How We Verify Our AI Tool Data
Our editorial standards: where our data comes from, how content is produced and checked, when it gets updated, and how to reach us when something is wrong.
Our data comes first
The Skill Shift is a structured, filterable database of 240+ AI tools — the database IS the product, not the raw material for articles about it. For each tool we track pricing tiers and price changes over time, feature sets, integrations, setup difficulty, strengths and limitations, and viability signals (funding, deprecations, shutdown risk). Our Pricing Tracker and Tool Death Watch publish parts of this database directly, so you can read the same records the directory is built from.
How the database is maintained
We are transparent about our process. Entries are added editorially — there is no paid or submission-based listing route — and each one is then maintained by automated jobs rather than left to age:
- Adding a tool. A tool is listed on its own merits, with the fields a reader actually needs to judge it: what it is best for, what it isnot for, pricing tier and starting price, integrations, setup difficulty.
- Pricing checks, of two kinds. Prices are read in two different ways, labelled differently and never mixed. Both are kept as history rather than overwritten, so you can see what a tool cost months ago, not just today. See how prices are checked below.
- Link checks. A job runs every day over a batch of tools, so each tool's official site is fetched every few days. Dead domains, parked domains and redirects are flagged rather than left to rot, and a tool whose site has gone is marked, not quietly deleted.
- Vendor corrections. Where a vendor supplies verifiable detail we use it and date the revision. We do not republish vendor performance claims without a named source or methodology.
How prices are checked
Not every price here is the same kind of evidence, so we say which is which.
- Verified — read off the vendor's own page, weekly. Since 29 September 2026, an automated job loads the pricing page of each tool in a tracked set once a week and reads the price from the page itself. A price is recorded as Verified only when an exact quote from that page supports it, and we keep the quote, the page address and the date. A new entry is added only when the page changes. Verified prices are marked as such and shown with the vendor's own words — see the verified prices on the pricing tracker.
- Automated estimates — AI-assisted, daily. For every tool in the directory, a daily job asks an AI model for the current price, oldest-checked first. These readings are indicative: good at noticing that something changed, but they can be wrong. A reading whose billing unit cannot be determined is left out, and a free-tier change is only listed once a second check confirms it.
The two are compared only with their own kind — a verified price is never compared against an estimate to announce a "change". Whichever you are looking at, confirm on the vendor's site before you buy.
Vendor independence
Tool vendors do not pay for coverage, placement, or scores, and cannot preview or edit their listing. Some outbound links are affiliate links, which never affect what we recommend — see our disclaimer for details. Every entry lists genuine limitations and "not for" cases alongside strengths.
Freshness and updates
AI tools change fast, so each tool page shows the date its price was last checked, and you can see exactly how current the figure is. Pages are updated when the tool data behind them changes, and their "last updated" date moves only then, not every time a check finds nothing new. Link checks catch broken "visit" links so they are fixed rather than left to rot. Tools that are deprecated or shut down are flagged on our watchlist rather than silently removed.
Corrections
If we got something wrong — a price, a feature, a claim — we want to know. Report it via our contact page. Verified errors are corrected in the record itself and reflected in its updated date. Factual corrections take priority over everything else in our editorial queue.
Who we are
The Skill Shift is an independent, curated directory helping working professionals find and price AI tools, and find realistic AI side hustles. Read more about us, or see the pricing tracker for the data this site produces and publishes itself.