How reviews are written, read and published.

Who can write one

Anyone who has used, or seriously tried, a product on the register. You give your name, and you can add your role, your industry and your company size. You do not need an account. Write about your own experience, in your own words.

If you work for the vendor, for a competitor, or you were paid or given something to write, say so in the review. A review from someone with that kind of connection that does not say so is rejected.

What we ask you to write

• What the product does well and where it falls short, with an example of each.
• Which plan you are on, how long you have used it and what you use it for.
• What you used before, and what else you looked at.
• Facts you can stand behind. Say what happened, not what you suspect.

What is not published

• Anything that is not about the product, such as a dispute about a refund with no detail about the software.
• Personal information about anyone else: names of staff, phone numbers, ID numbers, bank details or screenshots that show them.
• Abuse, threats, discrimination, or claims you cannot support that damage a named person or company.
• Advertising, links to your own business, or the same text posted for several products.
• A review by the vendor of its own product, or by a competitor, without saying so.
• Reviews that offer or ask for payment, discounts or other rewards.

What an editor checks

An editor reads every review before it appears. They check that it is about the product it is posted under, that it follows the points above and that it is not obviously a copy or an advertisement. They do not check purchase records, and no review is marked as checked or confirmed. Treat each review as one person's account, which is how it is presented.

We keep a salted hash of the connection a review was sent from, to limit repeat submissions. We never keep the address. See the privacy policy.

Published as written

A review that meets the guidelines is published as you wrote it. We do not edit it to make a vendor look better or worse. If part of it breaks a guideline, we reject it and you are welcome to send it again without that part. We do not promise a time for an editor to read a review.

Ratings and scores

The register publishes no rating for a product, no review count and no ranking, and a vendor cannot pay to change that. The one to five mark a reviewer gives belongs to that review alone. It is never averaged, added up or used to order products.

Replies from vendors

A vendor cannot change or remove a review. It can ask for a reply to be shown beneath one. Send the reply with the address of the review, the name and role of the person replying and the vendor's company, through the contact form. An editor checks that the request comes from the vendor and that the reply follows these guidelines, then saves it beneath the review, labelled as the vendor's, with the date. The review above it does not change.

A reply should answer what the review says, correct a fact it gets wrong or say what the vendor has changed. It is not a place for advertising or for attacking the reviewer.

Asking for a review to be removed

• If you wrote it, write to us from the email you used, or give details only the writer would know, and we will take it down.
• If it names you or contains your personal information, tell us which review and what is wrong. We remove personal information that should not be there.
• If it states a fact about a product that is wrong, use Suggest a correction, or send a reply as above. We reject a review that breaks the guidelines, and we do not remove one only because it is critical.
• If you believe a review is unlawful, write to hello@softwareregister.co.za with the address of the review and the reason.

Money and independence

No link on this site earns us a commission today. If that ever changes, it will not change which reviews are published, how they are read or the order of the register. See the affiliate disclosure and how the register works.