What we check, and what happens when we get it wrong.

Softwr is an independent software directory. It is not owned by a vendor listed in it, and no listing, placement, ordering or badge on this site can be bought. We do sell advertising, and it is always labelled Sponsored and always sits outside the results rather than inside them. Nothing a vendor pays for changes what appears in the catalogue or in what order.

Research and writing is done by the Softwr editorial team. Where an article carries a byline, that byline resolves to a person and their remit. Where a page is generated from the catalogue rather than written, it carries no byline at all, because attributing generated output to a person would be a lie about how it was made.

Pricing, plan limits, platforms and feature lists are taken from each vendor’s own published pages, read and recorded rather than estimated. Where a tier is sold by quote we say so instead of inventing a number, because an admitted gap is more useful than a confident guess.

Articles cite their sources. Every price, limit and date in a guide has a corresponding entry in the source list at the foot of that article, with the date it was last checked, so a reader can see both where a figure came from and how old it is. We prefer primary sources: a vendor’s own pricing page is evidence, an article quoting that page is hearsay about evidence.

Limitations, answered questions and alternatives are researched separately and carry a source URL on the page that states them. Claims that could not be traced to a source were deleted rather than softened.

This catalogue was assembled with rating figures aggregated from other sites. We no longer publish them anywhere, and they are excluded from every calculation on the site, including which products earn a badge. A number we did not collect is not one we can stand behind.

Reviews shown on a product page were written on Softwr, read by a moderator before publication, and cannot be edited or deleted afterwards by the reviewer, by the vendor, or by us on request. A vendor may reply once, publicly, and the reply is labelled as coming from the vendor.

Research assistance is used to gather and cross-check published information at a scale a small team could not cover by hand. Every claim produced that way passes a deterministic check for whether it can be traced to a real source, and the ones that fail are deleted rather than published with a hedge. That check has removed several hundred claims.

What is not done: no article is published without a person having read it, no source list is generated without the pages behind it being fetched, and no byline is attached to something a person did not write.

Software pricing and features change constantly, and a directory of this size will carry errors. We would rather hear about them.

To report one, use the contact page and include the page URL and what is wrong with it. If you work at the company, you can also claim the listing and correct it directly; we verify with a code sent to an address at your own domain.

What we do. A factual error is fixed as soon as it is confirmed. When a correction changes the substance of a page rather than fixing a typo, the change is noted on the page and the modified date is updated, so a reader can see that it moved and when. We do not quietly rewrite a conclusion and leave the original date in place.

What we will not do. Remove a negative but accurate statement because the vendor asked. Delete a published review at the request of the company it concerns. Change an ordering, a shortlist or a badge in exchange for anything.

We sell advertising. An earlier version of this page said we did not, and promised that if that ever changed, any paid unit would be labelled, kept out of the rankings, and described here before it appeared rather than after somebody noticed. This is that description, and it is published with the feature rather than after it.

A vendor can buy a numbered place in the results: one of ten positions on a category listing, one of six on either home page rail, or the single slot on the main catalogue. It is sold by the week or by the month, one advertiser per position, and it is the only thing on this site a vendor can pay for.

This changed, and the change is worth stating plainly. A paid unit used to be a panel that sat above the results and outside them. It is now a place within them, rendered as an ordinary result and marked Sponsored. We think a labelled result in the list is more honest than a panel a reader learns to scroll past, but it is a bigger claim on their attention and pretending otherwise would be the dishonest part.

What has not changed is what a paid place does to everyone else: nothing. It occupies its own position and the editorial order flows around it, so no unpaid listing is pushed down the page by a transaction it was not party to. A product that buys a place appears once rather than twice. The ranking itself is computed without reference to who is paying, and comparison, alternatives and best-of pages sell nothing at all.

It is drawn to be recognised: a different shape from the result cards, a dashed edge, the word Sponsored above it, and a link to this section from every slot. It carries no rating and no badge, because those are earned by rules and lending one to an advertisement would devalue every other one on the site. Its outbound link is marked rel="sponsored", which is what tells a search engine the same thing the label tells a reader.

A slot still has to clear the same editorial bar as any listing. Paying does not publish anything: a sponsorship is reviewed before it runs, and a product we would not have listed cannot buy its way onto the site. If a listing is unpublished or removed while a campaign is running, the slot goes dark, and the advertiser is refunded for the remainder.

Vendors can submit a product, claim an existing listing, correct their own details, reply to reviews, and buy a sponsored slot. That is the complete list of what a vendor can influence, and the first four of those change a page while the fifth adds a labelled box beside one.

Every article carries a published date and a modified date, and both are shown rather than only the flattering one. Source entries carry their own checked date, so an article that has not been revisited says so honestly instead of implying freshness it does not have.

Claimed listings let a vendor keep their own pricing current directly, which is the only mechanism that scales across a catalogue this size.