Trust

How we research

Last updated 1 October 2026

Pages are researched from official documentation and pricing pages, dated and linked. We do not test tools hands-on and we say so.

Source hierarchy

For a price, limit or feature we use sources in this order:

1. The vendor's pricing page, read with its monthly and yearly toggles, in a real browser where the page needs one.
2. Official documentation, help centres and changelogs, for credits, limits, expiry and export terms.
3. Official announcements and blog posts, with their dates.
4. Named third-party reporting, for incidents and user reports, cited by outlet. Trackers and comparison sites are used only to flag a discrepancy, never as the source of a figure.

When two official sources disagree, such as a pricing page and a blog post, the page states the conflict instead of picking one silently.

What our evidence labels mean

• Researched: desk research from public sources.
• Compiled data: figures gathered into a table, each with its source and check date.
• Tested first-hand: used only when evidence files are published alongside. No page carries this label today.

How prices and specs are checked and dated

Each price shows its plan, billing period (monthly or annual), currency and the date we read it. Prices and credit rules are re-checked on a schedule set in each page's front matter, and the build warns when a page is overdue. Material changes go in the page's dated update log, and the pricing index keeps a changelog. Where we show a figure we worked out ourselves, such as a per-request cost or an annual equivalent, it is labelled as our arithmetic.

What we do not do

We do not run hands-on tests of AI builders or coding agents. There are no star ratings and no scores, and we never describe research as testing. Where a third party measured something, we cite them by name and link them.

How pages are checked

Every fact is checked against its cited source, and each page gets a separate review pass before it is published. The corrections log lists what those reviews and readers have caught.

Open data

The AI builder pricing index is public under CC BY 4.0: github.com/hardcor3nl/vibe-pricing-index. See also the pricing index.

More

See About, the editorial policy, the corrections log and contact.