Last Updated: August 19, 2026 · Effective Immediately
TechToolsHQ believes in uncompromising editorial integrity and complete financial transparency. This page sets out how this site will earn money once affiliate links are in place, how the tracking behind them works, and why a commercial relationship will never influence a review or a ranking. As of today we carry no affiliate links and earn nothing from them — the rules are published first, deliberately.
Clicking an affiliate link never increases your purchase price. The merchant pays our referral fee from their margin.
Scores and rankings are decided before any affiliate link is attached. The highest payout never dictates the top spot.
We never accept payment for positive reviews or sponsored verdicts. Every score is earned.
TechToolsHQ currently carries no affiliate links and earns no commission from anything on this site. We are not yet enrolled in any affiliate programme. This page describes how affiliate links will work when we do add them, and the rules we will hold ourselves to — published in advance, so you can hold us to them.
When that changes, this page is updated on the same day, every affiliate link is marked where it appears, and the date above changes with it.
Once enrolled, some outbound product links, price-checking buttons, and recommendation cards will be affiliate referral links.
When you click an affiliate link on TechToolsHQ and complete a purchase or sign up for a service on the retailer’s website, the merchant pays TechToolsHQ a small referral commission.
This commission comes entirely out of the retailer’s advertising margin. You pay the exact same price as any other customer, and in many cases, our partnership links provide exclusive discount codes.
TechToolsHQ is not currently enrolled in any affiliate or referral programme, and we do not name partners we do not have. When we join a programme, the merchant or network is named here by name, on the day it becomes active — and where a programme requires specific wording (Amazon Associates, for example, requires a set statement from its participants), that wording appears here at the same time and not before.
A disclosure written after the money starts arriving is worth very little. Publishing the rules first means the standards on this page were set while we had no commercial interest in bending them — and it gives you something to check us against later.
We understand that financial relationships create potential conflicts of interest. To protect our readers, TechToolsHQ operates under a strict internal firewall:
We research and rank products purely on performance, build quality, and specifications from documented sources — never on how much a link pays. Commission percentages don't enter our research.
Awards such as "Best Overall" or "Top Choice" go to whatever actually wins on the published criteria — including open-source software, free tools, and brands that pay us nothing. A product that pays no commission can and will outrank one that does.
A single commission can never replace the long-term trust of our readers. If a cheaper or non-affiliate tool outperforms a high-commission alternative, the superior tool wins every time.
Affiliate networks use short-term tracking cookies when you click a outbound button on TechToolsHQ.
These conversion cookies store zero personally identifiable information (PII) such as your name, credit card details, or email address. They contain only an anonymous code identifying TechToolsHQ as the referrer so the merchant knows to attribute the sale.
For more details on how cookies operate across our site, please read our dedicated Privacy Policy.
Have questions about a review or affiliate link? Contact our editorial desk:
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