Affiliate Disclosure

What Are Affiliate Links?

An affiliate link is a special URL that includes a unique tracking code. When you click that link and complete a qualifying action — like signing up for a credit card, opening a bank account, or subscribing to a service — the company knows that a visitor from Fiscal Word completed that action, and they pay us a commission.

Affiliate links work exactly like regular links for you. You go to the same product page, you see the same prices, and you pay the same amount. The only difference is that we get credit for the referral.

Think of it like a referral bonus — the company rewards us for sending them a customer, rather than spending that money on traditional advertising.

How We Make Money

Fiscal Word is free to read. We keep it that way through three revenue streams:

• Display advertising — We show ads from Google AdSense and potentially other ad networks. These are the banner and sidebar ads you might see while browsing. We earn a small amount each time an ad is displayed or clicked.
• Affiliate commissions — When you click an affiliate link and complete a qualifying action (signup, purchase, or subscription), we earn a commission from the partner company. This is the most meaningful revenue stream and helps fund the deeper research we do.
• Newsletter sponsorships — Our weekly newsletter may occasionally include sponsored content from relevant financial brands. Sponsored content is always clearly labeled.

We never charge readers for content, never put articles behind a paywall, and never accept money to write positive reviews.

Our Affiliate Partners

We work with affiliate programs across several categories of personal finance products and services:

• Credit cards — Major card issuers including Chase, Capital One, American Express, and others through affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate and CardRatings
• Banking — Online banks and savings accounts, including high-yield savings products
• Investing platforms — Brokerage accounts, robo-advisors, and investment apps like Robinhood, Acorns, and others
• Personal finance tools — Budgeting apps, credit monitoring services, and financial planning software
• Insurance — Life insurance, renters insurance, and other personal finance-adjacent insurance products
• Debt relief services — Legitimate debt management and credit counseling services

Specific partner relationships are established and updated over time. When a page contains affiliate links, it will display the inline disclosure at the top of the page.

Our Editorial Standards

We take our editorial independence seriously. Here's exactly how we handle the relationship between affiliate revenue and our recommendations:

• We choose products first, affiliate programs second. If we believe a product is genuinely useful for our readers, we research it and potentially write about it. Then we check if an affiliate program exists. We never start with "which products pay the most?" and work backwards.
• Commission size does not influence rankings or recommendations. A product with a smaller commission that's genuinely better for most readers will always be ranked above a higher-paying product that doesn't serve our audience as well.
• We don't promote products we wouldn't use ourselves. If we wouldn't recommend something to a financially-savvy friend, it doesn't appear on Fiscal Word — regardless of whether an affiliate program exists.
• We update recommendations when products change. If a product we've recommended changes its terms for the worse, we update our coverage promptly — even if that means removing an affiliate link.

How to Identify Affiliate Links

Any page on Fiscal Word that contains affiliate links will display a disclosure notice at the top of the page — like the one you can see at the top of this page. This disclosure appears before any affiliate links on the page, as required by FTC guidelines.

Affiliate links on Fiscal Word follow the /go/partner-name URL pattern (for example, /go/robinhood). This pattern routes through our internal redirect system before taking you to the partner's site.

FTC Compliance

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that websites clearly disclose material connections to the companies whose products they recommend. A material connection includes financial relationships like affiliate commissions.

We comply fully with the FTC's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 C.F.R. Part 255). This means:

• We always disclose affiliate relationships clearly and conspicuously
• Disclosures appear before any affiliate links on a page, not buried at the bottom
• We never make false or misleading claims about any product
• Our opinions and reviews reflect our honest assessment

Questions?

If you have questions about our affiliate relationships, our editorial process, or anything related to how we make money, we're happy to be transparent about it.

Email us at hello@fiscalword.com — we read every message.