Methodology

What our coverage is

Capital Outpost publishes editorial synthesis: analysis built from primary sources — operator documentation, published fee schedules, regulatory filings, rulebooks, supervisory guidance and peer-reviewed research — combined with observable market evidence.

It is not first-person product testing. We do not open accounts, run transactions or benchmark platforms and then report the results as lived experience, because we do not do those things at the scale that would make such claims honest. Where an article does include genuine hands-on work, we say so explicitly and publish the artefacts so you can check them.

This distinction matters more in finance than almost anywhere else, because "we tested it" is the easiest claim in the world to fake and the hardest for a reader to falsify.

Where figures come from

Every rate, fee, limit and threshold is read from the provider's own published materials — their pricing page, their fee schedule, their terms, or a filing they submitted to a regulator. We do not take a figure from a competitor's comparison table, an aggregator, or a press release summarising a document we have not read.

Each figure carries the date it was read. Finance pricing moves, and an undated number is an unfalsifiable one. If you find a figure that has drifted, the date tells you how far back our reading goes and the source link lets you check the current value yourself.

A vendor's homepage is not a citation for a claim about the vendor. We link the specific document that contains the fact.

Citation floor

Guides and analysis carry at least one hyperlinked primary source per roughly 500 words. This is enforced by a build gate, not by good intentions — an article that falls short does not deploy.

Market-size, volume and assets-under-management figures carry both an "as of" date and a named source. Where two credible sources disagree, we publish the disagreement and explain what each is actually measuring rather than silently picking the more convenient number.

How comparisons are ranked

Comparison articles state their criteria before the ranking, not after. The criteria are chosen for the reader's decision, not for the providers' convenience, and they stay the same down the whole table.

Ranking rules we hold to:

• Like-for-like only. We compare the same product type, on the same terms, in the same currency, for the same customer segment.
• Every entry gets a "Limitations" section. A product with no stated downside means we have not looked hard enough.
• A commercial relationship never moves a provider up a table. See our affiliate disclosure.
• Where a provider declined to supply information, we say so rather than inferring.
• We do not publish a single "best" where the honest answer depends on the reader's situation, which in finance is most of the time.

What we will not claim

Some claims are unavailable to a publisher in our position, and we would rather say so than manufacture authority:

• We do not forecast prices, rates or market direction.
• We do not tell readers what to buy, sell, borrow or hold.
• We do not assert a product is "safe", "guaranteed" or "risk-free".
• We do not describe a return as achievable without stating the conditions and the risk.
• We do not claim to have tested something we have not tested.
• We do not present a modelled or illustrative figure as an observed one.

Freshness and updates

An article's "Updated" stamp moves only when the content actually changed. We never bump a date to look fresh — the badge says "Updated", never "Verified", because the latter implies a re-check we may not have performed.

Articles older than 120 days carry a visible staleness notice, since a 120-day-old rate in this sector is a historical record rather than current information.

Substantive revisions get a note saying what changed. Error fixes are logged on the corrections page.

Who writes and who reviews

Articles are published under desk bylines that represent a group of contributors, not invented individuals — a model we describe in full in our editorial policy. Nobody on this site is presented as a person who does not exist.

Where an article touches a decision with direct financial consequence, it names the reviewer who checked it and the date they did so. Where no such review has happened, the article stays descriptive and does not stray into advice.

Telling us we are wrong

If a figure is stale, a source is misread or a conclusion does not follow, write to editorial@capitaloutpost.com with the specifics. Corrections to factual errors are published with a note; we do not quietly edit and move on.