About PanelCompare

Who publishes this site?

PanelCompare, an independent publisher with no ownership stake in any panel it indexes and no affiliation with any social network. The byline on every editorial page is The PanelCompare editorial team — the publication, not a character. We would rather carry an institutional byline than invent a named expert with credentials we cannot substantiate, which is a common pattern in this niche and one worth refusing.

What that byline commits to is specific: every ranking is produced by a formula we publish in full, every number carries the date it was captured, and where a human decision was made — a panel delisted, a report published, a service category excluded — the reasoning is written down and datable rather than asserted.

We are funded by affiliate commissions on some outbound links and by paid placements that sit outside the ranking. Which links, what kind of payment, and how many of them there currently are is set out on the disclosure page, counted live from the index rather than described in prose.

What is in the index right now?

These figures are read from the database when this page renders, so they describe the index as it actually is rather than as it was when someone wrote the copy.

Panels indexed

129

125 currently active

Priced service rows

2,182

One row per panel per service

Canonical services

182

Across 43 platforms

Verified reviews

0

None collected yet — the trust score says so

Where does the data come from?

Six independent collection routes, each producing a different kind of evidence. The important property is that none of them relies on a panel telling us about itself.

1. 1.Catalogue sync. Most panels gate their service list behind an account, so scraping public pages covers only a minority of the market. We register, take the API key, and poll the standard services action, which returns the whole catalogue as structured JSON — service ID, name, category, rate per 1,000, minimum, maximum, refill and cancel flags — in one request.
2. 2.Availability probes. We poll each panel’s storefront and API endpoint on a schedule and store every observation rather than a rolled-up percentage, so the history stays inspectable and the reliability score can be recomputed if the formula changes.
3. 3.Domain records. RDAP and WHOIS give an independent lower bound on a panel’s age, which is what defeats a “since 2012” footer on a domain registered last year. Archive capture history corroborates it and exposes gaps that suggest a relaunch under new ownership.
4. 4.Script fingerprinting. URL patterns, asset paths, headers and favicon hashes identify which panel software a site runs, which in turn implies its feature surface — drip-feed, subscriptions, child panels, refill automation — without trusting the panel’s own feature claims.
5. 5.Moderated reviews and reports. Only reviews where a moderator saw proof of purchase count toward a rating. Complaints are published against an evidence standard and carry a right of reply.
6. 6.Our own test orders. The strongest signal we can generate, and the only one a panel cannot influence. Where a test order has completed, the panel’s trust score says so explicitly.

How those inputs turn into a score — every weight, every component maximum, every penalty — is set out on the methodology page, which renders the constants directly from the code that runs the pipeline.

What is this site not?

Being precise about the boundary matters more here than in most categories, because the market is full of sites that look like directories and are actually panels.

• Not a panel. We do not sell services, take orders, hold balances or deliver anything. If you paid a panel and the order failed, we cannot refund it, cancel it or contact the panel on your behalf.
• Not an endorsement. A high score means a panel measured well on the published inputs. It is not advice to buy, and it is not a statement that buying engagement is safe. Buying engagement violates the terms of every major platform, and for commercial buyers in the United States it can also be a civil-penalty-bearing violation under the FTC’s 2024 rule on consumer reviews and testimonials.
• Not complete. The index covers the panels we have found and verified. A panel’s absence is not a judgement about it, and a missing service is usually a mapping gap rather than a claim that nobody sells it.
• Not legal advice. We summarise the regulatory position because it is material to a purchase decision. That summary is not advice and does not account for your jurisdiction or circumstances.
• Not affiliated with any social network. Platform names on this site are used descriptively to identify the services panels sell.

How do you challenge a number on this site?

Anyone can, including a panel owner, a buyer, or a competitor. The process below is the real one, and it exists because a site that publishes prices, uptime figures and complaints without a correction route is a liability rather than a service.

1. 1.Find the timestamp first. Every data table on this site carries the date the figure was captured. A price that was correct three days ago and is wrong today is not an error — wholesale rates in this market move weekly — so check the stamp before writing. If the stamp itself looks stale, that is worth reporting on its own.
2. 2.Send four things to [email protected] with “Correction” in the subject: the exact page URL, the figure you are disputing, the value you believe is correct, and your evidence.
3. 3.Evidence that works. For a price: the raw response from the panel’s services API call, or a screenshot of the catalogue row with the service ID visible. For a feature claim: a link to the page where the feature is offered. For a delivery or refill dispute: the order ID, the start count, the remains figure, and the dates. Screenshots without a visible timestamp are the weakest form and often cannot be actioned.
4. 4.We re-probe rather than take your word. A disputed price triggers a fresh catalogue sync; a disputed feature triggers a fresh fingerprint and a manual check; a disputed uptime figure is checked against the stored probe history, which we keep as raw observations precisely so this is possible.
5. 5.Two working days to a reply. That is a reply either way — a correction, or an explanation of why the figure stands. If the fix requires a pipeline change rather than a re-sync, we say so and give a date.
6. 6.Corrections are published, not quietly patched. Where we published something wrong, the fix carries a dated note saying what was wrong and when it changed. Scores that move as a result move because the underlying observation moved — there is no manual override in the schema.

When does a panel get flagged or delisted?

A directory that only ever adds panels is worth nothing to a buyer, because the failure mode in this market is a panel that was fine and then was not. Status changes are therefore part of the product, and each one is dated.

Flagging is an editorial decision made against evidence, with the panel notified and offered a reply. It is the one place on this site where a human judgement changes what a reader sees, so it is the one place with a named process and a right of reply attached.

Common questions