Affiliation & transparency
Joute contains affiliate links. When you sign up for a tool via a Joute link, the site may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.
This commission funds the site: hosting, tool subscriptions (we pay our accounts), writing time. It never changes any score, ranking, or verdict. When a tool is bad, Joute writes it, even if it earns a commission.
Every page containing affiliate links states this clearly, near the links. Tools with no affiliate program are treated exactly like all others.
Tools we recommend without being affiliated
To prove that independence is not just a word, here are tools we actively push even though they earn zero commission for Joute.
Anthropic's coding agent has no public affiliate program, yet it is the best tool for long autonomous terminal tasks.
No affiliate program, yet the best value-for-money on high-end reasoning models.
No commission available, but the most credible European sovereign option when EU hosting matters.
Open source, free, zero commission possible. Our default recommendation for running an LLM locally.
No Google affiliation on NotebookLM. The reference tool for reasoning over your own documents, we push it because it works.
Affiliate programs we have refused
Not all commissions are equal. Here are three cases where we say no, even when the program is serious and pays well.
We refuse to send affiliate traffic to tools we estimate will be dead in 24 months. That would mean charging a commission on a product we internally advise against.
Several programs offered us commissions on sites that are just a UI on top of the OpenAI API. We decline: it is price arbitrage at the user's expense.
If a tool does not publish its full pricing or hides fees (expiring credits, automatic tier upgrades), we do not accept their program even when the commission is generous.
In compliance with EU regulations and the DMA directive, sponsored content is explicitly labeled and distinct from independent editorial comparisons. Affiliate links carry the attribute rel="sponsored" in line with Google's recommendations.
You can read our full testing method to understand how we score tools, and our public changelog to track catalogue changes.
Frequently asked questions
How does Joute make money?
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Do affiliate links influence scores?
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How to identify an affiliate link on Joute?
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rel="sponsored" in line with Google's recommendations. Every page containing affiliate links states this clearly nearby. No concealment, no click-traps.