Transparency

How we make money

The short version: some outbound links to vendors are affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission — at no extra cost to you. That's it.

Ground Truth is free to use and has no paywall. Affiliate commissions are how we keep the lights on while staying independent — we don't sell vendor placements, sponsored rankings, or “featured” slots.

Affiliate status never touches our rankings. Whether a vendor pays us a commission has no bearing on whether it appears on the site, how it is scored, or where it ranks. The ranking and trust-scoring code is structurally blind to affiliate data — it literally cannot read it. We enforce that with a code-level guard and a test, not just good intentions.

What that means in practice

  • • The same published method scores every vendor. No exceptions for partners.
  • • A vendor with no affiliate relationship can — and does — outrank one that pays us.
  • • We add or drop vendors based on the data, never on whether they run a program.
  • • Affiliate links are always marked rel="sponsored" and disclosed where they appear.

If a discount code is available, we'll show it next to the link so you get the lower price whether or not you use our link. Our incentive is to send you to good vendors and be right about which ones those are — because that's what keeps you coming back.

More detail lives in our independence & affiliate disclosure and our methodology, which explains exactly how every score is derived.