How We Select Best Software Tools to Feature on Findstack

At Findstack, we are here to help you find the best software for your needs, no matter whether you’re a freelancer, fast growing small business or an established enterprise. Here’s a look at how we pick the software products we feature on our website.

How we select and test software

While we try to cover the vast majority of the key software categories via our software directory, we also sometimes decide to dive deeper into specific niches through a series of software roundups.

Before we select which software providers we’ll highlight, we define the category—for example, task management software or webinar platforms—and research which features most people find necessary for a software in the chosen category. For webinar software, for example, we might focus on tools capable of hosting thousands of participants, multiple interactivity features to engage the audience, and integrations with other marketing software to create high-converting marketing funnels. This feature list allows us compare software providers on an objective basis and narrow down the field of tools to select.

Among the criteria, we review software’s recency and how established the tool is in the market, because we know that SaaS products with frequent updates and easy native integrations with other apps out there make for a better experience and work well as a part of a wider company’s tech stack.

Then we do extensive research, looking for popular software tools and often referencing respected user-generated review sites like G2 and Capterra as well as community sites such as Product Hunt where people are discussing different software solutions in the category, to come up with a list of tools to test.

We test every piece of software we recommend (and those that don’t make our lists) based on the criteria we set up at the beginning. In our tests, we use each tool just as a regular user might. For example, when reviewing task management tools, we’ll sign up for each one, add multiple projects and tasks in the tool (tasks we’re likely actually working on), ask other teammates to collaborate with us in the app, evaluate the user interface, and try out all the other main features important to that category—logging our notes in a spreadsheet for comparison. If we run into issues, we’ll contact the software vendor for support. Then we write about the selected software tools, noting their unique features.

Our aim is to show you what it’s like to really use that piece of software and who it’s best for—because every business and individual has different requirements and needs.

Software Selection FAQs

Are you biased towards including only affiliated partners?

Although we have affiliate partnerships with a number of software providers across numerous software categories (more about that here), our editorial team works hard to ensure that the selected software tools meet the criteria we set for the software roundup (e.g., best free task management software or best accounting software for small businesses)—regardless of whether or not the company has an existing commercial relationship with Findstack. While we are also sometimes paid for placements in our articles, we disclose such information in a prominent manner to remain transparent and build trust with out readers as well as maintain our editorial integrity.

Why isn’t X software tool included here?

There are times when we don’t include a particular tool because it didn’t fit our criteria or we had a poor user experience while testing. But also, there are instances where we simply missed a particular software provider because it has entered the market relatively recently or have not yet come up in our research. Please do let us know if you have a strong reason why something should be included in one of our roundup articles.

How do I get my software product included in your directory?

We are always happy to list a tool in a relevant software category, even if it doesn’t make the cut for our ‘Best Of’ list. Please use this form to submit or claim your software listing.