Affiliate disclosure
Every article that contains affiliate links carries a short disclosure at the top. This is the long version, for anyone who wants the full picture.
How Companion Index makes money
The site uses affiliate programs operated by third-party networks, plus a few direct programs where available. When you click a tracked outbound link on this site and subscribe to a service via that link, I may receive a commission. The commission comes from the company you subscribed to, not from you. Your price isn't affected by clicking the link.
Tracked links are identifiable in the markup by the rel="sponsored" attribute, in
line with current FTC guidance and Google's recommendations for disclosing affiliate
relationships. Every article that contains tracked links also carries a visible disclosure at
the top.
How editorial stays separate from revenue
The separation rests on practices I don't bend:
- Scoring axes are defined before any review starts. The eight axes on the methodology page don't include a "commercial fit" component or anything equivalent. A company that pays me cannot earn a higher score than a company that doesn't, on the same observed behaviour.
- I review apps that don't pay me too. Several articles on this site cover brands without an affiliate program available to me. Some score well, some score badly. The treatment is identical.
- I don't delete or soften published material at the request of a brand. Companies whose products I review can write to me with factual disputes — verified errors are corrected. Score disputes are not grounds for editing.
- I don't run sponsored content. Every article on this site is editorial. No "in partnership with" pieces, no sponsored placements in listicles, no preview coverage in exchange for early access.
The honest edge case
Some apps I cover don't have an affiliate program available to me. For those, I still write — but the format is different. The article is titled as an "overview" rather than a "review", and the body states explicitly that I haven't run my 14-day test on the app. I then point you toward alternatives I have tested under the full protocol. The handoff happens in a clearly labelled section, separate from the neutral body of the article.
The alternative — refusing to cover any app I can't monetise — would leave large gaps in the coverage and be a worse service to you. I don't hide that the affiliate constraint exists; I tell you exactly where it sits.
Why I chose this model
I considered the alternatives.
Sponsored content. Compromises the reviews directly. No.
Display advertising. Attracts the same companies I cover, produces the same conflict in a less honest form, degrades reading. No.
Subscription paywall. Would put dark-pattern documentation, safety findings, and regulatory developments behind a paywall — on a topic where readers most need it free. I rejected this trade-off.
Affiliate, disclosed in plain language. The trade-off: some of the companies I cover pay me. The discipline that compensates: fixed axes, identical protocol, disclosure inline. I think this is the cleanest model in the current commercial landscape for adult-tech coverage.
Contact
Questions about the affiliate model, editorial process, or specific brand coverage: editor@thecompanionindex.com. I respond as workload allows. Substantive correspondence may be published in part or in full unless explicitly agreed otherwise in advance.