Editorial process

Who writes what

Three people write this site, and every page names the one responsible for it. James Mitchell writes the individual app reviews. Jake Parker writes the category shortlists and the head-to-head comparisons. David Thompson covers industry news and market research. Each name links to a page listing everything they are credited on, so the byline can be checked rather than taken on faith.

How a score is reached

Every app is scored against the same four areas, and the overall figure is a judgement across them rather than an average of hidden sub-scores:

• Conversation, judged over a long session rather than a first exchange, because almost every app in this category is good for one evening
• Memory, meaning whether the app carries anything between sessions or quietly starts fresh
• Real cost, meaning what you end up paying once you actually use the features, not the headline price
• Privacy handling, meaning what the app asks for and what its policy says it does with it

A score can go down. When an app changes in a way that affects one of those four, the page and the score are updated and the page carries the date it last changed.

Where pricing and feature data comes from

Pricing, plan names and feature lists are held in a single dataset that feeds every page that mentions them, so the same app does not show two different prices in two places. That data is taken from each provider's own pricing page.

The honest limitation: providers in this category change prices without announcing it, and a plan can shift between a re-check. If a price here does not match what you see on the provider's site, the provider is right and we are out of date. Tell us and we will correct it.

How affiliate links work here

Most outbound links to an app are affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission if you sign up. They are marked as sponsored in the page markup. This is how the site is paid for, and we would rather say so plainly than bury it.

What that does not buy: a score, a position in a ranking, or a removed criticism. No provider sees a review before it is published and no provider can pay to change one. Several apps we earn nothing from are ranked above apps we do.

What we do not do

We think it is worth being specific about this, because the standard trust page in this industry implies more than it delivers.

• We do not run a separate named fact-checking desk. The writer of a page is the person accountable for it
• We do not publish original survey data or invent market figures. Where a statistic appears, it is attributed to whoever produced it
• We do not accept paid placement, sponsored reviews, or copy written by a provider
• We do not claim to have tested every app in every ranking to the same depth, and the shortlists say which ones were used hands-on

Corrections

If something here is wrong, outdated, or unfair to an app, we want to know. The fastest route is the form on our contact page. Corrections to a factual error are made on the page itself, and the page's updated date changes with it.