Disclosure

Short version: AI Vault makes money two ways. Some links are affiliate links, which pay us a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. A small number of posts are paid placements, where a company paid for the post to exist. Those are labelled at the top of the post and in every listing, and you can spot them by the amber Sponsored badge. Neither arrangement buys a good review. If a tool is bad, we say so and keep the fee.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a way for content creators to earn income by recommending products and services. When a company has an affiliate programme, they give publishers (like us) a unique tracking link. If a reader clicks that link and then makes a purchase or signs up for a paid plan, the company pays us a small commission.

The price you pay is never affected by affiliate links. You pay exactly the same amount whether you use our link or go directly to the company's website.

Which Links Are Affiliate Links?

On AI Vault, some links to AI tools, software products, and services may be affiliate links. When a post contains affiliate links, we note it clearly at the top of the article.

Types of links that may earn us a commission include:

• Links to AI writing tools (e.g. Jasper AI, Copy.ai)
• Links to AI image generation tools (e.g. Midjourney)
• Links to productivity and SEO software
• Links to hosting, domain, and web services

Links to free resources, official documentation, news sources, and research papers are never affiliate links.

How This Affects Our Reviews

We want to be completely honest with you about this: we do not let affiliate relationships influence our editorial opinions. Our reviews reflect our genuine assessment of each product based on actual use.

To be specific:

• We do not give positive reviews to products simply because they have an affiliate programme.
• We include affiliate links only for tools we would recommend regardless of any commission.
• We will honestly state when a product is not worth the price, even if it has an affiliate programme.
• Some tools we review have no affiliate programme. We review them anyway if they are relevant and useful.

Paid Placements and Sponsored Posts

A paid placement is different from an affiliate link, and it is worth being precise about the difference. An affiliate link pays us only if you click it and buy something. A paid placement means a company paid a flat fee for the post to exist at all. That is a bigger conflict of interest, so it gets a bigger label.

How you will always be able to tell:

• An amber Paid placement box sits at the top of the post, above the article, naming the company that paid.
• An amber Sponsored badge appears on the post card everywhere it is listed, so you know before you click.
• Every outbound link to the advertiser carries rel="sponsored", which tells search engines the link was paid for and stops it passing ranking credit.

What the money buys. It buys the time to test the product properly and the space on this site to publish the result. That is all it buys.

What it does not buy. Advertisers do not get approval over the wording. They do not see the post before it is published. They cannot ask for a line to be removed after publication. And they do not get a positive verdict. That last one is agreed in writing before any money changes hands, because it is the only part of the arrangement that becomes awkward afterwards.

If a product turns out to be poor, one of two things happens, agreed up front: the review says it is poor and we keep the fee, or the advertiser pays a partial fee for the testing work and nothing is published. There is no third option where we publish something we do not believe.

Two rules we hold ourselves to.

• Paid placements are never inserted into an existing comparison post, roundup or best-of list. Those rankings are not for sale at any price, because a paid entry in a ranking makes the whole ranking worthless. A paid placement gets its own post. If the product then earns a spot in a roundup on its own merits, it goes in there separately and for free.
• If an advertiser shuts down or their product stops working inside the placement period, the post gets a dated note saying so, the same as any other post on this site. Paying does not exempt a tool from that.

If you are a company interested in a paid placement, the rules above are the terms, and they are not negotiable. Enquiries go to the address at the bottom of this page.

FTC Compliance

This disclosure is made in accordance with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines on endorsements and testimonials (16 CFR, Part 255). These guidelines require that we disclose any material connection between ourselves and the companies whose products we recommend. That covers both kinds of payment described above: commissions from affiliate programmes, and flat fees for paid placements.

We are also committed to transparency in line with advertising standards in other jurisdictions, including the UK's ASA guidelines.

Questions?

If you have any questions about our affiliate relationships or whether a specific link on this site is an affiliate link, please contact us: