How We Work
Two things deserve a plain-English explanation: how ReviewIQ makes money, and how we use AI. We keep both on this page so you can always check our incentives and our methods in one place.
Affiliate relationships
ReviewIQ is free to use because some of the outbound links on our product pages are affiliate links. Here is exactly what that means and, just as importantly, what it does not mean for the reviews you read.
- How do we earn money?
- ReviewIQ earns affiliate commissions when you buy a product through one of our partner links. If you click through to a retailer and make a purchase, that retailer pays us a small commission. You never pay more — the price is identical whether you use our link or go to the retailer directly.
- Does this influence our reviews?
- No. SmartScores and rankings are computed entirely from verified buyer data. The editorial team that writes and tunes our analysis has no view of affiliate revenue per product — they cannot see which products earn us more, so they cannot favor them. A higher commission never moves a product up a ranking.
- Which merchants are partners?
- Amazon (through the Amazon Associates program), Best Buy (through the Impact partner network), and a range of manufacturers running their own programs through CJ (Commission Junction). When a product links out to one of these merchants, that link may be an affiliate link.
- How do we choose which merchant to show?
- Lowest live price first. We surface the merchant offering the best available price at the moment you view the page. When two offers are tied, we break the tie in favor of the first-party manufacturer, because buying direct usually means better warranty and support. Affiliate commission is never a factor in this ordering.
The short version: we make money when you buy through a partner link, but the people who build our SmartScores cannot see that money. Rankings follow verified buyer data and the lowest live price — never our commission.
AI summaries
Many ReviewIQ pages include an AI-generated summary — the “what people love,” “what people hate,” and “best for / not for” sections. Here is how those are produced and where they come from.
- ✓AI summaries are generated only from verified buyer reviews on the product — never from marketing copy, press releases, or merchant descriptions.
- ✓The model identifies recurring praise and recurring complaints across many reviews; it does not invent opinions or quote reviews that don't exist.
- ✓Summaries are a reading aid, not the score. SmartScores are computed separately from the underlying structured review data, not from the AI text.
- ✓Affiliate revenue is never an input to a summary. The model has no access to commission data and cannot be prompted to favor a partner merchant.
Want the deeper methodology behind scoring and editorial judgement? See How It Works.