How this site makes money

Last updated 27 August 2026. Somebody has to pay for a site that spends its time telling you what things really cost. Here is who pays us, and where the line is.

The line is simple and it has one rule behind it: money can buy a label on this site, and it can never buy a position, a rating or a recommendation. If that ever stops being true, this page changes first.

Amazon

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. In plain terms: when you buy a book through a link on our books pages, Amazon pays us a small percentage of what you spent, and you pay exactly the same price you would have paid anyway.

It does not change the reading order we suggest. The book we tell most people to start with is a 20 dollar paperback that earns us pennies, and the honest answer for a lot of readers is to borrow it from the library instead.

Software partner programs

Companies that make software for running EOS® meetings and scorecards pay referral commission when a reader signs up. We expect to join the programs run by Success.co and Ninety.io, and we will name every other one here as we join it.

At the time of writing we have not yet joined any of them, and no software link on this site earns us anything. When that changes, the affected pages will say so on the page, not only here.

What we will not do is let a commission rate decide the order of a comparison. Where two tools do the same job and one pays better, that fact belongs in the comparison, not in the ranking.

Directory listings, once the directory opens

We are building a directory of implementers and coaches. It is not live yet. When it opens there will be exactly three kinds of listing, and every one of them is labelled where you see it.

• Verified. Free. Anyone who is a genuine, currently practising implementer or coach can have one. We check that the person exists, that the business is real, and that the contact details work. Nobody pays for it and nobody can pay to have it taken away.
• Preferred Partner. Hand-picked by us from people we have seen do good work or whose clients told us they did. It can involve a commercial agreement, such as a referral fee when an introduction becomes an engagement, and where it does we say so on the listing itself. We choose these; they cannot be bought by applying with a cheque.
• Sponsored. Paid placement. Clearly labelled as sponsored wherever it appears, kept visually distinct from ordinary results, and excluded from anything we describe as a ranking or a shortlist.

Search ranking, sort order and the shortlists we send to people who ask for an introduction are never for sale. A Sponsored slot buys visibility in a labelled box. It does not move anyone up a list of results, and it does not put anyone into an introduction they did not earn.

How we decide what to recommend

When we say a book is worth reading, or a tool is the right fit, or an implementer is worth a call, it comes from published research we cite, from what practitioners tell us, from using the product, and from what readers report back afterwards. Where we are guessing, we say we are guessing. Where a number is a range, we show the range instead of picking the flattering end.

Our own commercial interest is never one of the inputs. The practical test we apply: would we give this same answer to a friend who was about to spend the money, with nobody paying us either way?

Trademarks and independence

EOS, Entrepreneurial Operating System®, Rocket Fuel®, The EOS Life® and the names of the tools we describe are trademarks of EOS Worldwide, LLC. We use them to describe and discuss the system accurately. We do not use them to suggest that EOS Worldwide endorses, sponsors or has any connection with this site, because it does not.

Our full statement is on the trademarks page, and the rules for listings are on how listings work.