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Policy

Editorial policy

How every figure on this site is sourced, checked and kept current — and how we keep our own loan form from leaning on the journalism.

Updated November 8, 2026 3 min read Effective November 8, 2026

Our principles

  • Accuracy over speed. We would rather publish a day late than publish a wrong fee.
  • Numbers, not adjectives. Where a claim can be a figure (an $8 late fee, a 25% cap, a 10-day grace period) it is a figure, with a source.
  • Say what it costs. Pay in 4 is 0% only if you pay on time; Pay Monthly and personal loans carry interest. We show the downside next to the upside, every time.
  • Independence. No company we write about pays for placement, reviews drafts or sees content before publication.
  • Plain English. If a sentence needs a finance degree, we rewrite it.

Sources we use

In order of preference:

  1. Primary documents — Afterpay's US Installment Agreement, Pay Monthly Loan Agreement, Afterpay Card terms, and the Afterpay / Cash App help centers.
  2. Regulators and official statistics — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Reserve (SHED survey, Richmond Fed research), state regulators.
  3. Company filings and announcements — Block, Inc. quarterly results and press releases; Klarna, Affirm, PayPal and Zip published terms.
  4. Reputable third-party reporting — named outlets such as NerdWallet, Bankrate, LendingTree, Adobe Digital Insights, Finder. We cite the outlet and date.

We do not source figures from forums, social media or anonymous blogs, except to illustrate a question shoppers commonly ask.

Review process

  1. Draft

    A writer builds the page from primary sources, linking each figure to its origin in the working document.

  2. Fact-check

    A second person re-opens every source and confirms each number, date and quote before publication.

  3. Compliance read

    Any page that mentions our loan form is checked for required disclosures: not-a-lender statement, APR range, representative example, lender-network language.

  4. Scheduled re-review

    Fee, limit and store pages are re-checked at least quarterly; the whole site is re-checked when Afterpay changes its terms. The "Updated" date on each page is the last full review.

Corrections

If we got something wrong, tell us at [email protected] with the page URL and, if possible, a link to the source. We aim to respond within two business days. Material corrections (a fee, a limit, a date) are fixed on the page and noted at the bottom of that page; typos and clarity edits are made silently.

Use of AI tools

We use software, including AI tools, to help research, check arithmetic (for example amortization tables), and proof-read. Every published figure is still verified by a person against the primary source, and every page is reviewed by an editor before it goes live. AI tools never publish to the site on their own.

Editorial vs commercial

Our revenue comes from the personal-loan request form on /apply/ (see the advertiser disclosure). The people who write about Afterpay do not report to, and are not paid based on, loan-form performance. Where a page links to the form, it does so in clearly labelled blocks ("Partner offer", "Not a lender") that are visually distinct from editorial content.