Last updated: 17 August 2026
CiaoCompass makes money through affiliate links and advertising. This page explains exactly how that works, because you deserve to know what the commercial relationship is before you take a recommendation from us.
The short version
Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we may receive a commission from the merchant. You never pay more because of it. The commission comes out of the merchant margin, not your pocket.
Programmes we currently participate in
We name these rather than describing them vaguely, so you can see precisely where our commercial interests lie:
- Travelpayouts — a travel affiliate network. We currently earn commissions through it from EKTA (travel insurance), Tiqets (museum and attraction tickets), Radical Storage (luggage storage) and Airalo (eSIM data plans) and Localrent (car hire). Other travel brands may be added over time.
- SafetyWing — travel medical and long-stay health insurance, through their ambassador programme.
We are not currently enrolled in any language-learning or genealogy affiliate programme. Where we recommend a course, app, tutor or research service anywhere on this site, we earn nothing from it at present. If that changes, this page will be updated before any such link goes live, and the relevant articles will be updated too.
Automatic link monetisation
The Travelpayouts network provides a script that can automatically convert certain outbound travel links into tracked affiliate links. This means a link to a travel brand may earn us a commission even where the link was placed purely for your convenience and not for commercial reasons.
We are telling you this because it would be easy not to. It does not change the price you pay, and it does not change which brands we choose to mention — but you should know that an ordinary-looking link to a booking site may be a tracked one.
How this affects what we recommend
It does not. This is the part that matters, so here is the commitment in specific terms:
- We recommend products we would recommend to a friend who asked, regardless of commission.
- We say when a product is not worth the money, including products that pay us well. Some of the highest-commission products in the language learning industry are poor value, and we will tell you which.
- Where a genuinely better option pays us nothing, we recommend it anyway and say that it pays us nothing. Our guide to the best way to learn Italian leads with a completely free course for exactly this reason.
- We do not accept payment for a positive review, and we do not let merchants approve content before it is published.
The reason for this is not purely principle. A site that recommends bad products loses the readers it depends on. Honest recommendations are the only version of this business that works long term.
Advertising
This site may also display advertising, including Google AdSense and other advertising networks. Advertising is served automatically and its presence is not an endorsement. We do not control which specific ads appear, and an advertiser appearing on this site has no influence over our editorial content.
How we mark affiliate links
Pages containing deliberately placed affiliate links carry a disclosure near the top, before the first such link, as required by the United States Federal Trade Commission. Affiliate links also carry the appropriate link attributes for search engines.
Questions
If you want to know whether a specific link is an affiliate link, or how much a particular recommendation earns us, ask. We will tell you. Email hello@ciaocompass.com.