About Us

Funding/Business Structure
We have always sought creative methods to finance our operations. Initially, we relied on donations for financial support and sought to be recognized as a nonprofit organization. At that point our web domain name was CardRatings.org. However, pursuing nonprofit status posed many financial challenges. As a result, we began to explore alternative forms of financing in 2000. It became apparent that the only viable alternatives were advertising and fee based services. After several months of grappling and research, we decided to solely rely on advertisers or sponsors for financial support. We incorporated as a for-profit institution on January 1, 2001 (subchapter C corporation).

Several factors influenced the management team�s decision to incorporate as a for-profit institution.

Advertising will provide significantly more financial support than other forms of financing.
Reliable financial support will allow the organization to aggressively expand the scope of its services and public awareness of its services.
We have a strong desire to continue offering free services to consumers. Pursuing a fee-based service (a route that some comparable organizations have taken) conflicts with the true spirit of the organization.
If the organization is selective in choosing advertisers, then advertisers can provide attractive card offers to consumers that visit the site.
Achieving nonprofit status will curtail lobbying efforts if and when the organization pursues such efforts on behalf of consumers.

For more information regarding our sponsorship policies please click here. Please note that we have changed all references from CardRatings.org to CardRatings.com. While organizations are not required to be nonprofit to use the .org web address, we do not want to confuse consumers about our business structure.