Independence
Rankings are not for sale
VibeDex is an independent comparison engine that runs its own blind benchmarks. We are not an aggregator, and we are not affiliated with Artificial Analysis or any lab. Because vendors give us reviewer access and some are named partners, the rules separating vendor relationships from rankings are written down here, in public, where they can be held against us.
By Johnathan Kwok · Founder, VibeDex
Last updated: August 2026
Can a company pay to change its VibeDex Score?
No. Scores, ranks, verdicts, inclusion, and exclusion are never for sale, never previewed for approval, and never edited for anyone. There is no price, package, or partnership tier that touches benchmark output, and VibeDex does not take payment from the companies it benchmarks.
This is the first rule because everything else depends on it. If a vendor asks for influence over a public score as a condition of working with us, we decline.
Does VibeDex take money from vendors?
No. VibeDex has no paid products for vendors: no sponsorships, no affiliate revenue, no paid placements, and no paid reports. Coverage is free to earn and free to read, and no payment flows in either direction between VibeDex and the companies it benchmarks.
Every vendor in the benchmark program gets the same thing at the same price, which is nothing: hands-on evaluation under the published methodology, a briefing on the results, and re-tests when they ship major updates.
How do free accounts and sandbox access work?
We accept reviewer accounts and sandbox access from any vendor, because benchmarking paid-tier capabilities accurately requires paid-tier access. Access-in-kind buys coverage accuracy and nothing else. It does not affect scores, framing, or timing.
Vendors who provide access get the same treatment as vendors who do not: same prompts, same judges, same disclosure rules.
How does a platform or model get benchmarked?
Inclusion is free and follows the published methodology: image and video models run the same blind prompt set as every other model, and creative platforms are assessed against the same capability framework. You cannot pay to be included, and you cannot pay to be left out.
New image models are typically benchmarked within days of release. If you want your product covered, the fastest route is to get in touch and offer reviewer access.
What happens when results are unfavorable?
They publish anyway. Reviews of partner platforms carry the same trust-risk flags and weaknesses as everyone else’s, and partner status is disclosed in the ranking itself. A commercial relationship changes the disclosure line, not the result.
Where we apply an editorial adjustment to a score, the adjustment, its direction, and its rationale are disclosed on the page rather than silently applied.
Who audits VibeDex?
We audit ourselves and publish the results. Our second-judge reliability study blind re-scored the benchmark with an independent judge model: it reproduced our one disclosed editorial adjustment to within 0.03 and corroborated the tier structure, with a published judge harshness offset of 0.18.
The self-audit program is ongoing: reliability studies, red-team passes, and published ties continue regardless of commercial work, and their results publish whether or not they flatter us.
Want your product benchmarked?
Start with how we test, then get in touch. Reviewer access speeds up accurate coverage. Nothing you send us moves a score, and we do not accept payment from vendors.