Affiliate disclosure

The short version

This site earns money when a reader joins an affiliate program through one of our links. That is our only source of revenue here. We do not run display advertising, we do not sell courses or memberships, and we do not charge programs for placement, ratings or reviews.

How sub-affiliate commission works

Affiliate programs offer a referral tier: if you sign up through our link, the program records that we introduced you. It then pays us a small percentage of the commission you go on to earn — usually between two and five per cent — for as long as you remain active. That percentage is paid by the program out of its own margin. Your commission rate, your payment terms, your account manager and your relationship with the program are exactly the same as if you had signed up directly. Nothing is deducted from you, and you can verify this yourself in any program's terms before signing up.

How we mark those links

Every link that can earn us money passes through our own redirect path, carries rel="sponsored nofollow noopener noreferrer", and opens in a new tab. On every page that contains one, a disclosure appears above the first such link, before you reach it. Links to a program's own information pages, to regulators, and to sources we cite are ordinary links and earn us nothing. Where a program has no referral arrangement with us, the page says so and points you at the program's own signup page instead — we would rather send you somewhere useful for free than pretend a relationship exists.

What the money changes, and what it does not

It would be naive to claim commission has no influence, so here is what we do about it instead of claiming that. Program pages are written from the signed terms and public conditions rather than from marketing copy. The clauses that cost affiliates money — negative carryover, admin fees, bundling, qualification criteria, minimum payouts and termination rights — are published whether or not the program pays us. Ratings are editorial, assigned by us, and are never sold, negotiated or adjusted in exchange for a commercial arrangement; because they are editorial rather than collected from users, we render them as plain text and never as review markup. A program with no sub-affiliate deal is still listed when it deserves listing. If we would not recommend a program to a friend starting out, we do not recommend it here, and where we lack first-hand experience we say so on the page.

Compliance and regional rules

Advertising regulators in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Spain and elsewhere require commercial relationships to be disclosed clearly and prominently. We disclose above the link rather than in a footer, on every affected page, in plain language. If you believe a page on this site carries an undisclosed commercial link, tell us and we will fix it immediately.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, or you want to know whether a specific link earns us money, email [email protected] and we will tell you plainly. You can also read more about the model itself in our guide to sub-affiliate programs.