Ranked cost boards

The reason that sentence can be printed is structural rather than editorial. A price row in our data carries no partner flag, no sponsorship field, no priority number and no featured slot, so there is nothing for a sort to read that would move a paying company up a list — reintroducing paid placement would mean changing the data model, not quietly adjusting a comparison. What we are paid for, and what it does not buy, is on the disclosure page.

A cheapest board answers a single-cycle question — what is the lowest number I can pay next month — and sorts on a single cycle. These boards answer a year-long one, and sort on the year, which is where a four-week billing cycle changes the answer. Thirteen charges of a lower price can beat, or lose to, twelve charges of a higher one, so the two surfaces are allowed to disagree. When they do, that gap is the finding.

The capture procedure behind every number on both, and the five ways a price gets captured wrong, are on our methodology page.