Everything on this page is read live, not written by hand

Do not take our word for it

We promise that nobody can pay to be shown to you first, that every business pays the same rate, and that adverts vanish when you are struggling. Those are easy things to say. Here are the numbers that show whether they are true today.

Nobody can buy a better position

Money appears once in the code that chooses your adverts, and it is not in the part that decides the order.

Too few businesses are advertising for this figure to prove anything to you yet, and a number built from one advertiser would be worth less than none. You will see it once at least four are, and it will say whatever it says.

Every business pays the same rate

One price list, no negotiation, no packages, no tiers. Price follows how prominent the advert is and nothing else.

Local listing: £5.00 per thousand times it is seen
Spotlight: £10.00 per thousand times it is seen
Offer: £7.50 per thousand times it is seen

Nobody is advertising yet. When they are, they will pay the rates above.

Adverts switch off when you are struggling

A scanned debt letter turns off every commercial placement across the whole site, and these pages never carry one at all.

No household is in Shield Mode right now. The moment one is, they see no adverts anywhere.

The rule itself

This is not a description of how adverts are ordered. It is the ordering, copied out of the code that runs every time a page shows you one. Whether a business is a Household Hero, how much weight its ratings have earned, its trust score, then chance to break a tie.

ORDER BY p.household_hero DESC,
         p.impression_weight DESC,
         COALESCE(p.trust_score, 80) DESC,
         random()

Here is the only place money appears. It decides whether an advert is still running this month, never where it sits. A business that has spent its budget stops being shown; a business that has spent more than another is not shown any sooner.

WHERE ...
  AND app.ad_month_views(a.id) * cpm_for(a.format) < a.monthly_budget_pence * 1000

How we work out what you saved

“Cash Saved” is a number we put in front of you, so here is exactly how it is arrived at. If you think one of these rules is wrong, tell us and we will argue about it in public.

Only money already saved counts towards the total.: Every entry is marked realised, projected monthly or projected annual. The Cash Saved figure sums realised entries only. A projection is shown separately and never added in, because a saving you might make is not money you have.
A saving is the difference against a real price nearby, at the time.: Fuel is compared against forecourts within the search radius on the day; groceries against the cheapest discounter price we hold for the same item. Not against a recommended price, an average, or what the shop says it usually charges.
Nothing is counted twice.: Each entry is tied to the document it came from. Scanning the same receipt again updates that entry rather than adding another.
A negotiated bill counts once it is actually lower.: A contract alert is a projection until the household reports what happened. Only then does a monthly figure enter the ledger, and only at the difference actually achieved.
The 15% figure on the account home is an estimate and is labelled as one.: It is what a typical household gets off a bill by ringing before a deal ends, used only to size a suggestion. It never enters Cash Saved.
Nothing is counted from a page that shows adverts.: A saving we might have been paid to suggest is not evidence of anything, so no referral or advert placement ever creates a ledger entry.

Ratings, including the ones that went against us

A business can appeal a rating once. While the appeal is open the rating still counts against them. If we uphold it, the score is worked out again without it and the business page says how many were removed.

Ratings given: 0
Household Heroes right now: 0
Appeals open: 0
Appeals we upheld: 0
Appeals we rejected: 0
Ratings hidden as a result: 0

What this page deliberately does not show

Which business spent what. An advertiser's bill is their business. The comparison above is between the top and the bottom of the list without naming either.
Anything about you. No figure here is worked out from a single household, and nothing on it could be traced back to one.
A flattering selection. The figures are whatever the database says this morning. If the gap widens, the box above turns amber and says so.

If you think something here is wrong, tell us and we will publish the correction on this page. The full advertising rules explain the rest.