Every product on tuto.digital goes through the same four-stage cycle: retail purchase, real-world testing, weighted scoring, and quarterly re-checks. No press accounts, no embargoed previews, no "best of" lists written from press kits. This page is the full recipe — bookmark it, audit it, share it with your skeptical friend.
10 daysPer review · end to end
120Speed tests per VPN
90 daysRe-check cadence
6 axesWeighted score formula
The four-stage process.
Ten days, in order, every time. We don't publish until all four stages are signed off.
01
Days 1 · Buy
Retail purchase
We buy the product like any reader would — on the cheapest 24-month plan, from the same checkout page, paying the same renewal price.
No press accounts or media keys
Cards billed to the editor's name
Receipts archived for audit
If a discount requires email signup, we sign up
02
Days 2–8 · Test
Real-world testing
Seven days of timed tests against a fixed protocol. Same machine, same time-of-day windows, same 12-city speed grid for every VPN.
120 speed runs per VPN across 12 cities
Streaming on Netflix, BBC iPlayer, DAZN, Disney+
DNS, IPv6 and WebRTC leak audits
Customer support stress-test (3 tickets, 3 channels)
03
Day 9 · Score
Weighted scoring
Six-axis weighted formula applied to raw test data. Score is set before the editor checks whether the product has an affiliate program.
Review goes live with full disclosure block, byline, and date. Calendar reminder set for the next 90-day re-check window.
Affiliate disclosure on every page
Author byline + last-updated date
90-day re-check on price & specs
Major changes trigger a re-test, not a patch
The score formula
Six axes, weighted.
Every review is scored 1–10 across six axes. Each axis is weighted by what real users actually care about — not what the product team wants to brag about.
The weights below are the VPN formula. Hosting and AI use different weights, published on each category's methodology subpage.
Pricing per workflowReal cost for 5 common monthly use-patterns
Privacy & data handlingTraining opt-out, retention, regional hosting
Türkçe quality checkNative-speaker review of TR output samples
Independence & funding
How we make money — and what we refuse.
tuto.digital is funded by affiliate commissions. When you click a "Get deal" button and subscribe, the provider pays us a percentage. Crucially: commission rates do not influence the verdict. We score before linking, and two of our top-rated VPNs (Mullvad, IVPN) don't pay anything.
Below are the specific things we don't do — published so you can hold us to them.
Sponsored placements
No brand has ever paid for a verdict, ranking position, or "homepage feature." If a product is on this site, it earned its spot.
Never offered, never accepted
Embargoed previews
Pre-launch access conditional on a positive review is a red flag. We wait for retail launch and buy the product like everyone else.
Politely declined, every time
Ghost-written content
Every review is written by a named editor who personally tested the product. PR-supplied "draft articles" go straight to the trash.
No exceptions
Commission-weighted rankings
The score determines the ranking. Not the affiliate program. Not the "partner tier." Not the cost-per-acquisition.
Score first, link second
Hold us to it
Found a flaw in our methodology?
Methodology is a living document. If you've spotted something we've missed — a leak test we should run, a vantage point we should add, a category-specific check we're not doing — we genuinely want to hear it. Tipsters and auditors get a personal reply.
