How is Karfu financed
Karfu.com is free to use for consumers and businesses.
As a Certified B Corporation, Karfu is legally required to meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.
We do not allow advertising promotion (companies paying to feature more prominently on the site) or sponsorship (companies paying to support our Content with a view to impacting our coverage of them).
However, to exist we need money to develop Karfu’s tools for consumers and businesses, keep the website online and pay our staff to create great content about saving money on your vehicle and mobility choices.
We don’t allow advertising promotion or sponsorship on Karfu because we believe a level playing field for providers is the best way to save you money.
Our independent Editorial team, directly by our Editorial Code, conducts detailed research on your behalf which feeds our Content and our Comparison Tools to ensure you get shown the most appropriate products and services for your Mobility needs. This team is independent of any commercial objectives or influence.
How do we generate revenue?
Karfu primarily uses special types of website links called ‘affiliate’, or sometimes ‘referral’, links.
These look and work just like any other kind of website link you may click on the internet. If you do click, we track your progress either as a lead or a sale dependent on your ultimate interaction with the provider you are interested in dealing with.
Our Editorial team writes the guides, features and opinion pieces focused on finding the best individual way for you to save money on your mobility choices. Our Commercial team’s job is to find appropriate affiliate links and providers once these decisions have been made.
Our relationships with these providers vary as they all sell different products and services. For example, we may generate revenue by you clicking the link, for each confirmed visit you make to a provider's website, for any applications you make for a product or service, for an accepted application, a final sale or any combination of the above.
Certain links have different affiliate software added by companies like Skimlinks or Affiliate Window. We use these companies to help us track links, and we may generate revenue in the same ways listed above.
We aim to only use affiliate or referral links that give you an identical (or better) deal than going direct. However, as these are generated automatically by complex software, issues can and do happen. If you spot any issues, please let us know so we can take it up with the provider directly.
We always make clear to both consumer and business users how Karfu.com is financed, if a paid link is being used, and where possible and practical, Karfu will always try to give you an alternative unpaid link.
We only track your personal data where it is necessary for a specific service, like tracking if you clicked a link and visited a provider’s website, or passing through your details to a provider if you have confirmed that you are happy for us to do so. We would never sell your personal data to third parties without your permission.
Can providers promote themselves on Karfu
In some circumstances, providers may pay to appear on Karfu.com. This is specifically to list their vehicle stock so it can appear in our vehicle comparison tools. These are complex services to operate and as a start-up, we need to cover a variety of external data costs to enable these tools to work and allow you to use our unique Total Cost of Use methodology.
However, these providers cannot pay to be promoted over and above a non-paid provider with a set of results. We believe all providers must operate on a level playing field, which promotion would distort.
Karfu Exclusive Deals
These are deals only available via Karfu, which we have arranged directly with a provider. They will only ever appear on the site on editorial merit, if our Editorial Team conclude they're the best deal of their type in the market. We share the revenue from these deals at similar values to market averages for non-exclusive deals.
Where does Karfu get its links from?
The links to products and services come directly from providers, affiliate sites such as Affiliate Window, or sometimes other comparison websites like Honcho. Their links are used and then if someone clicks through, Karfu gets a split of their revenue.
How do we show affiliate links
We include a * after every single one.
This is so you can be clear which links contribute to our revenue, and which don’t, to allow you to make up your own mind. Whilst of course our preference is you choose the ones that fund the website, we provide both to give you the choice.
In simple terms, if we provide a link to a bicycle on sale and it has an *, you will go directly to the provider and we may get paid. If it doesn't have an * you'll go through directly and we won't make any money. That's the only difference.
Wherever we include an * link, there's a full explanation at the bottom of the page and an unaffiliated version of the same link, so you can check there's no difference.