How AIHostCompare makes money

These programs are active: AIHostCompare is an affiliate of DigitalOcean (through the Awin network). Links to these providers are affiliate links, disclosed as described below.

Active affiliate programs: 1. This status is generated from the same configuration that switches affiliate links on, so it cannot fall out of date with the links themselves.

No. Affiliate payout does not determine ranking, scores, comparison order or editorial conclusions.

• Which providers are listed: inclusion depends on verified data and category relevance.
• Order, filters and sorting: the code behind them never reads affiliate settings.
• Prices and specifications: they come from the providers’ public pages, checked and dated.
• Guides and comparisons: conclusions follow the data and the published methodology.
• Scores: AIHostCompare publishes none; any future score would have a public formula first.

Every page says, directly under its main heading: “We may earn commissions when you shop through the links below.” Its “Learn more” link leads to this page. That line is there whether or not a program is active; the status above says which programs are.

That line is the disclosure for every affiliate link and logo on the page, so the links themselves carry no repeated note. Sponsored placements and paid partnerships would be disclosed near the relevant action.

• Affiliate links carry rel="sponsored nofollow noopener", which tells search engines the link is commercial; screen readers also announce it as an affiliate link. Whether buying through such a link changes your price depends on the provider's program; we do not promise that it does not.
• Source links always open the cited page itself, directly and not through an affiliate network, and carry no affiliate attributes. That includes the pricing, documentation and Marketplace pages of a provider with an active program.
• Affiliate banners are an active program's own creatives, shown unchanged and linked through the program: either the provider's logo, with no offer, shown on its own on that provider's review, or a campaign banner with an offer, shown in a card labelled “Advertisement” with a line saying the offer and its terms are the provider's, on the review or on a guide that names the provider for the topic. Once per page, never in comparisons, advisor results, rankings or sorted lists. Shown today: DigitalOcean.
• Sponsored placements would carry a “Sponsored” label, sit apart from ranked lists and never appear inside sorted tables. There are none today.
• Paid partnerships, such as sponsored content, would be disclosed at the top of the page concerned. There are none today.

Outbound “Visit” buttons (such as “Visit DigitalOcean”) are the main action on every provider page, for every provider, whether or not the link earns a commission. In a side-by-side comparison every provider gets the same button. In the hosting advisor, the “Visit” button of the first suggestion is the main action of that result only when the suggestion is a confirmed match with a complete price. That rule reads only the match and the price, never whether a link earns a commission.

The provider can still be included if the data and category relevance justify it. A provider without a program is listed, compared and linked exactly like one with a program: same fields, same position rules, same link to its official site. All 10 providers in the dataset are treated this way. Joining or leaving a program changes only where that provider's “Visit” links go and how they are marked in the page code (the rel attribute, an analytics attribute and the screen-reader text), the program's own logo or banner where this page describes it, and the sentences that disclose the program, such as the status above. It never changes which providers we list or their order.

Outbound clicks are counted as anonymous events for analytics and attribution, without changing the editorial methodology.

We count clicks on outbound links with PostHog, without cookies and without a visitor profile. Each event records the provider, where the link was placed and whether it was an affiliate link. The counts inform disclosure reporting and product decisions and are never a ranking input. An affiliate link opens the address of the affiliate network first (Awin), which records the click and sends you on to the provider's site. The network and the provider record the referral under their own privacy policies and may set their own cookies on their own domains; AIHostCompare sets no cookie for it. See our privacy policy and the methodology.

If a disclosure is missing or wrong, tell us through the contact page.