The rules that govern everything we publish.
GAX Online operates under a strict editorial independence policy. No advertiser, investor, or vendor has any influence over what we publish, how we score, or how we rank. This page documents exactly how that independence is maintained — and what happens when it is tested.
Three commitments that cannot be overridden.
Independence first.
No revenue from ranked content — ever. Rankings, scores, and editorial positions are determined entirely by our methodology. No vendor can purchase a better ranking, a higher score, a featured badge, or any editorial advantage of any kind. Affiliate revenue exists on this site; it is disclosed on every page where it applies, and it has zero influence on rank order or scoring weight. The scoring rubric is the only input. If a conflict between revenue and editorial integrity ever arises, editorial wins. If it cannot, we pull the coverage.
Transparency by default.
Our methodology is public and versioned. Every scoring rubric, every weighting change, every data source we rely on is documented at gaxonline.com/methodology. Readers can reproduce any score from first principles using public information. When we update methodology, the old version is archived. When we change a score, the reason is published alongside the updated ranking. We do not make quiet edits. We do not retroactively alter the record.
Accountability without exceptions.
Corrections are published at the top of the original article with a timestamp. Score corrections are reflected in the live ranking within 48 hours and logged in the article's correction record. The editor responsible for each piece of coverage is named on the byline. Disputes — factual, methodological, or ethical — are handled through our corrections process, not suppressed. We do not delete published corrections. We do not unpublish articles because a vendor objects to accurate coverage.
What we will never do.
These are categorical rules, not guidelines subject to editorial judgment. No exception exists. No business justification overrides them.
How we identify and manage conflicts.
Affiliates, free trials, and vendor relationships.
Every material relationship between GAX Online and a covered vendor is disclosed. This includes:
Recusal, disclosure, and independent verification.
When a potential conflict is identified, we apply one of three remedies in order of preference:
How we verify what we publish.
Every factual claim in our editorial coverage must meet a minimum verification bar before publication. Vendor-supplied information is treated as a primary but insufficient source — it must be corroborated. Data that cannot be verified is not published or is explicitly labelled as unverified vendor-supplied information.
Material claims require at least three independent sources before they are presented as fact. Vendor statements count as one. Two additional corroborating sources — independent documentation, third-party data, or on-record named sources — are required.
We use primary sources wherever possible: official documentation, public filings, independently published benchmarks, and direct product testing. Secondary and tertiary sources are labelled as such.
Supporting documentation — screenshots, archived pages, PDFs, raw data — is retained internally for a minimum of five years. We do not publish claims we cannot substantiate from our records.
All public datasets, research, and third-party benchmarks used in scoring or editorial commentary are cited in-line with a direct link to the source. Where a source is paywalled, we indicate that.
What vendors can and cannot do.
We work with vendors to ensure our coverage is accurate. We do not work with vendors to make it favourable. The line between those two things is firm.
Questions about our editorial process?
If you have a question about how we make a coverage decision, how a score was calculated, or how we handle a specific editorial situation, we will answer it. We think that kind of accountability is part of the job.
Standards questions, methodology queries, editorial process
We respond to all standards and corrections enquiries within 24 hours. We publish our response where it is editorially appropriate to do so.