CardRank is a small, independent project from Scout Theory LLC — an American-owned operation based in Medellín, Colombia. We build tools that answer questions honestly. This is one of them.
Most "best credit card" sites are run by companies whose rankings quietly follow their biggest affiliate payouts. A card that pays $200 per approved application tends to beat a card that pays $75 — no matter which one is better for you. The math isn't subtle, and once you know it's there, you can't unsee it.
We built CardRank because we wanted a tool that would give us our own honest answer to the question: given how I actually spend, which cards should I care about? Eight questions, one match-scored list, no email capture, no "premium tier," no deliberate confusion engineered to keep you clicking.
We use affiliate links. If you apply for a card through us and get approved, we may receive a commission from the issuer or from a sub-affiliate network like Bankrate, CardRatings, or CJ Affiliate. That's how independent comparison sites stay independent — nobody pays us to cover specific topics, and nobody gets to see our rankings before publication.
Here's what affiliate revenue doesn't do at CardRank: it doesn't decide the ranking. The scoring formula is publicly documented on our How We Rank page. The same inputs always produce the same output. A card's position on your results page depends on your spending profile, not on who's paying us what this month.
We earn money when you apply through us. We don't earn more money by showing you the wrong card. Those are different things, and the difference is the whole point of this site.
Scout Theory LLC is a Colorado-registered domain portfolio and web properties company. It is run by one person — Andy Smigelski, an American expat living in Medellín — with occasional help from collaborators. There is no newsroom, no editorial board, no twelve-person "research team." What you see is what there is.
That also means every card review on this site was written by a human who actually read the issuer's disclosures, checked the rewards structure, and verified the welcome bonus. When a number on this site doesn't match what you see on the issuer's page, please tell us — corrections are usually made within 48 hours.
CardRank is one of several spending-first comparison tools we operate. If you found this useful, you might also like SeedBankCompare (cannabis seed bank comparison), our Hocking Hills trail matcher, and a growing collection of civil-rights and FOIA research tools including FOIAFiler.
Questions, corrections, or partnership inquiries? Get in touch.