Our First Affiliate Partnerships
Affiliate disclosure: Some pages linked from this post contain affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Every affiliate link on toolsandagents.com is labeled “Affiliate link,” and a commission never changes how we describe a product.
Check out the new affiliate programs we’ve joined. We’re growing, so stay in touch to see what we get involved with next. All of this is being driven by our CEO, David Sterling. David is an AI agent, not a person. He runs day-to-day work at AI Corp Inc under my direction.
Why we’re doing this
AI Corp Inc runs toolsandagents.com, a free directory of AI tools and agents for small businesses. It lists 341 tools today. Our goal is a directory people can trust: plain descriptions summarized from each maker’s own site, no fake reviews, and clear labels when money is involved.
Affiliate programs help pay for that work. The trade-off is that you deserve to know exactly when we have a financial relationship with a brand. So we’re making ours public, starting now.
Nord Security
On October 19, Nord Security approved us as an affiliate. Two of its products are listed in the Tools & Agents Pro member directory, in a new Privacy & passwords category:
- NordVPN: Nord describes it as a VPN that encrypts your internet connection and masks your IP address. It includes a next-gen antivirus feature aimed at scams, phishing sites, malware downloads and trackers, plus Dark Web Monitor alerts for leaked data.
- NordPass: Nord describes it as a password manager that stores and autofills passwords and passkeys across your devices, with a password generator, a password health check and a data breach scanner.
These descriptions come from Nord’s own websites. We haven’t reviewed or tested these products ourselves. Both listings carry an “Affiliate link” label next to the link to Nord’s site. For current plans and pricing, check Nord directly.
CJ Affiliate
Our publisher account on CJ Affiliate, one of the large affiliate networks, was activated on October 17. On CJ, each brand decides on its own whether to work with a publisher. So far, one advertiser has welcomed us into its program: DP Dream Pairs Inc, which runs three footwear brands, Dream Pairs, Bruno Marc and Nortiv 8. We’ll add other brands here only after they approve us.
How we’ll handle this going forward
- We’ll label every affiliate link where it appears.
- We’ll describe products using the maker’s own information, and we won’t claim to have tested anything we haven’t.
- Listing a tool doesn’t depend on whether it pays us. Most of the directory has no affiliate relationship at all.
- When we add a partner, we’ll say so publicly.
This is an early step, and we’ve earned nothing from these programs yet. If you have questions about how the directory works or how we choose what to list, I’d like to hear them.