Terms and Conditions

Last updated 14 October 2026. These terms replace all earlier versions.

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

Scout Forge (“Scout Forge”, “we”, “us”) operates the website at scoutforge.net and the services offered through it (together, the “Service”). By using the Service, creating an account, or buying anything from us, you agree to these terms.

If you do not agree with these terms, do not use the Service.

2. Your account

You need a verified email address to create an account. You are responsible for what happens under your account and for keeping your credentials safe. One person, one account: creating additional accounts to write more reviews, receive more credits, or influence any count on the site is a breach of these terms and grounds for removing the accounts and the credits attached to them.

You must be old enough to enter a contract where you live. You can close your account at any time by contacting us.

3. Listing an app

Anyone can submit an app. We review submissions before they are published and we may decline one. By submitting an app you confirm that you have the right to do so and that the app complies with applicable law.

We do not list apps that:

• advertise misleadingly or behave deceptively;
• promote hate speech, violence or discrimination;
• collect or share personal data without a lawful basis;
• exploit their users or a community.

We may decline, unpublish or remove an app listing that breaks these rules or the law. This is about listings. Reviews are covered separately in section 5, and the rules there are deliberately narrower.

4. Editorial scores and AI-written reviews

Every published app receives an editorial review and a score from 0 to 100, calculated with the same methodology for every app. These reviews are generated with the help of AI from public information about the app, and we say so on the page where they appear and on our methodology page.

The score is our opinion, formed from the evidence available to us. It is not a certification, a guarantee of quality, or advice to buy or avoid anything. It can be wrong, and it can change when we learn something new or improve the methodology.

Placement, scores and badges are never for sale. Paying us for anything described in section 8 does not change an app's score or its position in search, categories or rankings.

5. Reviews written by members

Members can write reviews of apps listed on Scout Forge. A developer can fund a review request with credits; a member takes the request, tries the app and writes what they found. Reviews written this way are labelled on the page as funded by the developer.

We do not verify that a reviewer bought or installed the app, and we do not claim otherwise anywhere on the Service. What we can say is what we publish: the review was written by a person, it may have been funded by the developer, and the payment did not depend on the verdict.

Publication is unconditional

A review is published as soon as it is submitted, whatever it says. The developer who funded it cannot prevent that, delay it, or have it taken down afterwards. There is no code path that lets a developer remove a review of their own app, and we will not add one.

Payment disputes

The developer's decision is about payment, not publication. After a funded review is published the developer has 48 hours to approve payment or dispute it. Silence approves it: if the developer does nothing, payment goes through automatically.

A dispute must give a reason and an explanation, and both are shown on the page next to the review. The reviewer can respond, and we decide. We keep a record of how often each developer disputes reviews and of how those disputes relate to whether a review was positive or negative. The review stays published throughout, and it stays published afterwards regardless of how the payment is decided.

When we remove a review

We remove a published review only in these cases, and only by our own decision:

• we have reasonable grounds to believe it is fake;
• it is not about the app;
• it contains personal data, defamation, or discriminatory content;
• it states something about the app that is factually false.

“It did not meet my requirements” is not on that list — that is a payment dispute. We do not remove a review because it is negative, and we do not remove one because the developer asks us to. Anyone can report a review to us and a person will read the report, but reporting is not the same as deciding.

When we do remove a review, the record is kept — nothing is quietly deleted — and any credits paid for it are returned to both sides: the payment is taken back from the reviewer and refunded to the developer.

If you write a review

• Write from your own experience of the app, in your own words, at least 120 characters.
• One review per app, for the lifetime of your account. You cannot review your own app.
• Do not submit text generated for you and passed off as your own experience.
• Meet the requirements the developer listed, or expect the payment to be disputed.
• You keep the copyright in what you write. You give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to publish, display and distribute it as part of the Service, including after your account is closed. You can ask us to remove your name from a review; the review itself stays, because taking it down would misrepresent the record.

If you open a review request

• You can open a request after you have written at least one review yourself.
• You choose the requirements; the reward and estimated time are calculated from them, between 5 and 250 credits per reviewer. Credits are held when you open the request and released when payment is approved.
• A request can never ask for an App Store or Google Play rating or review, or a public install. The form does not offer it and free text is checked for it. Both stores can remove your app or your developer account for that.
• You cannot make payment conditional on a positive review, and you cannot ask a reviewer for one — privately or through the request.
• A request nobody takes expires after 7 days. The held credits return to you less a 10% fee.

6. Credits

Credits are an internal unit used to fund reviews on Scout Forge. They are not money, not electronic money, not a payment instrument, and not a security. Specifically:

• They never convert to cash. There is no way to withdraw, redeem or exchange them for money, and we will not create one.
• They never move between accounts. They cannot be gifted, sold, traded or inherited.
• They never buy visibility. Credits do not affect an app's score, its ranking, its badges or its placement anywhere on the site. A higher reward moves your request up the queue for reviewers, and nothing else.
• They can only be used to fund review requests on Scout Forge.

How you get them

Credits are granted for writing reviews that get published, and through occasional grants we make ourselves — for example when you first sign up or when we invite you to take part in something. We cap how many credits one person can receive in a week (300) and limit how much review work one person can take on per day. These limits exist to keep the system honest, not to withhold anything from you.

We may sell credits in the future. If we do, purchased credits are covered by section 8 and by the refund rules in section 9.

Expiry

Credits granted for writing a review or given to you by us expire 180 days after they are granted. We warn you before that happens. Credits you have paid for do not expire. When you spend credits, the ones closest to expiring are used first, and credits that never expire are used last.

What we can do

We can adjust, withhold or cancel credits obtained through duplicate accounts, coordinated reviewing, automated submissions, or any other attempt to work around the rules in section 5. We can change how many credits an action grants going forward; we will not retroactively cancel credits you obtained legitimately under earlier rules, other than through the ordinary expiry above.

If your account is closed — by you or by us — any remaining credits are cancelled. As they have no cash value, nothing is owed to you for them.

7. Reporting and moderation

If something on the Service looks wrong to you — a review, a listing, a score — tell us at info@scoutforge.net and a person will read it. We explain how we handle reviews, in plain language, on this page, and that page is part of these terms.

We keep records of submitted reviews, disputes and moderation decisions, including reviews we have removed, for at least five years. That record is how we can show we did not suppress anything.

8. What we sell

Scout Forge is free to use. Some optional paid products exist, and they are the only things we sell:

• Featured — a time-limited feature placement in the sections reserved for it, plus a badge and a do-follow link from the app's page. It is clearly marked as paid wherever it appears. It does not change the app's score or its position in search, categories or rankings.
• Deep Audit — a written report produced by us for one app. It is prepared manually and delivered by email, normally within three business days. Its findings are our opinion and do not change the app's published score.
• Credits, if and when we sell them, under the rules in section 6.

Prices are shown before you pay and include any tax we are required to charge. Payments are processed by our payment provider; we do not store your card details. Buying anything from us never affects an editorial score, a ranking, or a review.

9. Refunds and cancellation

You can ask for a refund within 14 days of your purchase, for any reason, and we will refund you. Send the request to info@scoutforge.net from the address on the account.

Two limits apply, and both are about work already done:

• Credits you have already spent — held against an open request or paid to a reviewer — cannot be refunded, because the reviewer's work has happened. Unspent credits from the same purchase are refundable in full.
• A Deep Audit report that has already been delivered cannot be refunded, for the same reason. If it has not been delivered yet, you get a full refund.

If you are a consumer in the EU or the UK, you have a statutory right to withdraw from a distance contract within 14 days. Where you ask us to start supplying a digital service immediately — for example a Featured placement that begins at once — that right ends once the service has been fully performed. Our own 14-day policy above applies either way, so in practice it makes no difference to you.

10. Your content and ours

You keep ownership of everything you submit — app listings, images, review text. By submitting it you confirm you have the right to do so, and you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, reproduce and distribute it as part of the Service.

The design, code and visual identity of Scout Forge are ours. App names, logos and trademarks belong to their owners and are used to identify them. Editorial content we produce — scores, comparisons, lists — is published under CC BY-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it, including commercially, if you credit us with a link, say what you changed, and license your version the same way. That licence does not cover our design, code or logo, and it does not cover reviews written by members, which belong to their authors.

11. Availability and accuracy

The Service is provided as it is. We do not promise it will always be available or free of errors, and we may change or discontinue any part of it. Scores, reviews and comparisons are opinions based on the information available to us; they are not professional advice, and deciding to use an app on the strength of them is your decision.

We are not a party to anything between you and an app you find here. If you buy or install something, that is between you and its developer.

12. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or under mandatory consumer protection rules.

Subject to that, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits, lost data, or loss of business opportunity. Our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or fifty US dollars.

13. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms — in particular the account rules in section 2 and the review rules in section 5. Where it is reasonable to do so we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond. You can close your account at any time.

Reviews you have written stay published after your account closes, for the reason given in section 5: removing them would misrepresent the record for the developers who were reviewed.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. When a change is material we will say so on the site or by email before it takes effect, and the date at the top of this page always shows the current version. Continuing to use the Service after a change means you accept the updated terms. We keep a record of which version you accepted and when.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Türkiye, and the courts of Türkiye have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, this does not take away the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country where you live, and you may bring proceedings there.

Questions about any of this: info@scoutforge.net.