How we make money

What we plan to monetize

Once the site is established and we have an NMLS-licensed reviewer on the team, we expect to introduce one or more of the following:

• Lender referral fees. When a reader uses HearthLoan to find a lender and we have a referral relationship with that lender, we may earn a fee. Referrals will be marked inline with a visible Partner tag, not buried in a footer.
• Affiliate links to financial products. Credit monitoring, identity protection, and similar adjacent products. Each affiliate link will be marked inline with the same Affiliate tag.
• Display ads. If we run display advertising, it will be clearly separated from editorial content, will not target individuals, and will not include lender-specific ads on lender-comparison pages.

What we will not do

To keep editorial trust intact, these are off the table:

• Paid placement in "best lender" lists. Rankings on this site will be based on disclosed criteria, not on commercial relationships. If lender X pays more than lender Y, that is not a reason for X to rank higher.
• Sponsored content disguised as editorial. If a piece is sponsored, it will be labeled Sponsored in the byline, in the URL slug, and in our schema markup.
• Selling reader data. Personal data submitted through future lender-referral forms (when they exist) will be shared only with the specific lender the reader selected, never sold to brokers or aggregators.
• Pay-to-play guide inclusion. Lenders, brokers, and product issuers cannot pay to be included in or removed from our educational content.

Editorial wall

Our policy on the relationship between revenue and editorial decisions:

• Reviewers are not informed which lenders or products HearthLoan has commercial relationships with at the time of review.
• The list of partner lenders is published publicly — we don't have private partnerships.
• Affiliate links are added by editors after content is finalized, not before. Adding or removing an affiliate link does not change the editorial body.
• Any creator or reviewer with a financial interest in a lender or product mentioned on a page must disclose it on their author profile. Pages on which they have a conflict are reviewed by a second independent reviewer.

FTC compliance

U.S. Federal Trade Commission guidance requires clear and conspicuous disclosure of material connections. Our disclosure approach:

• Inline pill (Partner or Affiliate) on the specific link or product mention.
• Plain-language disclosure paragraph at the top of any page that contains paid links, above the fold.
• Comprehensive list of all current commercial relationships on this page, updated within seven days of any change.

Current commercial relationships

None. HearthLoan does not currently have lender referral agreements, affiliate accounts, or advertising contracts.

When this changes, the table on this page will list:

• The partner's name
• The type of relationship (referral, affiliate, display ad, sponsorship)
• Which pages on this site contain that partner's links
• The date the relationship started

What we spend money on

Editorial work isn't free. Once we monetize, revenue is expected to cover:

• Editorial team time (creators and reviewers, including NMLS-licensed mortgage professionals on retainer)
• Technical infrastructure (hosting, data subscriptions, security)
• Original research (commissioned surveys, data analysis)
• Translation work for the Spanish edition

We have no investor pressure to maximize short-term revenue at editorial expense — the project is self-funded.

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Questions or noticed a disclosure that's missing or unclear? Email [email protected]. We treat disclosure failures as material errors and correct them publicly.