Editorial Policy
Affiliate disclosure: Same Sample may earn a commission from some links on this page. The commercial relationship is stated next to each product, and products we have no approved affiliate relationship with carry ordinary links. Affiliate status and commission rates are not inputs to the scoring model.
Same Sample ranks tools on published figures only, and the code that produces a ranking has no access to commission rates, affiliate status or payout terms. The rules below govern everything that appears on Same Sample and everything that does not.
How are tools selected for a comparison?
A tool enters a comparison when buyers in that category actually evaluate it, judged by whether it appears in vendor-neutral discussion of the category. Paying, applying to an affiliate programme, or offering a free plan does not earn a place.
No vendor can buy inclusion, position, or a favourable line. No vendor has been offered inclusion in exchange for an affiliate approval, and no such offer will be accepted.
A tool is excluded when its own terms forbid publishing a comparison of it, when its pricing is not obtainable from a primary source, or when it serves a different job than the rest of the set. Exclusions are stated on the page rather than left silent.
Where does every figure come from?
Prices are read from the vendor's own pricing page or documentation on a stated date. Measured figures come from a test whose full protocol is published in advance on the methodology page. No figure is copied from another comparison site.
Where a vendor publishes two different numbers for the same thing, Same Sample prints both and names both sources rather than picking whichever suits the page. Lusha is a live example: its pricing page puts a revealed phone number at 10 credits while its API documentation says 5.
Where a figure has not been produced, the cell reads TBA. The site generator computes whether any measured figure exists and automatically rewrites the headline, the page title and the methodology section into a weaker form when none does, so a claim of testing cannot survive an untested state by accident.
Can a commercial relationship change the ranking?
No. Commission rate, cookie length, payout terms and affiliate approval status are stored in fields the scoring code never reads, and the ranking order is computed from measured figures alone.
Separation is enforced in code rather than promised in prose. The scoring script receives only the result records for each tool and the plan price used, and a test asserts that no affiliate field reaches it.
Same Sample earns nothing from most of the products it covers. Where a product carries a referral link, the commercial relationship is printed immediately above that link, and where there is none, the link is an ordinary link to the vendor's own site.
Can a vendor respond before publication?
A vendor can send a correction or added context at any time, and Same Sample will check it against the evidence. No vendor gets to approve a page before it is published, and no vendor response changes a measured figure unless the evidence shows the figure was wrong.
A vendor who believes a figure is wrong should write to [email protected] with the primary source that contradicts it. Same Sample re-checks against that source, corrects the page if the source supports the correction, and logs the change on the corrections page.
A vendor response that supplies context rather than a contradiction may be added to the page as context, attributed to the vendor, and clearly marked as the vendor's position rather than a measured result.
How often is a page updated?
Prices are re-checked quarterly and whenever a reader reports a change. Measured results are re-run quarterly on the same frozen sample, with the previous edition kept rather than overwritten.
The update date shown at the top of every page is the date the page content last changed, not the date the template was rebuilt. A rebuild that changes nothing does not move the date.
What happens when a conflict of interest arises?
Any conflict beyond a standard affiliate relationship is disclosed on the affected page in the same place as the commercial relationship note. Same Sample takes no payment for placement, no payment for review, and no equity in a vendor it covers.
If Same Sample ever accepts a direct sponsorship, that relationship will carry its own label distinct from an affiliate relationship, and a sponsored product will not be eligible for the top position in a ranking.
Who is responsible for what is published here?
Cuong Tran writes and is accountable for every page on Same Sample. There is no other editorial staff, and no page carries an invented byline.
Full background is on the about page, including a plain statement of where the relevant experience does and does not lie.