Most card-recommendation sites answer this in fine print. We'd rather answer it plainly — because how a site earns is the single best predictor of whose side it's on.
How we earn
CardAdvisor earns a small affiliate commission on some cards. When a card has an affiliate link and you click Apply and are later approved, an affiliate network pays us a fixed fee — at no extra cost to you. Two American Express cards work differently: their Apply buttons are our founder's personal Amex “Member Get Member” referral links, so American Express pays him Membership Rewards points if you're approved — and the referral usually gets you a better welcome bonus than the public application. Those two channels are how the site earns from card applications; the only other line is data licensing to businesses. No issuer pays us for placement, and we run no advertising, no paid placements, and no sold leads.
That commission is small, and it's a big part of why this site exists. It pays for the research, the fact-checking, the new guides, and the real-world testing — booking the stays, transferring the points, actually living with the cards — that keep our advice honest and current. If a card is right for you, we'll say so; if it isn't, we'll say that too — commission or not.
The lines we hold
- Commissions have zero weight in rankings. The scoring engine has no input for whether we earn — and cards that pay us nothing routinely outrank cards that do.
- Most cards carry no affiliate link at all, and never will where no affiliate network covers the card.
- How we earn is disclosed openly and site-wide: this page is linked from the footer of every page, and every affiliate Apply link carries a
sponsoredtag. We don't clutter each button with an ad-like badge — the disclosure lives here, one click away from anywhere. - Our reviews keep their "biggest concern" sections and keep telling you when to skip a card — including the cards we earn from.
Data licensing
Since September 2026 some of the work behind the site — the redemption engine, the change record, the model behind each rating — is available to license to businesses. A licence buys a copy of that work, never a say in it. What is offered, and how pricing is scoped per engagement, is on the data licensing page.
That page lists first what no one can buy, and it is the same list as here:
- Placement — where a card appears or ranks.
- Influence over rankings or verdicts — no licence buys a rating, a verdict, or a change to one.
- Leads — nobody buys access to our readers.
What we will never do
- Sell your details or call you. Our recommendation engine doesn't even collect your phone number, so there is nothing to sell and nobody to call. If you ever get a sales call "from CardAdvisor", it isn't us.
- Accept payment for a ranking, rating, or review verdict.
- Run sponsored content disguised as editorial. If something is ever paid for, it will be labelled.
- Tie rewards or giveaways to card applications. Giveaway entry never requires applying for anything.
Questions about any of this? Use the contact form — a human reads everything.