Editorial Policy

What We Cover

BuzzBeam covers productivity tools, AI assistants, design software, browser extensions, study aids, note-taking apps, and automation tools. We focus on tools that are accessible to everyday users — not developer tools, enterprise software requiring sales calls, or anything that costs more than £25/month for an individual plan without a meaningful free option.

We choose what to cover based on what people are actually asking about and what we think is genuinely worth knowing about. We don't cover everything; we'd rather write one honest piece about a tool than five rushed ones.

How We Evaluate Tools

We use tools for real tasks over a meaningful period before writing about them. For a standard Pick, that means at least two weeks of actual use. We test the free tier as the primary experience, because that's what most readers will use. If we test a paid plan, we say so.

We look at: how long onboarding takes, whether the core feature works as described, how it handles edge cases, what the free-to-paid upgrade pressure is like, and whether we'd still be using it in three months.

Scoring

Scores are on a 1–10 scale. They're assigned editorially and represent our overall assessment of usefulness for the stated audience. A 7 is a good tool with real limitations. An 8 is something we'd recommend without much qualification. Scores of 9 and 10 are rare and mean we think most people in the target audience would find it worth using.

Scores are not averages and are not crowd-sourced. They're our opinion, stated as such.

Conflicts of Interest

We do not accept payment for editorial coverage. We do not participate in affiliate programmes. We do not accept free tools in exchange for coverage.

We pay for any tools that require payment, out of our own pockets. If a company contacts us to suggest coverage, we treat it the same as anything else we find — it goes through the same evaluation process, and the outcome is determined by what we find, not by who suggested it.

If we ever introduce advertising or sponsorship, paid placements will be clearly labelled and will have no influence on editorial scores, verdicts, or recommendations.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we correct it. Send corrections to [email protected] with the URL of the relevant page. We'll confirm, update the content, and note the correction at the bottom of the piece where appropriate.

Independence

BuzzBeam is independently owned and operated. No external investor, advertiser, or third party has editorial influence over what we cover or how we cover it. Scores and verdicts are final editorial decisions made by Martha Calloway and Daniel Ferris.