• MailToInvoice — Forward a client email and get back a branded, payable invoice. mailtoinvoice.com

Owning a product does not buy it a better placement. Our own tools are judged by the same standard as everything else, they are ranked on merit, and we list their competitors in full — including free and open-source alternatives that earn us nothing and may well suit you better. If a rival product is the better answer for your case, the page will say so.

If you would rather not take our word for it on a page where we have a stake, that is entirely reasonable — the alternatives are listed with links so you can compare them yourself.

What affiliate links do to your data

Clicking an affiliate link takes you to the merchant, who typically sets a cookie to attribute the referral if you sign up later. That cookie belongs to them, under their privacy policy — not ours. We receive no personal information about you from these programmes: at most we see aggregate counts of clicks and conversions, never who you are. See our privacy policy for what this site itself collects, which is nothing.

Pricing accuracy

Prices quoted on this site carry the date we verified them against the vendor's own pricing page, and we link to that page so you can check. Software pricing changes constantly — always confirm the current price with the vendor before buying. Where we could not verify a price, the page says so instead of guessing.