Affiliate Disclosure

Effective date: 29 September 2026

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and take an action — open an account, buy a product, sign up for a service — we may receive a commission from the provider. This page explains exactly how that works, what it does and does not influence, and how to recognise an affiliate link.

We would rather over-disclose than under-disclose. The relationship between a publisher and its readers depends on the reader knowing which recommendations might earn the publisher money.

1. What an affiliate link is

An affiliate link contains a tracking identifier. When you click it, the destination merchant records that the visit came from us. If you complete a qualifying action within their attribution window — typically 7 to 90 days — they pay us a commission.

You never pay more. Commissions come out of the merchant's marketing budget, not your transaction. The price, terms, rate and eligibility you see are identical whether you arrive via our link or by typing the merchant's address directly. In a small number of cases an affiliate link carries a reader-exclusive offer that is better than the public one, and where that exists we say so explicitly on the page.

2. The networks we belong to

Replace this list with the programmes you have actually joined before publishing. Do not list networks you are not a member of, and do not omit ones you are.

• Amazon Associates — where we link to books or physical products
• Impact — a range of financial services and software providers
• PartnerStack — mostly software and subscription products
• Individual partner programmes — direct relationships with specific banks, brokers or product providers

We are not currently enrolled in any network we have not listed, and we will update this page before joining a new one.

3. How you can spot an affiliate link

Three ways, all visible before you click:

1. A disclosure at the top of the article. Any page containing affiliate links carries a statement before the first one, so you know before you read rather than after you click.
2. The link opens in a new tab with a 0 attribute. This is the standard way publishers mark commercial links, and it is visible in the page source and to search engines.
3. Comparison tables label commercial relationships. Where a table ranks or compares products and we earn from some of them, the table says which.

If you ever find an affiliate link on this site that is not disclosed in one of these three ways, that is a failure on our part. Tell us via the contact page and we will fix it the same day.

4. What commissions do not influence

These are rules we hold ourselves to, and they are also in our Editorial Guidelines:

• Ranking and ordering. Products are ordered by merit against stated criteria. A higher commission does not move a product up a list.
• Inclusion. We describe products we do not earn from alongside ones we do. Where the best option in a category has no affiliate programme, we say so and link to it anyway.
• Editorial wording. No provider reviews, approves or edits our content before publication. We have never given a commercial partner an article to read in advance and we will not start.
• Coverage decisions. We do not write about a product because it pays. We write about what readers ask about, then check whether an affiliate relationship exists.
• Corrections. If a provider we earn from has a problem — a rate cut, a fee increase, a service failure — we publish it. Our revenue interest does not buy silence.
• Negative conclusions. Where we conclude that a product category is a bad deal for most readers, we publish that even when we earn from some providers in it. The car payment analysis and the side hustle costings are examples: both argue against spending, and neither is a good place to sell anything.

5. What commissions do influence

Honesty requires listing this too:

• Which products we can practically link to. Some providers have no affiliate programme, which means we cannot earn from recommending them. This can subtly bias coverage toward providers that do have programmes, and we try to counteract it by explicitly naming good options we earn nothing from.
• How much time we spend on a topic. Categories with affiliate revenue support more editorial effort. That is a real incentive and you should know it exists.
• Whether we can keep the site free. Affiliate revenue is, alongside advertising, what allows us to publish without a paywall, a subscription or an email gate. That is a genuine benefit to you and it is also a motive.

We think the first list matters more than the second, but both are true and we would rather say so than present a disclosure that flatters us.

6. Advertising is separate

Display advertising on this site — the adverts served by Google AdSense and other networks — is a different revenue stream with different mechanics, and it is disclosed separately:

• Advertisers do not choose which pages their adverts appear on in any specific way, and cannot request placement alongside particular content
• Adverts are not editorial and are not selected by us individually
• Ad content changes continuously and we cannot review every advert that appears
• You can control advertising personalisation via the Cookie preferences link in the footer

Details are in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

7. Sponsored content

We do not publish sponsored content. We do not accept payment to write about a product, to review a service favourably, to place a link, or to publish an article provided by a third party. Everything on this site is written in-house and would say what it says whether or not a commission existed.

If a provider offers us a briefing about a genuine product change that affects content we have published, we will take the briefing — that is journalism — and we will update the article if the facts have changed, whether the update flatters them or not.

8. Regulatory compliance

We aim to comply with the advertising and consumer protection rules that apply to affiliate marketing in the markets we serve, including:

• United States: the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides, which require clear and conspicuous disclosure of material connections. Our disclosures appear before the first affiliate link on the page rather than at the foot, because a disclosure you see after clicking does not inform the decision.
• United Kingdom: the CAP and BCAP Codes and the CMA's guidance on online endorsements and affiliate marketing.
• European Union: the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, which treats undisclosed commercial intent as a misleading omission.

If you believe any link or recommendation on this site is inadequately disclosed under any of these regimes, tell us. We will correct it and we would rather hear it from a reader than from a regulator.

9. Products we will not promote

Regardless of commission, we will not affiliate with:

• Unregulated investment schemes, crypto yield platforms, or anything promising guaranteed returns
• Payday lenders, high-cost short-term credit, or loan providers targeting people in distress
• Credit repair companies that charge for what consumers can do free
• Get-rich-quick courses, "trading signal" services, or business opportunities requiring an upfront payment
• Any provider we cannot verify is properly licensed or registered in the markets it serves
• Anything whose primary marketing claim we believe to be false

This is not a moral position so much as a commercial one: a reader who is harmed by something we linked to will never trust another recommendation from us, and trust is the only asset this site has.

10. Questions

If you want to know whether a specific recommendation on this site carries a commission, ask. We will answer plainly and quickly via the contact page.

If you would prefer to support the site without using affiliate links, type the provider's address into your browser instead of clicking through. You will get the same price and we will earn nothing, which is entirely fine — the content is free either way.