Editorial policy and corrections

What every page rests on

A page rests on primary documents. For a tool, that means its live pricing page, its help centre and its terms. For a rule, it means the text of the law or the platform’s policy. Some pages also count dated user reports. Each page lists its sources at the foot, with the date each was read.

Plan prices, and each tool’s headline cost per output where one is worked out, come from one tool database. Pages print them from it, so when a re-check changes a price there, every page that prints it changes at once.

How the bench will test AI ad tools sets out what counts as a verified price. It also shows which parts of the bench are decided and which are still proposals.

How claims are worded: the evidence ladder

Every claim sits on one of six rungs, and its wording tells you which, so you can weigh a sentence before you open its source.

How facts stay current

Every page that quotes a tool or a rule shows two dates under its title. The checked date moves with every re-read of the facts against their sources, even when nothing changed.

The other date shows when the page was written, until a fact on it changes. From then it reads Updated, and the change is listed at the foot of the page.

Prices are re-read on the vendor’s live page at least every 30 days, and terms at least every 90. A price not re-read within 30 days stops counting as verified: tables then show “Unverified, last checked” with the date it was last read. The price tracker dates every plan it lists.

Images

A capture of a vendor page shows the part a page quotes, with the date it was taken and a link to the page. A user’s post or video shows the point beside it, with its date and a link; a private person’s name and avatar are blurred. Charts are drawn from our own database. Logos sit beside a tool’s name to identify it, unaltered. Every capture, post, video and chart on the site is listed below.

Who is responsible, and the checks before a page ships

The site is run by Alexandre Souriau, who is responsible for every page on it. About adtestbench says more.

Pages are drafted with AI tools. Every price, clause and figure links to the page it came from, with the date it was read.

Every claim is read against the ladder above, and a sentence whose wording claims more than its source shows is rewritten or cut.

The build refuses a page that covers a tool or quotes a price but lists no sources. It also refuses a hand-typed price unless the page’s code notes its source. A date typed beside a database price fails too, since it would go stale when the price moves. Pages about the site itself, this one included, are exempt.

Scripts then read each built page. On a page no bench round covers, the wording check fails any phrase on its banned list that claims use or testing. Banned phrases that give a score or pick fail too, and so does self-praise such as “our honest review”.

The search and citation checks fail a page whose structured data carries a star rating, or whose dates are missing from the markup. A layout check holds every page with a verdict to its section order. A page that fails any of these does not ship.

How we stay independent

Verdicts are written without commission data. Before anyone checks which tools pay, a script records a fingerprint of each verdict and its tool list. That fingerprint is a code that changes if a single word does. A check before each release fails if a verdict or tool list has changed since.

No vendor sees a page or a draft before it is public, and no vendor can pay for a place on one. Who pays us lists every tool in the database and whether it pays.

How to report a mistake, and how a correction shows

A mistake of ours is corrected on the page where it appears, in this form:

Corrected [date]: [the fact as it now stands] (was [the old wording]).

The line goes in the page’s list of changes at its foot, where the “What changed” link under the title leads, and it stays there. Updated moves to the date of the correction. When the mistake could change a reader’s decision, a Changed note also sits near the top of the page for 30 days.

A price or term the vendor changed is logged as a change, with its date and source. The correction line is kept for our own errors.

To report a mistake, write to contact@adtestbench.com with the page, the fact and a link to the source that shows it.