Identity check
Every reviewer confirms a working email address before anything is published. Disposable and role free addresses are rejected.
Editorial policy
How every verdict earns its place
The rules that govern everything published on SoftGids. They are not negotiable, not for sale, and they apply to every product equally.
Ratings
Scores are computed, never assigned
No analyst sets a star rating. Every score on the platform is calculated automatically from the verified reviews behind it.
A product's overall rating is the average of its verified user reviews, recalculated the moment a new review is published or removed. Category rankings follow from those computed scores together with review volume, so a product cannot rank above another by any mechanism except earning better reviews from more businesses.
Editorial content, our guides, comparisons and analyses, is written separately by named analysts and never feeds the score. Where an analyst expresses a view, it is labelled as analysis and signed. Where a number appears, it came from verified users, not from us.
Usage screening
Reviews must describe first hand, current or recent use of the product in a real business. Vague or promotional submissions are declined.
Guideline review
A human moderator checks each submission against our guidelines before it goes live. We publish critical reviews as readily as glowing ones.
Ongoing monitoring
Patterns that suggest coordinated or incentivised reviewing trigger reinvestigation, and confirmed manipulation is removed and disclosed.
Research
Facts checked at the source
Product facts on SoftGids, pricing, plans, features, integrations and support channels, are verified against the vendor's official South African pricing and documentation before publication. Pricing is captured in rand as a South African business would actually pay it, and we state whether figures include VAT.
Local fit is assessed against the compliance realities of running a business here: VAT201 preparation for SARS eFiling, EMP201 and EMP501 handling, UIF declarations, IRP5 certificates, bank feed coverage for South African banks and POPIA obligations. A product that excels abroad but fails these tests will read that way on our pages.
Listings are reviewed on a rolling cycle and whenever a vendor announces a pricing or packaging change. Every product page shows when it was last updated, and anything we cannot verify is either removed or clearly marked as unverified.
Vendors
The rules of engagement
We work with vendors on facts. We never work with vendors on verdicts.
Vendors can
- Claim and update their product listing with factual corrections
- Submit current ZAR pricing, plans and feature lists for verification
- Respond publicly to user reviews of their product
- Report a review they believe breaches our guidelines
Vendors cannot
- Pay to change a rating, ranking or verdict
- Pay to remove or bury a negative review
- Preview, edit or approve our assessments before publication
- Buy placement that is not clearly labelled as such
Some outbound links earn us a commission. How that works, and why it cannot touch a ranking, is set out in our affiliate disclosure.
Corrections
When we are wrong, we fix it
Pricing changes, products get renamed, features ship and sunset. If you spot something wrong on any page, tell us. Factual corrections are verified against the source and fixed promptly, and material corrections are noted on the page they concern.
Review disputes follow the same discipline. A vendor or user who believes a review breaches our guidelines can flag it with reasons. We reinvestigate the verification, keep the review up if it stands, and remove it with a note if it does not. What we never do is remove a review simply because it is negative.
Or email us directly at hello@softgids.co.za.