Disclosure — Affiliate & Editorial Ethics

How we make money

AI Trading Bots earns revenue through two channels, both enumerated below. We do not run display ads. We do not sell subscriber data (we don't have subscribers). We do not accept payment for the order of ranking. We do not sell guest posts or link insertions.

Affiliate commissions on Tier-1 products

When you click through to a Tier-1 product from this site and subsequently sign up, the destination vendor may pay us a commission. The commission does not raise your price, does not change your subscription terms, and does not flow back to influence our coverage of that product. Affiliate links are tagged rel="sponsored noopener" in HTML, which you can verify in any browser. The Tier-1 products with active affiliate relationships are listed in the per-product disclosure section below.

How we maintain editorial independence

Score before consideration. Each product is scored against the five published criteria before any commercial conversation. The score sets the ranking. Affiliate eligibility is tracked separately and never adjusts a position.
Paid placement is rejected on intake. We get weekly outreach offering "sponsored ranking" or "premium listings." The standard answer is to point at this page. The intake log is not public, but we keep it internally to track who keeps asking.
Methodology is published in full. Every weight, every exclusion, every conflict is on /methodology. If we change a rank mid-quarter, the page tells you what catalyst triggered it.
Negative findings are not hidden. Where a product has a weak point — paper-traded ledgers, undisclosed pricing, closed-source models, weak risk controls — we name it in the verdict, even when an affiliate relationship exists. Affiliate eligibility never adjusts criticism.
No fake user reviews. Quotes attributed to users come from public sources (Reddit, Hacker News, app stores). We link the source so you can verify the quote and the context.

Per-product disclosures

The following relationships exist as of the "last reviewed" date. Each is repeated on the corresponding product or comparison page.

GT Protocol — affiliate program active; we participate. No paid placement.
3Commas — affiliate program active; we participate. No retainer, no paid placement.
Cryptohopper — affiliate program active; we participate. No retainer, no paid placement.
Pionex — affiliate program active; we participate. No retainer, no paid placement.
Bitsgap — affiliate program active; we participate. No retainer, no paid placement.
Coinrule — affiliate program active; we participate. No retainer, no paid placement.
NautilusTrader / Hummingbot — no affiliate program (open source). We cover them on merit. We do not earn when readers download or fork their code.
Sister-site disclosure. Our sister publication, polymarketbots.io, covers minmax.one, which is owned by the same publisher. That site discloses the ownership relationship on every page that mentions minmax. We mention it here so that readers comparing networks know the structure.

What we will not do

Write fake user reviews, fake aggregate ratings, or synthetic testimonials. Every quote on the site is linked to its public source.
Accept payment in exchange for a higher ranking. Methodology drives rank, period.
Hide negative findings about a product to protect an affiliate relationship. Where a product has a weak point we say so in the verdict, regardless of commercial considerations.
Publish vendor-supplied "case studies" or "guest posts" without disclosure.
Use AI-generated content without human editorial review. AI helps with drafting and code; the editorial voice and fact-checking are human.
Manipulate the order of comparison pages to favour affiliate products. The /vs/ pages call winners explicitly, including against affiliate products when the non-affiliate option wins.

If you spot something we got wrong

Email [email protected] and we will fix it. Substantive corrections get a dated changelog line on the affected page; cosmetic fixes do not.