Evidence Policy
Every score on TraderVerdict is meant to be checkable. This page states the standard each one is held to — and how to inspect the trail yourself rather than take our word for it.
Every score is evidence, not opinion
Each scored variable on a firm page carries two things you can check: a source URL pointing to the primary document, and a verbatim extract — the exact words we read it from. The verification trail is the product. If a claim has no source, it is not a score we will publish as fact; it is treated as missing data (below). Open the Specifications and evidence sections on any firm page and you can follow every number back to where it came from.
The evidence ladder — you land on the rung the proof supports
Each variable is scored on a 1–10 ladder, where every rung has a specific, written predicate. A firm reaches a given rung only when primary-source evidence meets that rung's condition — not when a marketing page implies it. Inference is capped: where we can only infer a fact rather than read it verbatim from the firm's own rules, the score is held at a conservative rung rather than rounded up.
Missing data scores at the floor — never best-case
When a firm does not publish a fact, or its documentation is contradictory, the affected variable is scored at the floor of its ladder, not given the benefit of the doubt. A silent firm does not score the same as a firm that publishes a strong, verifiable policy. This is deliberate: the absence of disclosure is itself information about trader risk.
Cross-checked against authoritative registers
Regulatory standing is verified against the source of record, not a firm's own claim — NFA BASIC and the CFTC for US futures, the FCA Register in the UK, the SEC and FINRA BrokerCheck for US brokerages, and CIRO for Canada. Those citations are published on the page and emitted as machine-readable structured data, so an answer engine — or you — can confirm them independently.
A commercial relationship never moves a score
Reviews are written before any commercial contact with a firm. An affiliate link is added only to a firm our team is already comfortable recommending after editorial review, and it is gated: a firm that scores below our threshold, or that we do not recommend, carries no affiliate link at all — the link cannot exist for a firm we would not stand behind. A paid or affiliate relationship has never changed what we say about a firm, and where one exists we disclose it on the page.
Everything is dated, logged, and reversible
Each firm page shows when its evidence was last verified. Every score change is written to an append-only history with the reason and the exact methodology version that produced it, so any number can be traced back to the ruleset behind it. When a firm changes its rules, we re-verify; when our methodology changes, every firm in that framework is recomputed. Nothing is edited silently.
Inspect it for yourself: the full methodology (every variable, weight, and rung), the score changelog (every change, dated), and contact us if a firm page disagrees with what a firm publishes today — we'll re-verify.