Affiliate disclosure

AcademyCue is free to use. We are paid by some of the providers we list, and this page explains how that works and how it affects what you see.

How we earn money

• Affiliate links. When you follow a link and sign up with a partner, the partner or its affiliate network pays us a commission. You pay the same price.
• Sponsored placements. Partners can book a featured card or a sponsor strip. A booked placement carries a visible "Sponsored" label.
• Featured picks. When no placement is booked, the featured card shows a partner we pick by the commission it pays us, labelled "Featured". It is not a score and it sits outside the ranking.

How it affects rankings

Commercial status affects ranking positions. Scores themselves are not paid for.

Rankings apply the following priorities in order; a later priority only breaks a tie in the earlier ones:

1. Providers with a paid offer serving the current view come before those without one.
2. Within each of those groups, providers available in your country come first, followed by those marked unavailable.
3. Within each availability group, providers marked as lacking a required licence come after the others.
4. Where these priorities tie, affiliate network links come before our own referral or direct partner links.
5. Among network offers, an offer explicitly listing your country comes before a broad default offer. Within each of those groups, known expected commission per click comes before unknown values, and higher expected commission comes first. Ties are broken by commission terms (lifetime, revenue share, then per sale or lead) and then higher payout. For referral or direct partner offers, only explicitly listing your country breaks the commercial tie; their payout is not used as expected commission per click.
6. Only after all the earlier priorities tie do rated providers come before those marked "not rated yet", followed by higher overall score.

When no country is selected, eligible active offers serving at least one country qualify for the paid group, including offers limited to particular countries. We use the highest recorded expected commission per click across an offer's base value and country values. When a country is selected, its value is used where recorded, otherwise the offer's base value applies.

A provider with a lower score can therefore appear above one with a higher score because of the earlier priorities. Featured cards and sponsor strips sit outside the ranking. The full rule is on the methodology page.

Questions

Write to [email protected].