Methodology
How a listing is classified, and what the editors actually check.
Publisher type
Every listing is either an independent tool that's creator-built, small-team, experimental, or narrowly focused, or an established platform: a scaled company or mature commercial product. The label describes the publisher, not the quality. A one-person tool can be better than a subscription platform at the thing it does.
The line is a judgement call, and the editors can override it with an explanation. Being listed as independent is not a demotion.
What a tool does
Categories are assigned from the creator's own description of the product, not from a reviewer's read of the live site. A category the copy does not support is a promise the listing cannot keep. A tool carries as many as its copy supports, ordered most-relevant-first; the directory row shows the leading three and counts the rest.
Featured placement
Featured is editorial and labelled as such. It is not for sale, it is not affected by any referral arrangement, and it rotates. The criteria: the tool works, it is described accurately, it solves a problem the directory sees repeatedly, and it is maintained.
Sorting
Featured, Newest, and A-Z. There is deliberately no popularity sort since click and usage volume at this scale is easy to manipulate and would rank tools by who has an audience rather than by what the tool does.
Coverage marks
On the market overview, a full mark means the capability is a maintained, first-class product. Partial means it exists inside another product or covers only some sports. Coverage is recorded from public product pages and re-checked at each verification sweep.
Price tiers
Established platforms are priced on a four-step scale, by annual cost:
| $ | Under $50 a year |
| $$ | $50 to $100 a year |
| $$$ | $100 to $200 a year |
| $$$$ | $200 a year or more |
A range of $$–$$$$ spans the cheapest and the priciest tier a platform sells, so it shows both the cost of entry and what the full product runs to. A single mark means one price, or a set of tiers that all land in the same band.
The scale replaced a plain Free/Paid label, which put every subscription platform in one bucket and told a reader nothing about which they could afford. It describes list price for an individual, not promotional rates, bundles, or team pricing.
Freshness
Community tools disappear. Every listing carries a last-checked date, links are checked on a schedule, and a human re-checks listings at least annually. A dead link becomes a moderation task, not an automatic deletion since a site can be down for a week and come back.