This page sets out how Free AI For That ("FAFT", "we") orders the tools it lists. The full technical reference is Organic ranking; the site uses the same code to order its lists and to explain them.
1. Principles
- One formula for every tool. Paid listings and sponsored slots are labelled and sit outside this order. Payment can't buy rank.
- Nothing invented. We never seed or invent votes, ratings, clicks or views.
- Unknown is never a pass. A fact we couldn't confirm earns nothing, and is never filled in with a guess.
2. The score
Rank score = freshness × free value × activity score
Freshness: how recently we confirmed the free offer
| Last confirmed on the maker's pages | Freshness |
|---|---|
| Within 7 days | 1 |
| Within 14 days | 0.92 |
| Within 30 days | 0.75 |
| Longer ago | 0.5 |
| Not yet confirmed | 0.5 |
| The pricing page seems to be dead | 0.3 |
| The free offer has ended | 0 |
Our overnight check re-confirms every listed tool each day, so a tool whose offer hasn't changed keeps full freshness.
Free value: how good the free offer is
Free value is between 0.7 and 1: 0.7 + 0.3 × the free offer's quality, where quality, from 0 to 1, is made of:
- How long it's free (half):
- free with no end date: 1;
- credits that refill: 0.85;
- a free plan or trial of 60 days or more, or one-time credits that last at least 30 days: 0.6;
- a free plan or trial of 30 to 59 days: 0.4.
If we don't know how long it lasts, free value stays at 0.7.
- Usability (35%): the share of these we've confirmed: the main feature works on the free offer, the free limit is stated, no watermark, commercial use allowed. It counts once at least two of them are known; until then the other two parts share its weight.
- No card needed (15%): confirmed by our own signup test: 1; stated by the maker or on its signup page: 0.5. Evidence older than 90 days counts as 0.
Activity score: what real users do
Each signal is compared with tools in the same category, or with the whole site when the category has fewer than 20 tools. Values go on a log scale, so a few very popular tools don't flatten everyone else. Each signal becomes a standing from 0 to 1.
| Signal | What it measures | Weight: little activity → plenty |
|---|---|---|
| Editor's pick | Our curators' picks | 0.40 → 0.10 |
| Ratings | Signed-in ratings, pulled toward the site's average as if each tool had 10 average ratings | 0.15 |
| Upvotes (saves) | One per connection; each counts half as much after 30 days | 0.15 |
| Try-free clicks | Clicks to the tool per view, smoothed so a few clicks can't decide it | 0.10 |
| Momentum | Activity in the last 72 hours against the last 28 days | 0.10 |
| Outside signals | For example GitHub stars; never more than a tenth of the activity score | 0.10 |
"Plenty" means 50 trusted actions (votes, clicks, ratings) in the last 90 days. The weights move in proportion between the two columns.
Only signals a tool has data for count, and their weights are rescaled to add up to 1. No signal carries more than 35% of the weight (outside signals have their own 10% cap).
New tools get no boost. Being new doesn't move a tool up: it ranks by the same signals as every other tool from its first day, and appears in the New list. A tool with no activity yet counts as average (0.5) on activity, so its place comes from its freshness and free value.
3. The lists
- Category, task and site-wide lists are ordered by rank score. Tools with exactly equal scores keep the order they have in our catalog.
- Trending is for tools with at least 5 trusted actions in the last 90 days. They're ordered by momentum and recent activity, times freshness.
- New lists the most recently listed tools, newest first.
- Editor's picks are listed in our curators' order.
4. Edge cases
- Removed tools (free offer ended, not an AI tool, held) aren't ranked or shown in lists.
- One vote each: each connection can save and rate a tool once. We keep only a salted hash of the IP address, never the address itself, and no cookie. Votes are also rate-limited.
5. When rankings change
Rankings are recalculated each time the site is published, normally once a day, after we approve the day's update. That update shows how the ranking will change before it's published. A fix goes into the data or the rules, never into a hand-made order. We publish any change to these rules or weights on Organic ranking before it takes effect.
Our other rules: How we find tools · How we check free offers · How we categorize · How we pick awards. All five are on How we work.
