Affiliate Disclosure: How This Site Earns Money
The short version
AI Partner Guides earns money through affiliate links. When the site has an agreement with an app and you sign up through a link on this site, the app may pay the site a commission. You never pay more because of it.
With some partners you pay less, because they give readers of partner sites a lower price or a coupon. The commission comes out of the app's marketing budget, not out of your pocket.
That is the whole business model, and it is simple on purpose. There are no paid reviews, no sponsored articles written by the apps, and no reader subscriptions. The same short version of this disclosure sits in the footer of every page, so you meet it wherever you land.
Why this page exists
You have a right to know when a recommendation can earn the person making it some money, and advertising rules in many countries say so too. A disclosure buried in small print does not meet that bar, so this one is written in plain words and linked from the footer of every page. If you only ever read one trust page on this site, make it this one, because it tells you where the site's interests and yours could pull apart.
It is also a promise I can be held to. Every rule below describes how the site is actually built, not how I hope it behaves. If you find a page that breaks one, it is a mistake, and I will fix it and log the fix.
What an affiliate link is
An affiliate link is an ordinary link to an app's website with a tag added to it. The tag tells the app that the visitor arrived from this site, so the app can credit the site if the visitor signs up or pays. On this site the tag also names which page and which box the click came from, so I can see which pages are useful. It does not carry your name, your email address or anything you typed here.
Every partner link on the site carries the attribute rel="sponsored". Search engines read it and know the link is commercial. Links to apps without an agreement are plain links to the app's official site, with no tag at all.
Programmes differ in what they pay and for how long they credit a visit, and those terms are set by each app. They can change without notice, which is one reason this page does not quote rates. What never changes from programme to programme is how the site treats the facts about the app.
What affiliate links never change
Every app on the site has one record in a small database: its plans and prices, its free allowance, its content policy, its billing notes, its privacy terms and its catch. Pages print those facts from the record. A partner's record is built from the same sources, checked the same way and dated the same way as the record of an app that pays nothing.
A commission cannot raise a price, hide a catch, remove a con from a review or add a claim that is not in the record.
Every app with a hands-on label has a score out of ten: the author's own judgement from his use of the app and the dated re-check of 23-24 September 2026, with its breakdown printed next to it. No partner can buy a score or a better one, and no score is raised because an app joined a programme.
The labels work the same way. "Hands-on test, paid plan", "Hands-on test, free tier" and "Desk review - not paid for yet" are printed from the record, and a partnership cannot turn one into another. An app earns a hands-on label only when the author's dated log exists, and the log is printed on its page for you to read.
Where he paid, the plan was bought with his own card, and the log says which plan and what he spent.
- Apps tested
- 90hands-on, 73 of them on a paid plan
- Money spent
- $2,083subscriptions, paid with my own card
- Apps in the database
- 79every price with a check date
- Latest test
- FunFun AI
Computed from the test database when this page was built. The same numbers on every page. How the apps are checked
Where money does play a part
I would rather tell you this plainly than let you guess. Money plays a part in two places.
- The order of lists. A best-of list is built from apps that fit its topic, and each entry prints its score. Among those, apps with a partner programme, or one the site is applying to, can be placed higher, even above an app with a higher score. Where the site lists all reviews together, rated apps are ordered by score.
- The sales boxes. Offer cards, the button in the header and the bar at the bottom of the screen on phones point to one app per page. On a page about several apps, that is usually a partner.
Everything else on a page is written from the record. The text around a sales box explains the app's catch, and the full review is one click away. If a partner is the wrong choice for what you want, the page will say so in words, even if the box next to it is selling it.
The sales boxes are short on purpose: the free start, the price and a button. They never print cons, because they are not where you make a careful decision. The cons are in the text, in the pros-and-cons lists of the reviews and in the billing notes.
You will always meet the catch in the text before a page asks you to click anything, and every button's label names the app it opens.
What a partner gets, and what it does not
A partner gets visibility. Its offer can appear in the sales boxes, and it can sit higher among the apps that fit a list. A partner does not get to see a page before it goes live, does not get to approve the text, and does not get a softer description of its catch.
If a partner's free tier shrinks, its page says so as soon as the record is updated, exactly as it would for any other app.
When a partnership ends, the links to that app become plain official links again. The record, the text and the catch stay as they were, because they never depended on the partnership in the first place.
Coupons and discounts
Some pages mention a discount or a coupon. A deal appears only while its check date is fresh, and it disappears automatically when it gets old. There are no countdown timers and no invented scarcity.
Where a coupon was seen during a dated check, such as the new-user code seen in Joi AI on 22 September 2026, the page says when it was seen, because codes like that can end at any time.
Your payment
When you pay for an app, you pay the app. Your card goes through its checkout, not through this site. I never see your card details, I cannot issue refunds, and I cannot cancel a plan for you.
A commission, if there is one, is settled between the app and the site later, and it never appears on your bill as a separate line or a higher price. If you need a refund or want to cancel, the review of that app lists the cancel steps and refund terms as far as the app publishes them. The name that appears on your card statement is the app's or its company's, and the billing notes say what it is when that is known.
Any app that is open to new users can have a record and a page, whether or not it has an affiliate programme. Several apps covered here have no agreement with the site at all, and their pages are built exactly like the others. Joining a programme does not get an app onto a list it does not fit.
The reverse is also true. An app that refuses to work with affiliate sites, or has no programme at all, can still be the right answer for a reader, and when it is, the page says so. A list about apps with no adult content, for example, will include apps that fit that need whether or not any of them pays a cent.
Leaving a good answer out because it earns nothing would make the whole site less useful, and a less useful site earns nothing either.
Questions about money and independence
Do I pay more if I use your links?
No. The price is set by the app and is the same, or lower where a partner gives a discount, whether you arrive through this site or not. The commission is paid by the app.
Can an app pay for a better review?
No. Facts, prices, policies and catches come from the same record for every app, and no app can buy a score. Money can affect the order of apps that fit a list equally well, and this page says so openly.
Do you get paid if I only use the free tier?
That depends on the app's programme. Many pay only when a visitor buys a plan; a few pay for sign-ups. Either way, the site recommends the free start first whenever an app has one.
Do your links track me?
A partner link tells the app which page of this site you came from, so the site can be credited. It carries nothing you typed here. The app's own cookies and tracking are covered by its privacy policy, which each review summarises.
How to tell a partner link from a plain one
Partner links carry rel="sponsored" and open the app in a new tab. Plain links to apps without an agreement carry no tag and are there only because the app is relevant. In the sales boxes, the label always matches the destination: "Try Candy AI free" opens Candy AI, never a different app.
If you ever find a link that goes somewhere other than its label says, tell me, because that is a bug, and I would like to fix it the same day it is reported.
Why this model
Affiliate links are the most common way independent review sites in this category pay their bills. The risk is well known: a site can drift towards whatever pays best. The rules on this page are how AI Partner Guides limits that risk. Facts come from records and are the same for every app.
Labels say whether a review rests on paid use, on free use or on documents alone, and scores come with their breakdown. The order of lists is the one place where commercial interest is allowed to count, and it is written down here instead of hidden.
An example
Take a list of free AI girlfriend apps. The apps on it are chosen because their free tier fits the topic and their facts are checked: how many messages the free account gives, whether the allowance resets, what the cheapest plan costs. Suppose two apps fit equally well and one has a partner programme.
That one can appear first, and its offer can fill the box at the top. Both entries still print their free allowance, their cheapest plan and their catch from their own records, in the same format, with the same dates. If the partner's free tier ends after five messages and the other resets daily, both facts are on the page, and the text says which one suits a reader who wants to chat every day.
That is the line this site draws. Order and visibility can follow the business. Facts, labels and catches cannot, and no agreement with any app will ever change that.
If you would rather not use affiliate links
That is completely fine. Every review names the app plainly, so you can type its address yourself or find it in your app store. Nothing on the site depends on you clicking a partner link, and the facts, prices and catches are the same whichever way you arrive.
If a page has helped you and you want to support the site, using its link is the way to do it; if not, the information is still yours to use.
How this page is kept up to date
This disclosure changes when the business changes. When the site joins a new programme, the rules above apply to it from the first link. When a new kind of commercial placement is added, it is described here before it goes live, not after. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last reviewed.
If the site ever takes money in a way this page does not describe, the page is wrong, and you should hold me to that.
One more thing is worth saying plainly. The site is new, and at the time of writing most of its links are still plain links to official sites while applications to programmes are under way. As links become partner links, nothing about the pages you read will change except the tag on the link and, in some cases, a lower price for you.
Until then, the pages already follow every rule above, so nothing will need to be rewritten when the tags arrive.
Where to read more
The editorial policy explains how facts are checked and dated. The corrections page logs every fix with its date. The privacy policy covers what the site stores about you. If you think a page crosses a line described here, write to me through the contact page and include the page address. I would much rather hear about it than have you quietly lose trust in the whole site.