Trust

Affiliate disclosure

Commission does not change a rank. A tool with no affiliate program can still be number one.

ShipRanked may earn a fee when you use a link marked as an affiliate link. That fee is never an input to the score. The weights, the tasks, and the median of three runs are described in the methodology.

How a paid link looks

The tool record has an affiliateUrl. When that field is null, the button goes to the official site and is not sponsored.
When affiliateUrl is set, the button uses that URL and is marked rel="sponsored". The page says “affiliate” next to the button. The official URL is still on the page as a separate, unsponsored link.
/go/[tool] redirects to the affiliate URL when one exists, otherwise to the official site. Sponsored redirects are also linked with rel="sponsored".
The launch data has no affiliate URLs. Every outbound button is an ordinary link.

What money cannot buy

A rank. The top 3 is the three fresh scores. An empty slot stays empty.
A featured listing sits outside the top 3 and is labeled Sponsored. The offer is on the advertise page. The webhook that records the payment does not edit data/scores.json.
A priority test, if one is offered later, only changes how soon a tool is run. The result is published either way. The vendor does not approve the number.

Programs reviewed, not joined

These notes are from public program pages reviewed for the Oct 15, 2026 launch plan. Re-check the official terms before applying. ShipRanked has not joined any program, and no seeded tool has an affiliateUrl.

Public program notes checked October 15, 2026. These are not active ShipRanked affiliate links.
Tool	Program	Terms as reviewed
Lovable	Affiliate, apply	Up to $100 per first-time subscriber. A public guide describes 10% of the first 6 payments.
Bolt	Referral via Cello	15% of payments, capped at $50 per referral.
Hostinger AI Builder	Affiliate	Up to 60% on eligible AI Builder plans.
v0	Vercel Ambassador	$10 per Premium referral and $30 per Team referral. The older affiliate program was discontinued in July 2026.
Replit	Referral	$20 in credits only, not cash.
Cursor	None	The referral program closed in July 2026.
Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Devin Desktop, Aider, Cline, Base44	No public program confirmed	Nothing in the Oct 15, 2026 review confirmed a cash affiliate program for these tools.

Later categories such as hosting and site builders have their own programs, including Railway, DigitalOcean, Framer, and Webflow. They are not in this launch set. Re-check every official page before applying. Several of these terms changed in 2026.