Editorial Policy

How We Select Tools for Review

We don't review everything. MakerStack is a curated platform, which means most tools we encounter never make it to a full review. Our selection criteria:

• Real team. The product is built by an identifiable team or company, not an anonymous side project with no support.
• Clear use case. The tool solves a specific, real problem for a defined audience. It's not a solution looking for a problem.
• Genuine value. There's a reason someone would pay for this (or choose it over free alternatives). It has to offer something meaningfully better or different.
• Active development. The product is being maintained and improved. We don't review abandoned tools.

Tools reach us through our own research (Product Hunt, Hacker News, Twitter/X, Reddit, Indie Hackers) and reader tips.

How We Score Products

Every review receives an overall score out of 10. This score is based on five weighted criteria:

1. Features & Functionality (30%): Does it do what it claims? How deep and reliable are the core features?
2. Usability & Design (20%): How easy is it to get started and use day-to-day? Is the interface well-designed?
3. Pricing & Value (20%): Is it fairly priced for what you get? How does it compare to alternatives at similar price points?
4. Audience Fit (15%): How well does it serve its target audience? A niche tool that perfectly serves its users scores higher than a generic tool that's mediocre for everyone.
5. Competitive Position (15%): How does it stack up against the best alternatives in its category?

Rating Scale

• 9.0–10.0: Exceptional. Best in class. We actively recommend it.
• 7.5–8.9: Very good. Strong option for the right audience.
• 6.0–7.4: Solid. Does the job but has notable limitations or better alternatives exist.
• 4.0–5.9: Below average. Significant issues with features, pricing, or usability.
• Below 4.0: Not recommended. We rarely publish these, since most tools that would score here don't pass our initial selection filter.

Editorial Independence

We do not sell reviews. Makers can buy a featured placement on our homepage (see below), which also moves them up the review queue. Money can buy our attention. It cannot buy our opinion, and it cannot buy publication of a favourable one. Concretely:

• Nobody can buy a score, a ranking, or a favourable verdict. A placement fee pays for a slot on our homepage and for our time, not for what we conclude.
• Products are scored against the same five criteria whether the placement was paid for, the link is affiliate, or we found the tool ourselves.
• Companies cannot preview, edit, or approve a review before publication. We ask placement customers which features matter to them and for test credentials; we do not send drafts for sign-off. Makers read the review when you do.
• A paid placement does not change whether we publish. The review goes up either way, at whatever score we land on. If it scores badly the maker simply doesn't get the homepage slot, and we refund the placement fee.
• Every paid placement is labelled at the top of the review and again at the bottom.

Our credibility depends on being honest. If readers can't trust our scores, nothing else matters.

Featured Placements

We publish reviews every day of tools nobody paid us to cover, and there are several thousand of them in the archive. Any maker can also buy a featured placement through our Get Featured page for a one-time fee.

What the fee buys: a three-month slot in the Featured Tools section of our homepage, and a place at the front of the review queue so the write-up lands within 48 hours instead of whenever we get to it. Someone signs up for the product, uses it, and writes it up to exactly the same standard and structure as every other review.

What the fee does not buy: the score, the verdict, the pros and cons, editorial approval, or a favourable outcome. We reach our own conclusion and publish it. What a poor score costs the maker is the homepage slot, not the review, and we refund the placement fee in that case.

Paid placements are clearly labelled at the top of the review so no reader has to guess, and homepage Featured cards are marked as featured. If you'd rather read only reviews nobody paid to place, the label tells you which is which.

How We Link to Products

Every review links to the product it covers. We treat those links as ordinary editorial links, and we apply the same rule to every review regardless of whether a placement was paid for:

• Tools we recommend, meaning those scoring 7.5 or above, get a normal followed link.
• Tools scoring below 7.5 are linked with rel="nofollow". If we don't stand behind a tool, we don't pass authority to it.
• The small number of links that earn us a commission carry rel="sponsored", whatever the score.

A review with a paid placement is linked on exactly the same basis as any other review at the same score, and most followed links on this site sit on reviews nobody paid for. Paying us does not change the link, and we do not sell links on their own.

How MakerStack Makes Money

Reviews are free to read. Three things pay for them:

• Featured placement fees. A one-time fee from makers who want a homepage slot and a faster turnaround, as described above. It buys placement, not coverage and not a verdict.
• Sponsor placements. A monthly slot in the Featured Tool frame that appears alongside our content. Sponsor slots are advertising, are labelled as such, and are completely separate from reviews. Sponsoring does not get you reviewed and does not change a score.
• Affiliate commissions. We're in affiliate programmes with a small number of the products we review, a handful out of several thousand. Where a link earns us a commission it carries rel="sponsored" and the review page says so at the bottom.

In every case: the presence or absence of money has no impact on our scoring, and we will recommend the best tool for the reader over the one that pays us. Every review page carries a disclosure at the bottom, and where any of these applies to that particular review it is stated there.

Update Policy

Software changes constantly. Our reviews need to keep up.

• When a product launches a major update, redesign, or pricing change, we revisit and update the review.
• Updated reviews show both the original publish date and the most recent update date.
• Scores can go up or down after an update. A product that was great at launch can lose points if competitors have surpassed it.
• Category hub pages are refreshed regularly to reflect current rankings.

If you notice a review that's out of date, let us know.