How we make money
Right now, nobody pays us. No commercial partners, no referral arrangements, no advertising and no affiliate links. When that changes, this page changes with it.
Stated once, up front
You will never pay us anything. That is not a launch promise we could quietly drop later: it is the condition our introduction model depends on, and the build refuses to configure a partner recorded as charging you.
What is switched on today
Nothing. This is not a soft statement about intentions: the introduction handoff is a switch in the site's configuration, it is currently off, and this page reads that switch rather than describing it from memory. No partner firm is configured, so there is nobody to introduce anyone to.
That matters because the easiest mistake a site like this can make is to write a plan in the present tense. Ours did exactly that until recently: the footer on every page said we may introduce you to an authorised specialist, describing a service that did not exist. It was corrected site-wide and the correction is in the change log.
Every revenue route in our current policy
Rather than describe the one route we intend to use and leave you wondering about the others, here is every route our policy currently permits, prohibits or contemplates, each marked. A new one cannot quietly appear: the policy and this page have to change first.
| Route | Status | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| You pay us | Never | Not now and not later. Taking money from the borrower is the one thing our introduction policy rules out permanently, and the build refuses to configure a partner who charges you. |
| Adviser introductions | Not switched on | The model we intend to use. A named firm may pay us in connection with an introduction you chose to make, on the basis disclosed to you beforehand. Nothing is configured and no partner is named. |
| Advertising | None | No display advertising, no sponsored placements, no paid inclusion in the register or any comparison. |
| Affiliate links | None | No affiliate or referral links anywhere on the site, including in the guides. |
| Selling your data | Never | We do not sell details to data brokers or lead marketplaces, and we do not send one enquiry to several firms to be fought over. |
| Paid research | Never | No payment to publish a finding, remove one, soften one, or delay one. |
The model we are building towards
If you decide you want advice, we intend to offer an introduction to one FCA-authorised firm, and to be paid by that firm for making it. You would not pay us, and the fee would be disclosed to you in the same sentence that names the firm, before you hand anything over.
We cannot yet tell you the exact basis of that fee. No partner is agreed, so whether it is paid per qualifying introduction or on completion is not settled. Rather than pick the version that sounds best, the page says it is unsettled, and the disclosure you actually see will state the real basis before you use the route.
Any fee the adviser charges you is set and disclosed by that firm, and we neither set it nor collect it. Any separate payment the firm makes to us for the introduction is disclosed to you before the handoff, so you can see both numbers rather than one.
The conditions, and where they live
These are not paragraphs in a policy document that a future version of us could quietly edit. They are conditions in the code that the build enforces, so shipping a handoff that breaks one of them is not possible without deliberately removing the check.
| Condition | In force | How it is enforced |
|---|---|---|
| You pay us nothing | Yes | Revenue can come only from the firm receiving the introduction. The build refuses to configure a partner recorded as charging the consumer, so this cannot be relaxed by an editorial decision later. |
| The firm is named before you decide | Yes | The disclosure names the firm and gives its FCA reference so you can look it up before you hand anything over. Never "our partners". |
| The fee is stated before you decide | Yes | The amount we receive, or the complete basis on which it is calculated, appears in the same sentence that names the firm. The handoff cannot render without it, so the disclosure cannot be forgotten, reworded away or shipped half-done. An exact sum is not always calculable before an introduction, which is why the standard is that you can work out what we get, rather than that a pound sign appears. |
| The firm holds permission for this | No | Being on the FCA Register is not the test. A firm authorised for ordinary mortgages does not necessarily hold home purchase plan permissions, and advising on and arranging HPPs are their own regulated activities. The build refuses to enable a handoff until the permission scope and the date we checked it are recorded, and until any appointed-representative principal is named. |
| One enquiry, one firm | Yes | What you send goes to the single named firm you were shown, and nowhere else. |
| A written record is kept | Yes | Every handoff logs the exact wording shown to you, the firm, the time, the data sent and the page it came from. |
What payment can never change
Payment does not affect where a provider appears in a comparison, or whether it appears at all. Ordering follows the stated rules in our methodology: objective criteria applied the same way to firms that pay us and firms that do not.
That is enforced rather than promised. One of the build checks fails if commercial configuration can reach the code that ranks, matches or prices anything, so a future version of this site cannot quietly wire a payment into a sort order.
- No payment to publish a finding, or to remove one. Provider relationships do not soften what we write about their products.
- No advertorial dressed as research. If anything on this site is ever paid for, it will be labelled as such and kept out of comparisons entirely.
- No enquiry sold on. One enquiry goes to the one named firm you were shown, and never to a lead marketplace.
- A paid introduction is not a sale of your details. If the route is ever switched on and you choose it, only the information named in the disclosure goes to that single firm, for that introduction. We would be paid for making the introduction you asked for, not for passing your details around.
What a green build proves, and what it does not
The conditions above are modelled on the FCA's home purchase plan guidance first, because that is the guidance for this product. PERG 14.4 Q34 sets out when the article 33A exclusion may be available to someone arranging home purchase plans: the activity limited to introductions, the introduction made to an authorised person, appointed representative or overseas person, no client money taken beyond fees properly due, and the relationship and any reward disclosed. PERG 14.8 deals with the separate question of financial promotions, noting that communications about arranging services for these plans can be promotions, and pointing to the article 28B exemption for real-time introduction promotions on the same conditions as article 33A. We use PERG 4.5 only for the detail of what a disclosure should contain, read .
That distinction is worth being blunt about, because it would be easy to imply otherwise. Following our own policy is necessary, not sufficient. Whether any exclusion actually applies depends on the nature and scope of the activity, who the introduction goes to, the product's own regulatory classification and the facts of the live funnel. A green build proves we followed the policy we designed. It cannot prove the legal position, and we are not going to write it as though it does.
So the route stays off until a review says otherwise. The build refuses to enable the handoff while the perimeter, financial-promotions and privacy review of the live funnel is unfinished. It is currently not complete. Switching it on is a dated change-log entry, not a deploy detail.
Why we publish this at all
Because a comparison site's incentives are part of its data. If you cannot see how a site is paid, you cannot judge what its ordering means, and every reassuring sentence about independence is unfalsifiable.
So this is written the same way as any figure here: stated plainly, dated, generated from the thing it describes rather than from memory, and updated when it changes. You should be able to check our incentives as easily as you can check a rate.
Common questions
- Does Islamic Mortgage Guide make money right now?
- No. There are no commercial partners, no referral arrangements, no advertising and no affiliate links. The introduction route that the site is built for is switched off in the code, and this page is generated from that switch rather than written separately from it.
- Will I ever be charged for using this site?
- No. You paying us is the one revenue route that is ruled out permanently rather than simply not yet enabled. Any fee an adviser charges you is a separate matter between you and that firm, and they are required to explain it to you themselves.
- Could a provider pay to rank higher or be included?
- No, and that is enforced rather than promised. One of the build checks fails if commercial configuration can reach the code that ranks, matches or prices anything. Inclusion in the register works the same way: a proposition is there because it exists and we can evidence it, not because of any relationship with us.
- How will I know if this changes?
- This page changes on the same build as the switch, because it reads the switch. Turning the introduction route on is also a dated entry in the change log rather than a quiet deploy, and the disclosure naming the firm and the fee appears before you hand over anything.