How We Make Money
Some organizations on this site pay to be here. Some don't. This page explains exactly what that payment does and does not change.
Where the money comes from
- Featured listings. The primary source of revenue right now. An organization can pay for a featured placement within its category, clearly badged as "Featured" so it's never confused with an unpaid, free listing.
- Display advertising. Standard sidebar and in-article ad placements. Debt-settlement lead-generation ads are excluded from this inventory on principle — see the hard lines below.
- Budgeting and savings-tool affiliates (planned). Clearly disclosed affiliate links to budgeting or savings tools, where relevant to an article.
- Vetted referral partnerships (planned, legal review required first). Any future paid-referral relationship will only launch after legal review, and only with free nonprofit options shown first in the same content.
What payment changes
Paying buys a "Featured" badge and placement within a category page — nothing more. It does not buy a better verification outcome, a higher position in the unpaid/free listings, or inclusion in an article's "best option" framing.
What payment never changes — no exceptions
- Paid placement never changes an organization's verification status. A paid listing that fails verification is labeled exactly the same way a free one would be.
- A paid listing is never ranked or described as "best" without a published, consistently applied standard — see How We Verify.
- Free, nonprofit options are shown before paid ones in every article and every category page, not after.
- We never sell a visitor's contact information to multiple buyers, and we never run warm transfers, robocalls, or SMS blasts.
- We never say or imply that this site itself settles, negotiates, consolidates, repairs, or erases anyone's debt, and we never collect a debtor's payments or act as anyone's agent.
- We never use language like "erase your debt," "guaranteed savings," or "pennies on the dollar" without the specific legal proof and disclosure that would require — which in practice means we don't use it.
Why this page exists separately from Editorial Independence
This page covers where the revenue comes from. Editorial Independence covers the process side — who can pay, how a listing is verified regardless of payment, and how a provider (paid or not) can challenge inaccurate information about them.