Our Review Methodology
Ladabo’s reviews are research-based comparisons, not personal product tests. Here’s exactly how we score the AI finance tools we cover — what we look at, where we get our information, and how we weight each category.
Our reviews are research-based syntheses. We do not personally test these tools with our own bank accounts over multiple months. Instead, we systematically gather and analyse public information — user reviews, expert evaluations, official documentation, and aggregated user sentiment — to produce honest comparisons that help you decide. This approach is common among personal finance publishers; we believe it’s important to be upfront about it.
The seven sources we use
Every review we publish is built from these seven evidence sources, gathered fresh whenever we publish or update a review:
- Official documentation and pricing pages — what the company says the product does, what it costs, what’s included in each tier
- App Store and Google Play user reviews — aggregate ratings, recent review trends, and the specific complaints that show up repeatedly
- Reddit community discussions — particularly r/personalfinance, r/budgeting, and app-specific subreddits where real users discuss daily experience
- Trustpilot and Better Business Bureau (BBB) — independent review aggregators that often surface complaint patterns invisible elsewhere
- Expert reviews from established publishers — NerdWallet, The Penny Hoarder, FinanceBuzz, The College Investor, and other publications with formal editorial standards
- Company transparency on privacy, pricing, and ownership — published privacy policies, parent company structure, monetisation model
- Comparison against competitor positioning — how the product stacks up against similar tools in the same category
The seven weighted categories we score
Each tool is scored against the same seven categories with the same fixed weights. We assign each category a score from 1 to 5 based on the evidence above, then compute a weighted overall rating.
| Category | Weight | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Real user satisfaction | 20% | App Store / Google Play ratings, Trustpilot, BBB complaints, Reddit sentiment, expert reviews |
| 2. Pricing fairness vs value | 20% | Cost relative to features delivered, free tier availability, trial length, vs competitor pricing |
| 3. Feature completeness | 15% | Coverage of core functions (budgeting, tracking, investments, multi-user) vs the tool’s stated purpose |
| 4. Transparency and trust | 15% | Clear pricing, no hidden charges in user complaints, honest marketing claims, response to complaints |
| 5. Privacy and data practices | 10% | Whether the company sells data, runs ads, uses secure aggregators (Plaid, etc.), publishes a clear privacy policy |
| 6. Platform availability | 10% | iOS, Android, web, desktop support; geographic / banking coverage; multi-device sync |
| 7. Fit for stated use case | 10% | Whether the product reliably does the job it’s marketed for, based on user reports |
A worked example: how a score is calculated
Suppose a hypothetical app scores as follows:
- Real user satisfaction: 4.0 × 20% = 0.80
- Pricing fairness: 3.5 × 20% = 0.70
- Feature completeness: 4.5 × 15% = 0.68
- Transparency and trust: 4.0 × 15% = 0.60
- Privacy and data practices: 4.5 × 10% = 0.45
- Platform availability: 3.0 × 10% = 0.30
- Fit for stated use case: 4.5 × 10% = 0.45
Weighted total: 3.98 / 5 — rounded to 4.0 / 5 in the final review.
How we keep scoring honest
Score before commission
We complete the scoring exercise before we look up affiliate commission rates. The score reflects what the research shows — not what the tool pays us.
Cite the sources, name the publishers
Each review lists the sources used — App Store, Google Play, Trustpilot, BBB, Reddit, plus specific expert publishers. You can verify our findings independently. If our score differs from a major publisher’s score, we explain why.
Surface complaint patterns, not isolated reviews
One angry one-star review doesn’t change a score. A consistent pattern — the same complaint appearing across App Store, Trustpilot, BBB, and Reddit — does. We’re looking for signal, not noise.
Recommend tools with no affiliate program too
If the best tool for a specific use case has no affiliate program, we recommend it anyway. That’s the whole point of separating the score from the payout.
Update when the evidence changes
Apps change. Pricing changes. Companies get acquired. Trust scores shift. We re-run the research and update the score whenever something material changes — not on a fixed schedule.
Editorial independence
Ladabo earns affiliate commissions when readers sign up to some tools via our links. The commission does not affect the score. Ladabo is owned and operated by Valentine Pereira from Munich, Germany. We are not owned by, affiliated with, or paid by any of the companies whose products we review beyond standard affiliate programs disclosed in each review.
What our reviews are not
To be completely transparent:
- We do not personally use these tools daily for months on end. When you see Cleo or Monarch reviewed on Ladabo, the review is built from public sources, not from us connecting our own bank accounts.
- We do not have insider access to the tools’ internal data or staff. Everything we know comes from sources you can also access.
- We are not licensed financial advisors. Our reviews help you choose tools. They do not constitute investment advice, tax advice, or personalised financial planning.
- Our scores are judgments based on synthesis, not measurements from controlled tests. A score of 4.5 means our research finds the tool consistently strong; it does not mean we measured it scientifically.
How this compares to other review approaches
There are three common review approaches in the personal finance space:
| Approach | Example publishers | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Hands-on testing | NerdWallet, Wirecutter (some categories) | Reviewer personally uses the product, often for weeks or months, before scoring |
| Research-based synthesis (us) | The College Investor, FinanceBuzz (many categories), Ladabo | Reviewer analyses public information, user reviews, and expert evaluations to produce a synthesis |
| Vendor-supplied summary | Some affiliate-heavy sites | Review is built primarily from the vendor’s own marketing materials |
Research-based synthesis is a legitimate and widely-used approach. We chose it because it allows us to cover more tools more thoroughly, and because aggregating thousands of real user opinions often surfaces patterns one reviewer testing a product for a few weeks would miss. But we believe you deserve to know which approach we use — so we tell you upfront.
Conflict of interest declaration
Ladabo participates in affiliate programs with some of the AI finance tools we review. When you click an affiliate link and sign up, Ladabo may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. This is how the site is funded.
We mitigate the conflict of interest this creates by:
- Scoring tools against fixed criteria before looking up commission rates
- Disclosing affiliate relationships clearly on every page that contains one
- Recommending tools that don’t have affiliate programs when they’re the best fit
- Maintaining the editorial independence standard described above
- Publishing the same review methodology for every tool, regardless of commission
If you ever spot a review where we appear to have favoured a tool because of its commission rate, please tell us via the contact page — we’ll investigate and update if you’re right.
Questions about our methodology?
If anything in this methodology page is unclear, or if you’d like to suggest an improvement to how we score, we’d love to hear from you.
Get in touch