Tech Vault AI  /  Transparency

Affiliate Disclosure

How Tech Vault AI makes money, what that changes about our reviews, and what it will never change. Written plainly, because a disclosure nobody reads protects nobody.

Last updated
August 7, 2026
Affiliate links
Used selectively
Questions
info@techvaultai.com
The short version

Four answers up front. The detail follows below.

Is every link an affiliate link?
Far from it. We add one only where it genuinely fits the topic, so most links on this site earn us nothing.
Does it cost me more?
No. An affiliate link never changes your price. The seller pays the commission out of its own margin.
Can a brand buy a good score?
No. Commission rates play no part in a rating, a verdict, or a ranking. Not one, ever.
Do you buy what you review?
Mostly yes, with our own money. When a vendor provides access instead, we say so in that review.
01

How We Use Affiliate Links

Some links on Tech Vault AI are affiliate links, and where they are, we may earn a commission if you buy through one. That is how a site like this stays free to read.

Worth knowing

We do not put affiliate links in everything. They appear only where one actually fits — where a specific product is being discussed and a reader might reasonably want to go and look at it. Plenty of our articles carry no affiliate link at all.

This is a deliberate choice. Stuffing a link into every paragraph makes an article worse to read and worse to trust, and it pushes writing towards whatever pays rather than whatever is useful. We would rather link where it helps and leave it out where it does not.

02

What an Affiliate Link Actually Is

An affiliate link is an ordinary link with a tracking code attached. If you click it and then buy something, the seller pays us a small commission for sending you their way.

You pay exactly the same price. The commission comes out of the seller's margin, not out of your pocket. There is no surcharge and no worse deal for using our link.

The tracking itself is done by the seller, not by us. What comes back to us is an aggregate report of sales — never your name, address, or payment details. The detail is in our Privacy Policy.

03

Programs We Work With

Given what we cover, our affiliate relationships fall into three groups:

  • Direct vendor programs — run by the AI tool and SaaS companies themselves, usually paying on a subscription signup
  • Affiliate networks — intermediaries that manage programs on behalf of many software vendors at once
  • Retailer programs — for the gadgets, phones, and accessories we cover. We expect to join the Amazon Associates Program and comparable retailer programs, and this page will name them once we do.

As each relationship goes live, it is covered by everything set out on this page. We keep this section accurate as the list grows.

04

How We Label Them

Every review and comparison on Tech Vault AI carries a disclosure notice inside the article itself — near the top or near the foot of the piece — so you never have to leave the page to find out how we are funded.

That notice appears whether or not the article contains a single affiliate link. Since we only add links where they genuinely fit, many of our articles carry none — and the notice is there anyway. We would rather over-disclose on a piece that earns us nothing than under-disclose on one that does.

If a review was written using access a vendor provided rather than a copy we bought, that is stated in the review too. Sponsored or paid placements, where they exist, are labelled as such and kept separate from editorial reviews.

05

How We Get the Products We Review

Two ways, and we are open about which applies in each case.

Bought with our own money
The majority of what we review. We pay for the subscription or the device, use it as a paying customer would, and hit the same limits and billing pages you would.
Access provided by a vendor
Sometimes a company gives us a review account or an extended trial. When that happens we say so in the review, and the vendor sees no draft and gets no approval over what we publish.

Paying for things ourselves is deliberate. Buying a product is the only way to find out what the upgrade prompts feel like, what the cancellation flow does, and whether the plan you actually need costs what the pricing page implies.

06

Where the Money Stops

The line we do not cross

Commission rates are never a factor in a score, a verdict, a recommendation, or the order of a ranked list. A tool that pays nothing can beat a tool that pays well, and regularly does.

Scores are set before commercial terms are looked at, and a product that disappoints gets said so in plain language regardless of what it would pay us. If a tool is the wrong choice for the reader, the honest answer is worth more than the commission.

Where a genuinely good option has no affiliate program at all, we still recommend it. Some of our strongest recommendations earn us nothing.

07

What We Will Never Do

  • Accept payment in exchange for a rating, a score, or a place in a ranking
  • Remove or soften a fair negative review because a vendor asked
  • Let a company approve, preview, or veto a review before it goes live
  • Sell links inside editorial articles, or publish paid content dressed up as an independent review
  • Hide an affiliate link behind a redirect that disguises where it goes
  • Recommend something we would not use ourselves
08

Our Other Sources of Income

Affiliate commission is not the only way this site is funded, and you deserve the full picture:

  • Paid directory listings — businesses can pay for placement in our directory. Paid placement buys visibility, never a rating or a verdict, and paid entries are labelled.
  • Paid submission options — contributors can pay for a faster or enhanced review of an article submission. Paying does not guarantee publication; work that fails our standards is declined and the fee returned.
  • Display advertising — not currently running on this site. If and when it starts, the ads will be visually distinct from editorial content and the detail will be in our Privacy Policy.

The full commercial terms are set out in our Terms of Service.

09

Confused About a Tool? Disagree With Us?

This is not a token line at the bottom of a legal page. Write in, and you get a real answer from the person who wrote the review.

Stuck between two tools
Tell us what you are actually trying to do and we will explain the difference in plain terms — including when the answer is that neither is worth paying for.
A feature or plan makes no sense
Pricing tiers, credit systems, and usage limits are often deliberately confusing. Ask, and we will break down what you are really buying.
You disagree with a verdict
Say so. If your experience of a tool differs from ours, we want to hear it — and if you change our mind, the review gets updated and you get the credit.
You want to know if a link pays us
Ask about any specific link, or whether a review was written on a bought copy or a vendor account. We will tell you straight.

Email info@techvaultai.com and you will get an answer within 24 hours. No sales pitch attached — if the honest answer is that you do not need the product, that is the answer you will get.

Related pages

Tech Vault AI

Independently owned and run by Asif Iqbal. No parent company, no investor, and no vendor with a say in what we publish.