Affiliate links and how we make money

The short version

Some links to tools and services on this site are affiliate links. If you sign up through one, we may be paid a commission by that company. It never costs you more, and it never changes what we tell you.

How you can tell

Every affiliate link on this site carries rel="sponsored", opens in a new tab, and is announced to screen readers as an affiliate link. Any page carrying one shows a disclosure above the fold, before you reach the link — not in the footer.

A tool is only ever a link where a live programme actually exists. Most of the tools named in our playbooks are not affiliate links at all; they are just the tool we think you should use.

What a commission cannot buy

It cannot move an idea’s Cash Score, change its evidence grade, or soften its reality check or its “who should avoid this” section.

It cannot get an idea published, promoted, or ranked higher in any list.

It cannot get a tool recommended in a playbook step where we would not otherwise have recommended it.

These are enforced in the code — the scoring function cannot see commercial data at all — and not left to good intentions.

Advertising

We also intend to show advertising. Where ads run, they are labelled, and in the UK, the EEA and Switzerland nothing that requires your consent loads until you have given it. See the cookie policy.