The Vedex Index Awards
One vendor in this index is affiliated with us, and we say so first. Beyond that: we make money, we never make it from the outcome of the ranking, and here is exactly where the wall between commerce and editorial sits.
Our own affiliation
One vendor in this index is affiliated with us.
Sov.ai is founded by the same person as Vedex. It is scored by the same published methodology, from the same sources, with no adjustment, and it is marked Affiliated wherever it appears. We do not remove or demote competing vendors, and no Vedex ranking, comparison or shortlist is required to contain Sov.ai. If you would rather exclude it, one filter does that — the Hide affiliated toggle on the Explorer and on Rankings.
Sov.ai is recused from the Vedex Index Awards. The Awards programme sells badges, certificates and premium profiles to the vendors it ranks. We are not willing to sell those to ourselves, so any vendor we are affiliated with is ineligible for an award, a band, or a Vedex Star — and the recusal is published with every edition rather than applied quietly. Recusal applies to the Awards only. It does not change Sov.ai’s index score and it does not move it in any Vedex ranking. The point is that the score stands and the relationship is disclosed.
Affiliation is recorded as a field on the vendor record (assessor_affiliation), not as a manual note, so it cannot be disclosed on one page and forgotten on another. The register is reviewed before every edition. If we ever become affiliated with another vendor, it will appear here and be marked the same way.
The bright line
No vendor can pay to improve its score, change its rank, or remove a data point. Vedex funds its own data collection.
This is the single rule everything else follows from. The computation that produces a score runs on the same data and the same rules for every vendor, whether they have paid us a cent or not.
Sponsorship, licensing, and commercial relationships exist. The rule for telling them apart is simple: if a request would change what the ranking says, the answer is no. If it only changes how a vendor presents an outcome it already earned, it may be available commercially — and it will be disclosed.
A sponsor CAN
A sponsor CANNOT
We separate two very different things, and we treat them very differently.
Factual corrections are fixed.
If a data point we relied on is wrong — a certification we misattributed, a delivery method we missed, a number transcribed incorrectly — tell us and we will verify it against the source and correct it. Where a correction changes a computed input, the score is recomputed by the same rules and the record is updated. Factual accuracy is not negotiable and it is not for sale; it is simply owed.
Editorial disagreement is acknowledged, not overturned.
A vendor is free to disagree with our judgment — the weighting of a pillar, the framing of a rationale, the category it landed in. We will publish or attach a right-of-reply statement so the vendor’s view is on the record. But a disagreement about opinion does not, on its own, change the rank. The methodology decides the rank; the methodology is disclosed; and we do not hand the pen to the subject of the review.
Vedex funds its own data collection. Our revenue comes from platform subscriptions, badge and certificate licensing, premium cosmetic profiles, lead generation, reprints, and labeled sponsored placements — none of which can move a score or a rank. This is what separates a real index from a pay-to-play list, and it is the reason a Vedex badge means something to a procurement team.
For how the ranking itself is computed, see the Methodology.