The short version
- Some links on this site earn us a commission if you buy after clicking.
- It costs you nothing extra. The price is the same as going direct.
- No commission has ever bought a score, a ranking, or the removal of a drawback.
- Every article carrying an affiliate link says so above the fold, before you read a word of the review.
How It Works
When we review a product we often join that vendor's affiliate programme. If you click one of our links and go on to buy, the vendor pays us a percentage. You pay the same price you would have paid going direct; the commission comes out of the vendor's margin, not your pocket.
Sometimes we are also paid to test a product and publish a review of it. Where that is the case, we say so on the article itself, in the same place and the same words as the standard disclosure. We do not have a separate, quieter label for paid work.
What It Does Not Change
This is the part that matters, and it is why this page exists at all.
What we do
- We buy or trial the product ourselves before writing
- We publish our testing method before the result
- We print the failures, including the ones a partner would rather we didn't
- Scores come from a fixed rubric filled in before the article is drafted
- Partners get a heads-up before publication, never a veto
What we never do
- We do not sell scores, rankings or verdicts
- We do not give copy approval to any partner
- We do not remove a drawback because someone asked
- We do not run undisclosed sponsored content
- We do not accept payment to write negatively about a competitor
If a review goes badly for a product we are paid to link to, it still gets published. The reason our readers can believe the good reviews is that we are willing to print the bad ones.
Spotting an Affiliate Link
Every article that contains one carries a disclosure line directly under the byline, before the review begins. You will also see it on any pricing button or comparison table that leads to a vendor.
Links to regulators, vendor documentation, standards bodies and other publications are never affiliate links. Neither is anything in a Sources section.
Current and Recent Partners
For transparency, these are the products we have had a commercial relationship with. It is not a ranking and inclusion here does not mean we recommend them — read the review.
| Product | Category | Relationship |
|---|---|---|
| NordVPN | VPN and network security | Affiliate |
| 1Password | Password manager | Affiliate |
| FileYourTaxes.com | Tax filing | Affiliate |
| B12 | Client-facing front desk | Affiliate |
| UKHost4u | Hosting | Affiliate |
| Create.net | Website builder | Affiliate |
Why We Say All of This
Because we are required to, and because it is the right way to run a review site.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255) require a clear and conspicuous disclosure of any material connection between a reviewer and a product. Comparable rules apply in Canada under the Competition Act, in the United Kingdom under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations and the CMA's guidance, and in Australia and New Zealand under their respective consumer law.
We disclose above the fold rather than in a footer because those rules ask for disclosure a reader will actually see, and because a disclosure nobody reads is not a disclosure.
Supporting Us Without Using the Links
If you would rather not use an affiliate link, we would still rather have you as a reader. Share a review with a colleague who is about to make the same decision, tell us when we get something wrong, or send us a product you think deserves testing.
VerityLoft is also funded by its editor's trade income rather than by commissions alone. That is deliberate: it means a bad review costs us less than it costs most sites, which is exactly why we are able to publish them.
Contact
Questions about a commercial relationship, or something you think we have not disclosed clearly enough: verityloft.com/get-in-touch.