How results are produced

We never invent data

If a figure is not available to us, the result says so. Every tool returns one of a fixed set of outcomes, and two of them — “data unavailable” and “partial” — exist specifically so that a gap can be reported rather than filled. A partial result gives you the part we could establish and names each thing we could not, along with what would be needed to resolve it.

This is the reason several obvious tools are missing. A price checker without a price feed would have to estimate, and an estimate presented as a price is a lie with a decimal point in it.

Calculations are deterministic

Anything arithmetic — margins, landed costs, break-even figures — is computed by plain code with unit tests, not by a language model. The same inputs always produce the same output, money is handled in whole cents rather than decimal fractions, and no result is ever rounded into looking better than it is.

Where a model is used at all, it is to draft an explanation, and a person reviews that text before it is published. Model output is validated against a strict schema; if it does not validate, the result becomes “unavailable” rather than falling back to something made up.

Scores are always explained

Where a tool produces a composite number, it shows the factors behind it, the weight of each, which inputs were available, which were not, and what the number does not measure. A score with no visible derivation is a guess wearing a uniform.

Some tools deliberately produce no score at all. The ingredient checker is one: it reports what an ingredient is there to do and what the evidence around it says, with a stated strength of evidence, because condensing that into a safety number would imply a measurement nobody has made.

Evidence carries a date

Anything we state as fact can name its source, the specific claim that source supports, and the date we retrieved it. Sources are cited because facts change, and a source without a date is not checkable.

What gets published

A page exists on this site only if it has something to say. Before any content page can be indexed it has to clear a fixed set of conditions: a written explanation of real length that a person has reviewed, at least one citation to a primary or secondary source, links that resolve to pages that themselves clear the same bar, and no near-duplicate sibling. Pages that do not clear it are not published in a diminished form — they do not exist.

The practical effect is that this site will grow slowly. That is deliberate. A large site of thin pages is worth less than a small one where every page earns its place.

Commerce is kept separate

Affiliate relationships and sponsorships have no input into analysis or ordering. Anything present because someone paid for it says so on the page. If that ever stops being true, this paragraph should be the first thing you use against us.

Where our information comes from is listed on the sources page. What Evaluatefirst is and is not is on the about page.