Policy
Paid visibility can't buy the verdict
The Builder's Verdict earns money from clearly labelled commercial placements and affiliate links. It never sells a verdict, a score or a ranking, and this page is the public commitment we expect to be held to.
Never for sale
- A verdict, rating or criterion assessment
- A place on a shortlist or 'best of' list
- A softer weakness section or removed criticism
- Ranking position anywhere on the site
- Unlabelled coverage of any kind
- Advance sight of, or veto over, editorial content
What partners can buy
- Clearly labelled sponsor slots on category and guide pages
- Enhanced supplier directory profiles, labelled and never carrying an editorial score
- Newsletter sponsorship, labelled in the issue
- Founding partner packages (see the advertise page)
- Commissioned research with published methodology and full editorial control retained by us
Every paid placement is labelled at the point you see it, not in a footer policy nobody reads. A paid supplier profile never carries an editorial score: paid status and scores never coexist on the same entity.
How verdicts get made
Verdicts follow the published methodology: verified pricing, documented evidence levels, named authors, dated fact checks. Whether a company is a partner, an affiliate, or has never spoken to us has no bearing on any of it. If the best product in a category has no affiliate programme, it still wins the category.
Vendors never see reviews before publication. If a vendor disputes a fact, we re-verify against primary sources and correct if we were wrong, logged on the corrections page. Being a partner earns no faster or friendlier treatment in that process.
No fake anything
We never fabricate testing, users, community activity, reviews, subscriber counts, traffic figures, testimonials, or urgency (“only 3 left!”). Where the honest state of something is “early” or “empty”, the page says so. An empty page that tells the truth beats a busy page that lies.