Helpful buying guides built around the buy links that actually pay the bills.
What it's really for A consumer-tech publisher monetized by affiliate links; the buying guides are built around the buy buttons.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its star-rated reviews and 'best of' buying guides for tech, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
The retailers TechRadar links to (Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target) pay the commissions: parent Future plc booked roughly £85m in affiliate revenue in H1 2021 alone via its Hawk price-comparison engine, with ~80% of first-time traffic arriving on "best" searches and buying guides driving ~60% of sales value, so the content that earns the most is built around products available to buy through paying partners rather than placement being sold to specific vendors.
Source →- Operating since
- 2008 (18 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- It earns affiliate commissions paid by retailers (Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, etc.) when readers buy through links embedded in its reviews and "best" buying guides, supplemented by display advertising and paid (labeled) sponsored content.
- What they do
- It publishes hands-on consumer-tech reviews, "best of" buying guides, news, and how-to content with five-star ratings across phones, laptops, TVs, VPNs, software and more.
- What to watch for
- You won't get a purely neutral shopping verdict: the site is funded by retailer commissions and steers you toward buy links, so products that are easy to monetize and stocked at affiliate partners can get more prominence than the single best objective pick.
- Composite score
- 3.40 / 5.00 → grade B
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- TechRadar states it never does paid reviews and that nothing with a star rating has been paid for, while disclosing it funds itself through affiliate links and clearly-marked paid editorial: 'When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.' This supports a hands-on, published-methodology model with clear affiliate disclosure, but confirms the operation is commission-funded. Source: About TechRadar / How we test (TechRadar.com) →
- TechRadar tests products in real life with a stated minimum number of testing days before a full review, benchmarks finished retail products, and applies a familiar five-star scoring system, with category-specific 'how we test' pages for laptops, VPNs, mattresses and website builders. Source: How we test, review and rate on TechRadar →
- Future plc drove nearly $1bn in affiliate sales-order-value in 2020 via its proprietary Hawk price-comparison engine, with affiliate revenue ~£85m in H1 2021 (>30% of company revenue); ~80% of first-time traffic comes from 'best' searches and buying guides account for ~60% of sales value, and a later redesign 'doubled down' on embedding retailer buy-boxes (Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy) into reviews, with the editor-in-chief stating he has 'no problem writing stuff that's editorially valid that also has commercial revenue too.' Source: Digiday — Future plc e-commerce sales / TechRadar affiliate redesign →