Questions We Get Asked
The questions that actually arrive, answered the way we would answer them in an email. Every answer has its own link, so you can send someone straight to the one they need.
Your directory listing
What does a directory listing cost?
Being listed is free, and so is correcting or removing your entry — whether or not you ever pay us. Claiming it, which makes the listing yours to edit, is $199 a year. We charge for control and reach, not for accuracy.
How long does a submission take?
Usually a few business days. We email you when it's live.
We're already listed but we never submitted anything. Why?
We built most of it from public sources, so buyers could compare a whole category. Claim it to correct it, or ask us to take it down. Both are free.
Can we have our listing removed?
Yes. Email us from your company's domain and we'll take it down. No reason needed.
Our submission came back. What now?
Usually a duplicate, a category that doesn't fit, or copy that sells rather than describes. All five-minute fixes, and you can resubmit as often as you like.
We sell several products. One listing or several?
Several. We list products, not companies. The form will ask you to confirm a second product from the same domain is genuinely different.
Our description is out of date. Can you change it?
Yes, and correcting it is free — send it through the contact form and we make the change. A claimed listing is yours to edit yourself, and those edits go live the same day.
We can't claim with a company email. What now?
Prove it with a meta tag on your homepage or a DNS TXT record — the claim form links you to that step. It settles ownership on the spot instead of waiting on an editor to check by hand, though the listing still goes through review. If neither is possible, our editorial staff verify the claim themselves.
Can we improve the listing while it sits in the review queue?
Yes. Sign in and edit it — we hold your changes against the submission and apply them when we approve it, so nothing reaches the page before an editor has read it.
Can our agency claim the listing for us?
The claim needs a company-domain address. After that, whoever manages the profile can take over.
Does a listing give us a backlink?
Your profile carries your website, free. It's marked nofollow on free and paid listings alike, so it passes no ranking signal. A listing is worth having because buyers read the directory.
Buyer guides and Spotlight
What exactly is a Spotlight?
A labeled sponsored card beside a buyer guide, linking to your directory profile. Beside our analysis, not inside it.
What does it cost?
$199 a year for your claimed listing. $299 if you want a place on a buyer guide as well, or $499 for the one Featured position above the sponsor cards. Further guides are $100 each. That is the whole price list.
Can we sponsor a guide outright?
Yes — the exclusive position above the sponsor cards, one company per guide, $499 a year with your claimed listing included. It is on the claim page alongside the Spotlight cards.
Why only one outright sponsor per guide?
A second one wouldn't be exclusive, and we would have sold something we did not deliver.
When are we actually charged?
Not at checkout. Your card is validated and stored there, and charged only when we approve your listing — usually within a few days. If we decline it you are not charged, there is no refund to wait for, and nothing appears on your statement.
Do we have to claim the listing before we can appear on a guide?
No — it is one purchase and one page. Claiming the listing and taking a guide placement happen in the same checkout, $299 for both.
How do vendors get into a buyer guide's evaluation?
Editorially. No application, no price. Keep your directory profile accurate — that's what we read.
Can we pay to be added to a guide, or to move up in one?
No, and buying a Spotlight doesn't do it either.
Can we appear on more than one guide?
Yes. Each guide is priced on its own — $100 a year once your listing is paid for, or $300 for a Featured position.
The guide we want is sold out. Is there a waiting list?
Tell us which one and we'll let you know when a slot opens. We won't oversell a guide.
A guide says something inaccurate about our product.
Send the guide URL and the sentence through the contact form. We fix factual errors free, customer or not. We won't remove an accurate assessment you disagree with.
Do you sell newsletter sponsorships, webinars or display advertising?
Not today. Tell us what you're after through the contact form and we'll come back to you when something opens.
Can we pay by invoice instead of card?
Ask. There's an inquiry form on the Spotlight page and we'll work with your procurement process.
How do we cancel?
From your vendor dashboard, any time. Billing & cancel opens the card portal, where your invoices and renewal date are. Canceling stops the renewal and ends the placement. We don't refund time already run.
Do you refund a placement we're unhappy with?
Talk to us. A placement that never ran, or that we got wrong, we make right. One that ran as described and underperformed is a conversation, not a guarantee.
Writing for us
Do you accept guest posts?
Not in the usual sense. In Insights we publish a few commissioned pieces from senior practitioners writing about work they've done — no agency placements, no ghostwritten thought leadership, nothing offered in exchange for a link, and no charge either way. If you want to publish under your own byline and are willing to pay for it, that is the Executive Forum, which is a different section and says so on every page.
Can we pay to have an article published?
Not in Insights — a paid article there would be an advertisement dressed as our reporting. What you can pay for is the Executive Forum: your own byline, in its own section, labeled as paid on every page. That is the label, applied honestly, rather than an exception to it.
Can our contributed article link to our product?
Your bio carries your name, title, company and one link. Links inside the piece support the argument; promotional links come out in editing.
What does a contributor get?
Your byline and title, a two-line bio with one link, editing with the final text back to you, and promotion through our newsletter and social channels. You can republish elsewhere afterwards, pointing back here.
Will you reply to our pitch?
We answer pitches that meet the bar on the contribution page. We don't reply to mass-sent pitches, agency outreach, or pitches with no named author.
Should we send a finished draft?
Please don't. Send the pitch first — a draft written before we've agreed the argument is work you may have wasted.
Can we use AI to help write it?
As a drafting aid, that's your business. We won't publish a generated draft sent as original work.
Links, PR and coverage
Will you add a link to our site in one of your articles?
No — not paid, not exchanged, not as a favor. That covers resource-page requests, broken-link outreach and link insertions. Your directory profile already links to you, free, and an Executive Forum piece links to its author — both nofollow, so neither passes a ranking signal.
We noticed a broken link on your site and have a replacement.
Do tell us about the broken link and we'll fix it. We'll pick the replacement. Every link in our content is checked against live pages on every build.
Would you consider a link exchange or a partnership swap?
No — not reciprocal linking, three-way exchanges, or partnerships whose substance is an exchange of links. We don't reply to these individually, so don't hold a campaign waiting on one.
Will you publish our press release?
No, we don't run a newswire. If it changes a fact about you, send it as a correction.
Can you add our product to a roundup or resource page?
Relevance decides, and it's our call. Keep your directory profile accurate — that's what we read.
Independence and corrections
You sell advertising and publish independent research. How does that work?
Money buys presentation and reach, not editorial position. A Spotlight buys a labeled card beside a guide — it doesn't get you into the evaluation or soften what we say. A vendor who has never paid us is covered on the same terms.
How do we get something corrected?
Send the page URL, the sentence, and something we can check it against — your own site counts. Free, and open to anyone. We won't take down something accurate because it's unwelcome.
If we buy a placement, will you take down the piece we don't like?
No. If it's factually wrong we'll fix it, free, whether or not you're a customer.
The whole thing, or just the half that applies to you. No email required, and every section carries the address of the page it came from.