Editorial and Review Policy
How we choose what to cover, how we test it, how a score is arrived at, and who is accountable for every word published here. If you want to judge whether our reviews are worth trusting, this is the page to read.
Four commitments. Everything below is the detail behind them.
Who Is Accountable
Tech Vault AI is independently owned and edited by Asif Iqbal, working from Bangladesh for a worldwide readership. Every review carries a named byline, and final editorial responsibility sits with one identifiable person rather than a brand.
There is no parent company, no investor, and no vendor with a say in what appears here. That matters: it means there is nobody above us who can quietly ask for a score to move.
How We Choose What to Cover
We cover AI tools, SaaS products, gadgets, phones, and accessories. What gets reviewed is decided by what readers are actually trying to decide between — questions that arrive by email, tools that keep coming up, and categories where the existing coverage is thin or obviously bought.
Nobody can pay to have a product reviewed, and a company asking to be covered gets no advantage over one that has never contacted us. Where a business pays for a listing in our directory, that is a separate, labelled thing and it does not put the product into the review queue.
How We Test
We use a product before we rate it. How long depends entirely on what it is — a single-purpose generator can be understood in an afternoon, while a project management platform or a phone needs to be lived with before anything useful can be said about it. We do not run a fixed testing clock, because a fixed clock would produce shallow verdicts on complex products and padded ones on simple products.
We test on the plan a real reader would buy, not on an inflated enterprise tier arranged for reviewers. Where a free tier exists, we test that too, because for many readers that is the only tier that matters.
How a Score Is Reached
Every review carries a rating on a 1 to 10 scale, shown as a star rating on the page. Four things decide it, and they are the same four for every product we cover:
| Score | Band | What we mean by it |
|---|---|---|
| 8.0 to 10 | Excellent | We would pay for this ourselves and recommend it without hedging. |
| 6.0 to 7.9 | Good | Solid and worth buying for the right use case, with real limitations we name. |
| 4.0 to 5.9 | Mixed | Works, but something significant is wrong — usually the price, or a gap where it matters. |
| 1.0 to 3.9 | Poor | We would tell a friend to spend the money elsewhere. |
A score is an informed judgement, not a calculation. There is no secret formula that turns four numbers into a fifth — the four criteria are what we weigh, and the weighting shifts with what a product is for. A cheap tool that does one thing perfectly can outscore an expensive one that does ten things adequately.
What Every Review Contains
- A rating out of 10, visible near the top so you can stop reading immediately if you want to
- A verdict — the conclusion in plain language, including who the product is not for
- Pros and cons — specific ones. "Good interface" tells you nothing; we try to say what actually worked and what did not
- A named author and a publication date, so you can judge how stale it might be
- A funding disclosure, present whether or not the article contains a single affiliate link
Every review has a cons section. A product with nothing wrong with it does not exist, and a review that cannot find a fault is not a review.
How We Use AI in Our Own Work
We cover AI tools, so it would be strange to pretend we do not use them. We would rather tell you exactly where they sit in the process than let you guess.
Nothing reaches this site as a machine draft. Every piece is checked line by line against the product in front of us, rewritten where it reads generic, corrected where it is wrong, and cut where it says nothing. The claims, the numbers, and the opinions are ours to defend.
The test we hold ourselves to is simple: could this paragraph have been written by someone who never opened the product? If yes, it does not belong in the review.
Independence
Commission rates, paid listings, and advertising have no effect on a score, a verdict, or the order of a ranked list. A product that pays us nothing can and does outrank one that pays well.
- No vendor previews, approves, or vetoes a review before it is published
- No payment is accepted in exchange for a score, a rating, or a ranking position
- A fair negative review is never removed or softened because a company asked
- Paid placements are labelled and kept visually separate from editorial reviews
How the site is funded is set out in full on our Affiliate Disclosure page.
Updates and Corrections
Software changes faster than any publication can keep up with. Prices rise, free tiers shrink, and features ship or get withdrawn between our writing and your reading. Every review shows its publication date so you can judge how much weight to give it.
When a product changes materially, we revisit the review and adjust the score if the change warrants it. A score can go down as well as up.
If you find something wrong — a stale price, a feature we described incorrectly, a plan that no longer exists — email info@techvaultai.com. We check it and fix what needs fixing, usually within 24 hours. We would rather be corrected than stay wrong.
Contributed Articles
We accept articles from outside writers. Every submission is read in full before a decision, and it is held to the same standards as our own work: original, based on real experience, honest about limitations, and transparent about any commercial relationship behind a recommendation.
If a piece meets that bar we publish it broadly as written, with the author's byline. If it does not, we decline it. We do not quietly rewrite someone else's argument and publish it under their name.
Contributed work is clearly bylined so you always know who wrote what you are reading. The full terms are in our Terms of Service.
Tell Us We Are Wrong
If your experience of a product differs from ours, we want to hear it. Reviewing is judgement, and judgement improves when it is challenged by someone who used the same tool for different work.
Disagree in the comments on the article, where other readers can weigh it too, or email us directly. If you change our mind, the review gets updated and you get the credit for it.
The same applies to vendors. If we got something wrong about your product, write in with specifics and we will check and correct it. What we will not do is remove an accurate criticism because it is inconvenient.
Questions About How We Work?
Ask how a specific score was reached, whether a review was written on a bought copy, or why one tool beat another. You will get a straight answer.