Rating methodology

Every profile combines automated collection with editorial verification. Each rated field is labelled with its source so you always know whether a value is a machine estimate, editor-verified, or founder-submitted.

1. Data collection

• Official websites are crawled for titles, descriptions and headline claims, and re-checked weekly for availability.
• Pricing is normalised into type (subscription, seat, usage, revenue share, enterprise, open source), currency, range and billing unit.
• Products whose sites fail repeated checks are marked as unreachable or discontinued; their pages remain with alternatives.

2. AI Marketing Autonomy Standard (L1–L5)

1. L1 Prompt-assisted: the user writes a prompt; the tool returns a single output from a general model.
2. L2 Workflow copilot: templates and guided steps; a human reviews and advances every step.
3. L3 Conditional automation: event- or rule-triggered flows (e.g. abandoned-cart emails, lead routing); humans handle exceptions.
4. L4 Autonomous agent: end-to-end goal decomposition, external tool use and self-correction within one scenario.
5. L5 Self-evolving swarm: multiple agents negotiate, allocate budget across channels and learn in a closed loop.

A level is shown only after classification; unrated products display “Not yet rated”.

3. Moat tiers

• Thin wrapper: relies on third-party model APIs with no proprietary data; exposed to model upgrades.
• Workflow-embedded: built on general models but deeply integrated with customer systems (CRM, commerce, ad accounts), creating switching costs.
• Proprietary moat: proprietary vertical models, closed-loop outcome data, or specialised real-time infrastructure.

Tiers marked “Machine estimate” are preliminary and are replaced by editor ratings as reviews are completed.

4. What we do not do

• We do not publish star ratings until there are enough moderated, verified user reviews.
• Affiliate relationships and sponsorships never change ratings or ordering of comparison tables.
• We do not publish unverified founding dates or funding figures as facts.

5. Corrections & founder submissions

Vendors and users can submit a new tool, claim an existing profile, or request factual corrections. Verified changes are applied in the next weekly data release and the profile's “last verified” date is updated.