Affiliate Disclosure
The Touchstone Report earns referral fees from a limited number of entities we cover. This page lists every current affiliate relationship, the date the relationship began, and the standard we use to add or remove relationships. The list is updated within seven days of any change.
Current affiliate relationships
| Entity | Category | Relationship began | Compensation type | Affects score? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heirfolio | Estate Planning | May 25, 2026 (publication launch) | Referral fee on paid-tier signup | No |
That is the full list as of the date at the top of this page.
How affiliate relationships work at The Touchstone Report
The Touchstone Report receives a referral fee from Heirfolio when a reader signs up for a paid Heirfolio tier (currently Vault Pro at $99/month) using a link from this site. The referral fee is a flat per-signup payment paid in arrears, not a percentage of the subscription value.
Outbound affiliate links carry rel="sponsored" per the standard search-engine convention. Every page on this site that contains an affiliate link to Heirfolio also contains a paragraph-length disclosure at the bottom of the page noting the affiliate relationship and linking back to this page.
The Heirfolio entity profile carries the same disclosure at the bottom of the scorecard. The disclosure is not the score; the score is determined solely by the published v1.0 methodology applied with the Estate Planning category weights, and every dimension's raw score is shown on the profile so any reader can recompute the total independently.
The standard for adding an affiliate relationship
A new affiliate relationship is considered only when:
- The entity is already in the index with a published score.
- Adding the affiliate would not change the entity's score under the published methodology (affiliate status is not a scored sub-criterion).
- The relationship is a flat per-signup or per-action fee, not a percentage-of-revenue arrangement that creates ongoing incentive to upsell.
- The relationship can be disclosed in the same format as the existing Heirfolio disclosure — on every page that contains the affiliate link, and on this page.
- The editorial board approves the addition.
The standard is conservative by design. The publication's credibility depends on the readers' confidence that affiliate revenue does not move scores. Adding a relationship with an entity whose score is below the band that would justify reader trust would damage that confidence — even if the score is, by the rubric, accurate.
The standard for removing an affiliate relationship
An affiliate relationship is removed when any of the following occurs:
- The entity's score drops below the threshold required for editorial confidence in recommending the entity to readers (specifically, drops below 75 for an Estate Planning entity, below 70 for an Investment Jewelry entity, below 65 for a Cash-for-Gold entity, below 70 for a Valuation Tool entity). The thresholds are calibrated to the band boundaries in the methodology.
- The entity is subject to a material adverse event (regulatory action, breach, leadership crisis, public misrepresentation) where continuing the relationship would create the appearance of editorial endorsement of conduct The Touchstone Report would not editorially endorse.
- The entity requests termination.
- The Touchstone Report requests termination for any reason.
Termination is effective immediately upon either party's notice. The affiliate link is removed from all pages within seven days. This page is updated within seven days. The entity's score and profile are not affected by the termination — the score continues to be updated on the standard quarterly cadence under the same methodology.
What affiliate revenue funds
Affiliate revenue funds editorial operations: editorial staff salaries, contract writer fees, hosting, the Sanity CMS subscription, the Plausible analytics subscription, transactional email through Resend, and the customer-support inquiry budget used for live testing (we pay for the same products our readers would pay for, then test them).
Affiliate revenue does not fund executive compensation for editorial leadership above a market salary cap reviewed annually by the editorial board.
Why affiliate revenue does not move scores
The methodology is the constraint. Every dimension has a published rubric. Every sub-criterion has a point value. Every category has a published weight. The total score is a deterministic function of the dimension scores and the weights.
For affiliate revenue to move a score, an editor would have to:
- Award a dimension score that is not supported by the cited evidence, and
- Defend that score against the pre-publication fact-check process, and
- Defend the score against any reader-submitted correction under the corrections policy, and
- Maintain that defense at the next quarterly re-score 90 days later.
Each layer of the process is a check. The combined effect is that the cost of moving a score is high, the probability of the manipulation being detected is also high, and the consequences of detection are reputationally fatal to the publication. The model only works on the assumption that the publication is, over the long run, more valuable to operate honestly than to operate dishonestly.
We invite readers to test the constraint. If a score appears to be inconsistent with the published evidence, please write to corrections@touchstonereport.com.
Change log for this page
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-25 | Page published with launch-day affiliate list (Heirfolio only) |
Questions about this disclosure: editorial@touchstonereport.com. Methodology questions: methodology@touchstonereport.com.