How this site makes money.

You should be able to tell, on every page, whether anyone paid for what you are reading. This page says how.

Where the money comes from

• Consulting. I take on infrastructure work. See services.
• My own products. I build PandaStack and Riff. When a post mentions them, it says they are mine.
• Sponsored placements. A company pays for a labelled slot in a post, or for a hands-on review.
• Affiliate links. Some links may pay me a commission if you buy.

Right now no post on this site carries a sponsored placement.

How paid content is labelled

• A post with a paid placement says so in a note under the title, before the first paragraph.
• The placement itself sits in a box marked "Sponsored", separate from my own text.
• A post with affiliate links says so in the same note under the title.
• Paid and affiliate links carry rel="sponsored", which tells search engines not to count them as endorsements.

What a sponsor cannot buy

• A place in a ranking, or a recommendation.
• Changes to what I found when I tested something.
• An unlabelled link. I do not sell links or trade them.

Free credits, licences or early access do not buy coverage either. If I used something I was given for free, the post says so.

What this site measures

I use Umami to count page views, clicks on links that leave the site, what people type into the site search, and use of the tools. It sets no cookies and collects no personal data, so there is no consent banner. Sponsors see totals for their own placement and nothing about individual readers.

Corrections

If something here is wrong or out of date, email hello@ajayk.sh and I will fix it.