Editorial policy

Last updated: August 2026. This policy governs everything published on BacktestScore.

Independence: no pay-for-ranking

Vendors cannot pay to be included, excluded, ranked higher, scored better, or awarded anything. There are no sponsored reviews, no paid placements inside rankings, and no "featured" slots that resemble editorial results.
Scores are computed under the published methodology and finalized before any commercial consideration. Commercial relationships have no input into scores, rankings, pros, cons, or verdicts, and are disclosed here.
If we ever use a vendor-provided free account or trial extension to complete testing, the review says so. We do not accept payment, gifts, or contingent compensation from vendors.

Sourcing: every claim traces to something

Benchmark claims come from code executed by us, published in an open repository with seeds, data-generation scripts, and hardware specs, so results can be independently re-run.
Specs and features cite vendor documentation or our own hands-on verification.
Prices, tiers, and limits are verified against the vendor's live pricing page, never cached articles or third-party summaries.
Community sentiment (reliability complaints, support experiences) is labeled as sentiment, attributed to its source (vendor forums, Reddit, Trustpilot, and similar), and dated. We report patterns, not isolated anecdotes.
When we cannot verify a fact, we say so. Reviews note unverifiable or ambiguous claims explicitly rather than guessing. We never invent numbers.

Freshness: last-verified dates

Every price and time-sensitive claim carries the date we last verified it. Prices are re-verified at least every 90 days; benchmarks are re-run on major engine releases and at minimum twice per year. Material changes are recorded in a public changelog, so you can see what changed and when.

Corrections and vendor disputes

Any reader or vendor can dispute a claim. Disputes about facts are resolved by evidence: a vendor pointing to current documentation or reproducible behavior gets a correction and a changelog entry; a vendor asking for a softer verdict does not. Corrections are made promptly and are never silent.

Not investment advice

BacktestScore is educational content about software. It is not investment advice, financial advice, or a recommendation to trade any strategy, asset, or market. We do not recommend strategies, publish signals, or promise returns. Backtested performance is hypothetical by nature and does not guarantee future results. That limitation applies to every tool we review, including the best of them. Consult a licensed professional before making investment decisions.

Scoring a product we own

We operate Minerva. It is scored in the main ranking and in Find a signal and test it, under the same published formula and rubric as every other platform, with the ownership disclosed on its row and its review. The rules we hold ourselves to there: criteria and weights published and fixed before any platform is scored, every score sourced to vendor documentation, ownership stated at the top of the page and on the row itself, and an adversarial review run before publication with its corrections printed on the page. If you think the criteria are bent, the evidence is there to argue with.