Sponsorship and testing policy

Sponsors can buy one labelled box. They can’t buy a rank, a pick, a test or a kinder verdict.

What a sponsor can buy

• The newsletter slot. One per Friday issue, marked “Sponsored” with the sponsor’s name. It sits in its own section, never in the best pick or the price table.
• The site slot. At most one sponsor on the site at a time, shown at the foot of guide pages after every verdict. Never on Ask results, the leaderboard, comparisons or alternatives.
• A provider profile. A model maker or host can pay for a labelled profile at the foot of the model pages it makes or serves: security, data handling, support and contact details that we check and date. It never changes a score, a rank or the order of a price table.

What no one can buy

• A place in any ranking, pick or “also considered” list.
• A test of their own model, or a say in which models we test. We decline vendor-funded evaluations.
• An early look at a verdict, or the right to edit one. Every vendor, paying or not, gets the same right of reply after publication.
• Copy that claims a rank or a Model Menu verdict. Our system rejects sponsor copy that says “#1”, “best pick”, “recommended by Model Menu” and similar.

Evaluations for buyers

Teams choosing a model can pay us to test models on their own tasks. The buyer pays, the buyer owns the results, and no vendor pays or sees them first. If a vendor offers to fund an evaluation, we say no.

Conflicts register

No sponsor, provider or vendor has paid Model Menu yet.

The register lists every paid slot and profile from the last 12 months. See also how we make money and the disclosure page.