Reviews

How we review

The same eight criteria for every provider, in the same order, scored the same way. So a review of one company means something next to a review of another.

What we look at

1. Contract length. The initial term, whether a one-year option exists, and whether the term is stated before the sales call.
2. Notice and renewal. Whether the agreement auto-renews, for how long, how the notice window works, and how the customer is told.
3. Price transparency. Whether prices are published, itemised per service, or available only through a quotation.
4. What is bundled. Whether a customer can buy a single service, or whether the model is a package with one price and one term.
5. Exit terms. Early termination charges, what happens to records and documents at the end, and how disputes have been handled in the public record.
6. Small business fit. Whether the model, the minimums and the terms suit a business of five to fifty people, or are scaled down from something built for larger ones.
7. Large business fit. Whether it suits a larger organisation. By large we mean any workplace with more than fifty people in one location, or a chain of shops or sites.
8. Service delivery. What the public record shows about visits, response times, quality, and complaints.

What we use

Public sources only: the provider’s own website and published terms and conditions, Companies House filings, published pricing and marketing, regulator and ombudsman decisions, court judgments, and review platforms read for pattern rather than for individual anecdotes. Every factual statement carries a source. Where a fact isn’t public, we say “not published”, we don’t guess.

We don’t use anything the editor learned inside any company he worked for. That’s a line, and it’s stated here so you can hold us to it.

Fact and opinion

Facts are stated as facts, with sources. Verdicts and scores are the editor’s honest opinion, formed from those facts, and are marked as such. Reasonable people can read the same contract and rate it differently; we tell you how we read it and why.

Replies

Every review has a reply box at the bottom and anyone can use it. That includes the provider we reviewed. Replies come to the editor first. Fair and polite replies are published on the page in the writer’s own words. Factual corrections are made on the page with the date of the change.

Money

No provider pays to be reviewed, to be rated, to be listed, or to be recommended. The editor founded a compliance services company, RiskSorted, which is disclosed on every page that mentions it and is treated exactly as any other provider would be. If it’s ever reviewed here, someone else will write it.

Who gets reviewed

The national providers first, because they sell to the most small businesses and publish the least about their terms. Each is reviewed for a small business and for a large one, because what is overkill for a café can be exactly right for a chain. Then regional and specialist providers as the reader base asks for them. Providers can request a review; the method doesn’t change because they asked.