About Split Verdict: one referee, no sponsored rounds

Comparison pages usually hide their reasoning inside a winner’s badge. This site does the opposite: the reasoning IS the format — rounds, notes, totals, decision, all on the card.

Who “the referee” is

A role, held openly: the first-person voice on every card belongs to the Split Verdict editorial desk — a small team that writes, checks and argues these scores. We use the referee persona because comparison judging should sound like a person taking responsibility, and we disclose it here because inventing a named expert with a stock-photo face is exactly the kind of move a scorecard site can’t afford.

How scoring works — and what we don’t claim

Cards are built from documented capability: vendor pages, help centers and pricing tables, re-verified with dates at ringside (last pass July 30, 2026). We don’t run an acoustic lab, and rounds that would need one — exactly how a suppressor treats your voice in your room — get scored on what’s checkable, with a note telling you to run the free-tier tryout that settles it. Every card ends with the same instruction: your room outranks my card.

Disputing a round

The format exists to be argued with. If a round score contradicts something you can document — a price change, a feature we scored as missing — write to {CONTACT_EMAIL_S3}. Confirmed corrections re-run the arithmetic in public: totals change, decisions flip if they flip, and the card notes the date. No silent rescoring.

The money, briefly

Some corners pay a commission when a reader buys — declared corner-by-corner on the purse page, with the reason the scoring can’t see it: rounds are scored and totals computed before any purse box is written onto a page.