Every rating on this site follows the same process. This page documents it, so you can judge how much weight to give our scores.
The process
- Hands-on evaluation. We open an account where possible and use the product the way a paying customer would: real requests against real public targets, through the provider's documented integration paths.
- Documentation review. We read the provider's docs end-to-end. Good docs are a scored criterion — bad docs cost real engineering hours.
- Pricing verification. Prices quoted in reviews come from the provider's public pricing page at the time of writing, and we date every review so you know when that was. Pricing changes frequently in this market — always confirm current rates on the provider's site before committing.
- Support and policies. We check response channels, self-serve limits, refund terms, and acceptable-use policies.
What the score means
Ratings are out of 5 and weigh, in rough order of importance:
- Effectiveness — does it work on the targets it claims to handle?
- Value — what does a successful result actually cost at realistic volumes?
- Developer experience — integration effort, documentation quality, error behavior
- Transparency — clear pricing, honest limits, no dark patterns
- Support — how the provider behaves when something breaks
A 4.5+ is something we'd build a business on. A 4.0–4.4 is solid with trade-offs. Below 4.0, read the cons carefully — the product has real limitations we think you should price in.
When we can't verify something
If a figure — pool size, success rate, discount — can't be verified from our own testing or the provider's published material, we leave it out or say so explicitly. We'd rather publish a qualitative statement than an invented number. If you find a figure on this site that doesn't hold up, tell us and we'll correct it and note the correction.
Freshness
Every review and comparison carries an updated date. When a provider changes pricing, launches or kills a product, or our re-testing changes a conclusion, we update the page and bump the date. Pages that haven't been re-verified recently should be read with their date in mind.
Independence
Scores are recorded before affiliate links are added, and no provider can pay to alter a review. The full policy — including what happens when a provider disputes a review — is in our editorial policy.