How we are funded

We may earn a commission when a reader opens an account with Pocket Option through our links. Trading involves risk.

This page explains exactly how this site earns, what that means for what you read here, and what we do to stop the money from writing the conclusions.

How the money works

Clearmark Desk operates as an affiliate publisher. If a reader follows a link from this site to a platform we cover and opens an account, we may receive a commission from that platform's partner programme. You pay nothing extra, and the commission does not change the terms you are offered.

Links that can earn us money are marked as sponsored links in the page code and open in a new tab. Editorial links between our own pages earn us nothing. We do not sell advertising space, we do not accept payment for coverage, and no platform has been given approval over anything published here.

The conflict, stated plainly

An affiliate model pays when readers sign up. That creates a standing incentive to be more encouraging than the evidence supports, and it is the reason so much coverage in this sector reads like a brochure. Pretending the incentive does not exist would be the least trustworthy thing we could do, so here is how we work against it:

• We state our test before we look at the evidence, so the conclusion cannot be reverse-engineered from the commission.
• We publish what would reverse our verdict, in a list, on the pages that carry it.
• We refuse to print reassuring facts we cannot trace to a primary source, including licence numbers, founding years and review scores that would all make the platform look better documented than it is.
• We state the limitations at full strength in the same places we state the strengths, rather than in a footnote.
• Where a page's honest conclusion is that a platform is not available to you or does not suit you, we say so, even though that page can never earn anything.

What we do not claim

We have not opened a funded account, deposited, traded or withdrawn on any platform covered here. No timing, screenshot or measured result on this site is ours. Everything we publish is a reading of documents, regulator publications and public reports, and we describe it that way rather than dressing it up as testing.

Volatile facts

Restriction lists, payment methods, promotional terms and product availability all change without notice. Everything here carries the date it was checked, and you should confirm anything that matters to your decision on the operator's own pages before acting on it.

Risk

Trading carries risk, and fixed-time products carry a negative expected return for retail buyers by design. You can lose the money you put in. No page on this site is financial, legal or tax advice, and no commission we might earn changes that.