Ethics & disclosures
A review is only worth reading if you know what shaped it. This page states our relationship to everything we cover, and what money can and cannot do here.
The one that matters most
We do not score the products we build
SofNerds builds and publishes 18 Android apps. None of them carries an editorial score, appears in a ranked guide, or emits review structured data. They are documented as build logs, with an ownership banner above the fold.
This is enforced rather than promised: the structured-data builder throws when asked for a review node on a product we made, a ranked list throws if one appears in it, and a crawler checks every built page for both. A rule that depends on remembering is not a rule.
What a submission buys
Nothing, beyond a place in the queue. Anyone can ask us to look at a product, at no cost, and that is the whole of it.
What we will do
- Read every submission, and answer either way.
- Give a reason when we decline.
- Check factual errors with you before publishing.
- Log and date any correction we make afterwards.
What we will not do
- Guarantee coverage, or a timeline.
- Accept payment for coverage or for a better verdict.
- Send you the draft or the score before publication.
- Remove a published review because you dislike it.
Declining is not a verdict. We turn down most submissions, usually because the product is close to something covered recently or because we cannot test it properly.
How products are obtained, and how money is handled
- Bought at retailOur own money, no relationship with the vendor. Stated in the disclosure.
- Free tierUsed on the public free tier at our own cost. Stated in the disclosure.
- Vendor-provided licenceDisclosed on the review. It does not affect the score, and we say so on the page rather than in a policy nobody reads.
- Loan unitDisclosed, and we state whether it was returned. Loaners are returned.
- SponsorshipIf ever accepted, labelled sponsored, carries no score, and is excluded from every ranked guide.
- Affiliate linksDisclosed above the first link and marked rel="sponsored nofollow". Revenue never influences a score or a ranking.
Every review carries an acquisition and sponsorship state, and the disclosure box is generated from those fields rather than written by hand — so it cannot be softened on the one review where it matters.
Corrections and re-tests
If we get something wrong, tell us and we will fix it. Corrections are dated and logged on the review rather than quietly edited in, so the record shows what changed and when.
Products change after we publish. Every review carries the version it was tested against and a scheduled re-test date, and a score is always recomputed against the rubric version it was written under — so changing our criteria later cannot silently rewrite an old verdict.
Products SofNerds builds
Named in full, so you never have to wonder whether something on this site is ours.