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Selectopicks

Our review desk

Every review passes through four roles. Here is what each one does, and what none of them is allowed to do.

Last reviewed 15 September 2026

Most comparison sites answer the question "who wrote this?" with a stock photo and a paragraph of invented biography. We would rather answer a more useful question: what work was done, by which role, and what had to be true before the page went live.

Selectopicks is published by SelectoPicks LLC. Reviews are produced by the review desk described below, and the desk is credited on the page rather than a persona. Where a named specialist contributes or reviews a page, they are named with their real credentials and nothing else appears in the byline.

The four roles

Role 01

Research and sourcing

Defines what actually separates products in a category, builds the shortlist from the market rather than from an affiliate catalogue, and collects every claim with the source it came from. Vendor marketing copy is not accepted as evidence of anything.

Role 02

Pricing verification

Takes every price from the vendor's own pricing page, records the date, and captures the renewal rate as well as the introductory one. Every figure on the site carries the date it was last checked, and re-checks run on a rolling cycle.

Role 03

Scoring and editing

Applies the published rubric with fixed weights, writes the review, and makes sure the text supports the score. The table order is produced by the score, so this role cannot move a product up or down except by changing an assessment it can defend.

Role 04

Compliance and disclosure

Checks that commercial links are labelled and routed correctly, that disclosures sit next to the decision rather than in a footer, and that nothing on the page implies a capability the product does not have.

How a review gets made

  1. Category definition. We work out the two or three things that genuinely decide satisfaction in the category, and what a buyer usually discovers too late.
  2. Shortlist. Every meaningful provider goes on the list, including the ones we cannot earn a penny from.
  3. Evidence collection. Pricing, plan contents, limits and company conduct, each tied to a source we can cite on the page.
  4. Hands-on use where the product allows it. Where a product cannot be bought and used in a meaningful way, we say so rather than implying testing that did not happen.
  5. Scoring. The four-part rubric, weighted the same way in every category. See the rating methodology.
  6. Editing and fact check. Every number, price and claim is verified against its source before publication. Nothing is published on the strength of a draft alone.
  7. Compliance pass. Disclosures, link labelling, and a check that draft entries carry no score rather than a guessed one.
  8. Re-verification. Prices go back into the cycle, and the visible date changes when they are checked again.

What the desk is not allowed to do

  • Invent an author. No fictional reviewers, no stock-photo experts, no borrowed credentials. If a person is named on this site, that person exists and the credential is real.
  • Invent a test. We do not describe hands-on testing we did not do, and we do not publish numbers nobody measured.
  • Let commercial terms touch a score. Commission rates are not an input to the rubric. The full position is on how we make money.
  • Publish an unverifiable price. No source and no date means the figure does not go on the page.
  • Quietly rewrite history. Substantive corrections are noted on the page, as set out in our editorial standards.

Software assistance, stated plainly

We use software, including AI tools, for research and drafting. It never has the last word. A human editor verifies every factual claim, price and citation against the original source before anything is published, and responsibility for what appears here sits with the desk rather than with a tool. We would rather tell you that than pretend to a workflow nobody uses in 2026.

Contributing as a named specialist

We add named specialists to categories where a professional credential materially improves the review: licensed clinicians for health-adjacent categories, accountants for finance software, security practitioners for privacy tools. Contributors are credited by name and credential, are paid for their work, and have no commercial relationship with the brands they assess.

If that is you, write to hello@selectopicks.com with your credentials and the categories you can speak to. Until a category has a named specialist, the page credits the desk, because an honest role is better than a convincing invention.