How We Make Money

Some vendors pay us to be included on The Audit Trail. That payment never affects the rankings or the review itself.

Our products

Vendors can pay for three products:

Get listed. Assessment against the published rubric, a scorecard, and inclusion in every list where the platform qualifies by score.

Review. A hands-on review where we log in, test the product, and publish a full review with screenshots.

Mention. Consideration for relevant blog posts and research, named and linked where the platform fits the topic.

More detail is on the For Vendors page.

What payment never buys

Payment never buys a rank, a score, a “Best for” superlative, a verdict, or the removal of a con. Rank inside any list is the vendor’s rubric total, computed from the published criteria. There is no way to pay for a higher position.

How we label paid relationships

Paid entries carry a “Paid listing” label on the page where the relationship applies. Paid mentions in blog posts and research are labelled “Sponsored.”

Link policy

Vendor links are nofollow. A paid mention adds sponsored to the link’s rel attribute.

Affiliate links

This site has no affiliate links. We do not earn commissions when readers click vendor links or sign up for a product.