How we make money, and what it can't buy

Premio is free to read and run by a for-profit company. Here is every way we earn, and the wall between each one and the ranking.

Version

2.1

Effective 1 Jul 2026

Reviewed

Every quarter

Updated with each version

Editorial owner

Premio editorial team

Rankings and reviews

Commercial owner

Partnerships team

No access to scoring

Every way we earn

The right-hand column is the rule, not a promise — breaking it is a correction we publish.

Revenue	How it works	What it cannot do
Partner links	When you open a card through a link marked “Partner link”, the issuer pays us a fixed bounty or a share of fees, usually for 12 months. Links go through /go/ so we can count clicks.	Change a score, a rank, or which cards appear in a list. Cards that don’t pay us are listed identically and marked “Not a partner”.
Featured placements	Issuers can buy a labelled “Sponsored” slot above the list on hub pages and the home page.	Appear inside the ranked list. The slot always says Sponsored and shows the card’s real rank next to it.
Display advertising	Standard banner slots (970×250, 300×250) sold directly or via a network.	Run next to a review of a competitor without the “Sponsored” label, or be targeted by editorial content.
Sponsored articles	Issuer-funded explainers, written by us and labelled “Sponsored” at the top.	Carry a score, appear in rankings, or link from a review.

None of this money is part of the score — see the scoring rubric and our walls between money and score.

If a placement earns us money, it carries one of these. No label means no money.

You'll see this label

Partner link

Under every button that earns us a commission. If it’s missing, we don’t earn anything from that click.

You'll see this label

Applies to every review, ranking, guide and hub page.

The team that scores a card never sells to its issuer. Scoring changes need sign-off from both the editorial team and the data desk.

Every card in the top 30 is held and used by our team for at least one billing cycle before its review is published.

Errors are fixed within 48 hours and logged in Card Intel with the original text. We do not silently edit.

Issuers cannot preview, delay or negotiate a score. They can flag factual errors like anyone else.

Team members disclose card-issuer tokens they hold, and cannot score cards of issuers whose token they own.

Every verdict cites the fee schedule it is based on. If an issuer publishes nothing, the transparency metric scores zero.

Spotted an error? Report it — every correction is published next to the original.

Version	Date	Change
2.1	1 Jul 2026	Sponsored slots now show the card’s real rank next to the label.
2.0	1 Jan 2026	Disclosure reviewed every quarter.
1.0	1 Jul 2025	First public disclosure.

Are you a card issuer?

Listing is free and always will be. Paid tiers buy visibility, never position.

Press or partnership question? Contact us.