FinTrackier is an independent editorial team covering brokers, banks, credit cards and the apps in between. We open every product with real money, hold it for months, and write down what actually happened. This page explains who we are and how the work gets done.
FinTrackier started with a simple frustration: nearly every financial comparison site online ranks products by how much the company pays per signup, then dresses the result up as a verdict. The reader rarely finds out. By the time a "top pick" turns out to be a mediocre product with a generous referral program, the damage is done — somebody opened an account they didn't need.
We built to do the opposite. Our editors open real accounts with their own money, live with each product the way a normal customer would, and only then sit down to write. When a popular brand deserves criticism, we publish the criticism. When an unglamorous product is simply the best one, it wins the ranking — referral relationship or not.
That stubbornness is the entire value of the site. If you can't trust that the order of a list reflects merit, the list is worthless. So we put the methodology in the open, name the people doing the testing, and tell you exactly where our money comes from. No part of that is marketing copy; it's the operating agreement we hold ourselves to.
Every product on the site is graded on the same rubric. Here is the whole thing, weighting included.
Before a single word is written, an editor signs up for the product personally and funds it with their own money — usually between $250 and $1,000, depending on the category. We do not test from a demo environment, a press account, or a screenshot deck supplied by the company. The friction you'd feel at signup, the hold times on your first deposit, the email cadence afterward: we feel all of it, because we are an actual customer.
A platform that looks great on day one can fall apart on day forty. So we hold every account for a minimum of ninety days before publishing, and we keep most of them open indefinitely afterward. That window is long enough to see a statement cycle, a customer-service request resolved (or not), a volatile market session, and at least one product update. Snap judgments make for bad reviews; we'd rather be late than wrong.
The 100 points are distributed across six categories. The weighting reflects what actually changes a person's financial outcome, not what's easiest to measure:
Scores are not carved in stone. Pricing changes, apps regress, support teams get gutted in a reorg. Four times a year we rebuild each ranking from raw scores rather than nudging last quarter's order. A product that was number one can slide to fourth if it stopped earning its place — and a product nobody talks about can rise if it quietly got better.
This is the line that matters most: no company can pay to rank higher, appear first, or be featured. Commercial relationships exist — we explain them below — but they live entirely outside the scoring. An editor doing the testing does not know, and does not care, which products carry a referral arrangement. The score is the score.
Real bylines, real accounts, real opinions. Reach any of them through the desk they cover.
Senior Editor, Investing
Leads the brokerage and robo-advisor coverage. Spent a decade as a portfolio analyst before deciding she'd rather explain the products than sell them. Owns accounts at every broker we rank.
Options & Derivatives
Tests the platforms active traders actually use under pressure. Cares deeply about per-contract fees, chain latency, and whether an order fills cleanly at 3:55pm on a volatile Friday.
Tax & Research
Turns the tax code into plain English and keeps every number on the site honest. If a "tax-free" claim or a fee table shows up in a draft, it goes through her before it goes live.
Credit Cards & Banking
Opens checking accounts, applies for cards, and chases rewards math so you don't have to. Has a low tolerance for "5% back" offers that quietly cap out at $500 a quarter.
Editorial Standards Lead
Guards the wall between the editorial team and the business side. Owns the methodology, signs off on corrections, and makes sure no commercial relationship ever leaks into a score.
We work with experienced finance writers who can test a product honestly and explain it simply.
Pitch the desk →FinTrackier is free to read because some of the links on the site are affiliate links. When you click one and open an account or get approved for a product, the company may pay us a referral fee. It never costs you anything extra — the rate, bonus, or fee you get is identical to going direct.
That revenue keeps the lights on and pays the editors to spend ninety days inside a product instead of skimming a press release. We think that's a fair trade, but only if it comes with a hard rule, which is this: the commercial side has zero influence on the rankings. The editors who score products do not see the contracts. A product with no referral arrangement can — and regularly does — beat one that pays us well.
We also won't pretend the relationships don't exist. Wherever a link can earn us a commission, we disclose it on the page. If a "best of" list happens to feature only partners, that's a coincidence of the scoring, not a requirement — and if a non-partner is the best product, it still wins.
So there's no ambiguity, here is what you can hold us to:
If you ever spot something on the site that looks like it breaks one of these promises, tell us. The fastest way to lose a reader's trust is to be caught bending a rule we wrote ourselves — so we'd genuinely rather hear about it than not.
We read everything readers send. Tell us where we got it right, where we got it wrong, or which product you'd like us to put through the ninety-day test next.