Advertiser Disclosure
Brokers can pay us for placement. They cannot pay us for a score. This page explains exactly where the line sits and how you can tell the difference on any page of this site.
Why this page exists
We run a directory that rates brokers, and we also sell advertising to brokers. Those two activities can corrupt each other, and in this industry they frequently do. The only protection a reader has is a written, specific account of what is bought and what is not. This is that account.
What a broker can pay for
- Sponsored placement. A higher position in the broker catalogue and on category pages. Every card placed this way carries a visible Sponsored label.
- A partner logo. A place in the partners section, including on the home page, with a partner profile of its own. A paid logo carries a sponsor label, and the outbound link is marked rel="sponsored nofollow".
- Company announcements. Publication of company news, subject to the same moderation as any other submission. We reject announcements that read as investment advice or that we cannot corroborate.
- Verification — the work, not the outcome. Verification is a paid service, and we would rather list it here than let you discover it elsewhere. The fee covers register lookups, document review and an annual re-check. It does not buy the result: a failed check is not refunded, precisely so that we have no reason to pass everyone. It is sold on its own and never bundled into an advertising package.
What no amount of money buys
- The TW Score, or any component of it.
- Removal, suppression or reordering of negative reviews.
- Changes to regulatory or licensing facts. Those come from primary registers and are corrected only when the register is wrong or we misread it.
- A place in any ranking that is computed from the score, including the best-of pages.
- A passing verification. Paying for the check does not pass the check.
How the catalogue is ordered
The catalogue opens in the Featured order. That order places two groups above the rest: brokers we have selected editorially, labelled Featured, and brokers who have paid for placement, labelled Sponsored. Below those two groups, brokers are ordered by TW Score.
If you want the list ordered purely on merit, switch the sort to TW Score. That view contains no paid or editorial promotion at all, and it is one click away on every catalogue page.
The best-of and comparison pages are always ordered by TW Score. Placement is not sold on them.
Labels you will see
- Sponsored means the broker paid for that position.
- Featured means our editors placed the broker there and no money changed hands.
- Verified is a paid service but not an advertising label. It records that we confirmed the company identity and its licences against the regulators' registers. It has no effect on the score or on ordering, and its absence means a broker never applied — not that one was checked and failed.
A promoted broker with no label would make this page worthless, so the rule is absolute: if a position was bought or editorially granted, it is labelled.
Links to broker websites
As of the effective date of this page, links from a broker profile to that broker's website are plain links. They carry no affiliate or referral tracking, and we receive no commission when you open an account. Links from a paid partner logo are marked rel="sponsored nofollow". If either arrangement changes we will update this page before the change goes live.
Separation of duties
Commercial agreements are handled separately from scoring and moderation. Buying placement does not give a broker access to the scoring configuration, to review moderation decisions, or to the identity of reviewers. Declining to buy placement has no effect on any of those either.
Telling us we got it wrong
If you find promoted placement on this site without a label, tell us and we will correct it. Write to [email protected] with the page address. This is the kind of mistake we would rather hear about from a reader than from a regulator.