Tool Checked is free for salon owners to use. To keep it that way, we earn money from some of the vendors we list. This page explains how, and what money never changes.
Affiliate links
Some links from Tool Checked to vendor websites are affiliate links. If you click one and then sign up or buy, the vendor may pay us a commission. This costs you nothing extra.
- How to spot them: affiliate links go through our own redirect address, which starts with
/go/. - How they’re marked: every affiliate link carries the
rel="sponsored"attribute in our code, as search engines recommend. - What we log: when you click a
/go/link, we record the click on our server. No cookie is set, and your IP address is stored only as an anonymous hash. See our Privacy Policy for details.
Not every vendor has an affiliate program. We list and score tools whether or not they pay us.
Paid listing tiers
Vendors can also pay for listing upgrades:
- Claimed – the vendor claims its listing and can send extra details. Anything a vendor adds is checked by an editor before it is published.
- Featured – extra visibility within a niche, limited to a maximum of 3 Featured slots per niche.
Claimed and Featured listings are always clearly labelled on the site.
What money never changes
Commissions, Claimed listings and Featured listings never affect editorial scores or rankings:
- Editorial scores are set by editors using the same weighted criteria for every tool.
- Rankings and cost calculator results are never boosted for paying vendors.
- The Tool Checked badge is an editorial award available only to free listings that meet our criteria. It can’t be bought.
Read our methodology to see exactly how scores, rankings and the badge work.
Questions
If you think a link or listing isn’t labelled correctly, please contact us.