How ScienceBases explains a topic, what we check before we publish, and where our evidence stops.
What our assessments are based on
Every product or service assessment on this site is an editorial assessment of published plan and policy documentation. We read the vendor’s own pricing page, plan terms, data-processing terms and support pages, and we compare what those documents say against what the page is for. Where a figure or a limit cannot be confirmed from the vendor’s own published material, we mark it for verification instead of asserting it.
Our science explainers are written from published, citable sources — textbooks, peer-reviewed literature, primary research and instrument documentation — and we name the source in the text.
What we do not do
No hands-on testing. We do not buy accounts, run trials or operate the products on a live account for the purpose of a review, and we do not publish speed measurements, install counts or feature behaviour that we observed ourselves. Every assessment page carries the line “No hands-on testing” so a reader can see our boundary before reading a word.
For science explainers we also do not reproduce laboratory results. We describe what has been measured and by whom, and we say when a result comes from a single study or a small sample.
What we check
Pricing structure
What each tier includes, what is metered rather than included, what the seat or usage minimums are, and what the total cost looks like at the household or classroom size the product is sold for.
Data ownership and portability
Who holds the record, what the export path actually covers, what is retained after an account closes, and how deletion requests are handled.
Consent and permission
Which permissions the product asks for, whether consent is bundled, and what the vendor’s own policy says about sharing. For children’s products we look specifically at profile limits and parental controls.
Plan limits and exclusions
The restrictions that are easy to miss on a pricing page — caps, fair-use wording, features gated to higher tiers, and terms that apply only in specific regions.
For science articles
Whether the claim is supported by more than one independent study, whether the measurement method actually supports the conclusion, and whether the units and definitions are being used consistently.
How we mark uncertainty
Where a claim could not be confirmed from published documentation at the time of writing, we write it as a verification point rather than a fact. You will see these marked on the assessment pages. We would rather leave a visible gap than fill it with an assumption.
Corrections
Vendors change their pricing and their terms, and science gets revised. When we find that an article no longer matches the published source, we correct it and note what changed. If you spot an inaccuracy, tell us and we will check it against the source.
Questions
Write to our contact page and we will answer. We do not take payment for coverage, and no vendor has reviewed an assessment before we published it.