Disclosure
How we make money
The System Vault is funded primarily through affiliate commissions. When you click a link to a product we’ve reviewed and sign up or make a purchase, the company may pay us a referral fee. This is how most independent review sites sustain themselves without charging readers or running ads.
We currently participate in affiliate programmes with some of the products we review. Not all products have affiliate programmes — for example, Ahrefs and Mullvad do not offer affiliate commissions. We review and recommend them anyway because they’re good products. That should tell you something about how we operate.
What we will never do
We will never recommend a product because it pays a higher commission. We will never inflate a score to please an affiliate partner. We will never hide the downsides of a product to protect a commercial relationship. If a product is bad, we’ll say so — even if we earn money from it. If a product is good but we don’t earn from it, we’ll recommend it anyway.
How our reviews work
Every product is scored independently based on features, pricing, reliability, ownership transparency, and real-world usability. Scores range from 1 to 10. We publish the good and the bad for every product. We show both promotional and renewal pricing because most review sites only show the bait. We flag ownership concerns where relevant because you deserve to know who’s behind the tools you trust with your data.
Our reviews are updated periodically. When a product changes its pricing, features, or ownership, we update the review to reflect that. The “Updated” date on each review tells you when it was last checked.
Affiliate relationships
When a link on this site is an affiliate link, it takes you to the product’s website with a tracking code. This tells the company you came from The System Vault. If you make a purchase, we receive a commission. The price you pay is the same whether you use our link or go directly — affiliate links do not add any cost to you.
If you’d prefer not to use our affiliate links, you can always go directly to the product’s website. We’d rather you trust our recommendations than feel pressured by our links.
Editorial independence
No company has editorial input on our content. No company reviews our articles before publication. No company pays for placement in our rankings. Our scores are our own, our opinions are our own, and our recommendations are based on what we’d genuinely tell a friend.
Questions?
If you have any questions about our affiliate relationships or how we review products, feel free to reach out. We believe transparency isn’t just a policy — it’s the point.