Transparency is the foundation of ToolScorecard. We want you to understand exactly how we make money and, more importantly, how that does -- and does not -- affect what we publish.
Last Updated: June 19, 2026
Our commitment in one sentence: We never accept payment for placement, sponsored reviews, or higher scores. Affiliate commissions come from readers choosing to purchase through our links, not from companies paying for positive coverage.
Running a thorough review site requires significant time and resources. Each review cycle takes 80 or more hours of hands-on testing, not including writing, editing, and maintenance. To sustain this work, ToolScorecard uses three revenue sources:
Many of the software tools we review offer affiliate programs. When you click an affiliate link on our website and sign up for a paid plan, we may earn a commission -- typically a percentage of the subscription fee or a flat referral bonus. These programs include major platforms like Squarespace, Calendly, Pixpa, Format, Square, and Booksy, among others.
You pay the same price whether you use our affiliate link or go directly to the provider's website. The commission comes out of the provider's marketing budget, not your pocket.
ToolScorecard is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. When you click an Amazon link on our site and make a purchase, we earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
Amazon product recommendations are based on our independent research and judgment. We only recommend products we believe are genuinely useful to our readers.
We display advertisements through Google AdSense. These ads are served based on your browsing history and interests, not on our preferences. We do not control which specific ads appear, and we do not receive payment from advertisers for featuring their ads on our site. AdSense provides a passive revenue stream that helps us keep the site running.
Equally important as explaining how we make money is explaining what we do not do:
Affiliate links are identified on our site in several ways:
When you click an affiliate link, a small cookie is placed on your browser so the provider can attribute the referral to us. If you make a purchase within the cookie window (typically 24 hours to 30 days, depending on the program), we earn a commission. No personal information about you is transmitted to us through this process.
Our rankings are determined solely by our testing methodology, which is published in detail on our Methodology page. Affiliate relationships never influence which tools we review, how we score them, or where they rank. We have turned down lucrative affiliate partnerships with tools that scored poorly, and we have recommended tools that have no affiliate program at all.
If a tool we recommend also happens to have an affiliate program, we use affiliate links where appropriate. If a tool does not have an affiliate program, we link to it anyway. The presence or absence of an affiliate relationship never changes our recommendation.
Still have questions? We understand that affiliate disclosures can be confusing. If you have any questions about how we make money, a specific link, or our relationship with any company we review, please contact us. We will give you a straight answer.
For more details on our testing process and quality standards, see our Methodology page. To learn about who we are and why we started ToolScorecard, visit our About page.