About the desk

Brand Verdicts is a small research desk that publishes graded scorecards on brands sold direct to consumers and on subscription software.

The desk is a handful of researchers who read policy pages for a living. Nobody is named on this site, by choice: the method is meant to be reproducible by anyone with the same pages open, and a byline would suggest the result depends on who did the reading. It should not.

Why scorecards

Most brand reviews online are either a press release with adjectives or a thousand one-line complaints with no weighting. Neither tells you whether the return policy is any good. A scorecard with published weights can be argued with line by line, which is the point.

What we read

The brand's own pricing, shipping, returns, warranty, support and privacy pages, as published at the time of the last update. Then customer reviews on Trustpilot, the Apple and Google app stores, and Reddit, read for recurring themes rather than counted. Regulator notices and press coverage where relevant. All of it from a desk; nothing is bought, unboxed or benchmarked here. The Methodology page sets out how that reading becomes a grade.

How the site is funded

At the moment, it is not. Outbound links to brands are routed through this site and may in future earn a referral commission if an affiliate programme is joined. The disclosure page has the detail. Commissions, if any arrive, will not change a score; the weights are public precisely so that readers can check.

Corrections

Policies change and we miss things. If a cell in a policies table is wrong, or a red flag has been fixed, tell the desk. Corrections that change a grade are logged on the changelog with the date.