Trust and methodology

How this site works, and what it will never do

True Trade Path is an independent, advertising-supported utility. Rankings are not for sale, listings are not for sale, and your enquiry is not a product. This page states the commitments plainly enough to hold us to them.

Last updated: September 2026
Paid placement: None
Lead selling: None

The position

Most directories for the skilled trades are advertising businesses wearing the costume of a reference work. A contractor buys a position, the position is presented as a recommendation, and the visitor is sold on as a lead. True Trade Path is built on the opposite arrangement, and the arrangement is the product.

There are no paid rankings. No organization can buy a higher position in any list, table or search result on this site.

There is no paid placement. No organization can buy a listing, a badge, a feature slot or the removal of a competitor.

We do not sell leads. Contact details you enter are never transmitted to contractors, aggregators or brokers. We are not paid when you call someone.

There is no undisclosed sponsorship. Every commercial relationship that touches this site is display advertising, and every advertisement is labelled as advertising.

How listings are sourced

A listing reaches the directory by one of three routes. In every case the organization controls whether it stays.

Public records. State licensing boards, registered-apprenticeship records held by the U.S. Department of Labor and state apprenticeship agencies, Secretary of State business registrations, and the published rosters of recognised accreditors. These are the records that already exist because the organization is licensed, registered or accredited.
Direct outreach. We contact organizations that appear in those records and ask them to confirm their details. Confirmation is voluntary. Declining to respond does not lower a listing; it simply leaves it unverified.
Organization submission. An organization asks to be listed through our submission process. Submission is free and confers no advantage beyond the verification that follows.

Consent is a requirement, not a courtesy

A listing appears in the public directory only where the organization has consented to it, or where the listing is drawn entirely from a public record that the organization created by being licensed, registered or accredited. Any organization can withdraw consent at any time. When it does, the listing comes down. We do not require a reason, we do not ask the organization to justify the request, and we do not maintain a shadow copy of a withdrawn listing for internal ranking purposes.

We publish only business contact information — the details an organization already advertises to the public. We do not publish home addresses, personal mobile numbers, owners’ personal details or anything obtained from a source that was not intended to be public.

The verification badges

Every listing carries one status mark. The wording of each mark is deliberately restrained: it describes the check we performed and the date we performed it, and it stops there. Read the badge as a statement about our work, not as a judgement about the organization.

Information confirmed by organization

How it is earned: An authorised representative of the organization completed our verification questionnaire and confirmed the listed details in writing.
What it claims: The organization itself has reviewed the name, address, phone number, service area, trade categories and licence numbers we publish, and told us they are correct as of the verification date.
What it does not claim: It is not an endorsement, a certification, a quality rating, or a statement that the organization is competently run, adequately insured or currently licensed. We did not inspect their work, audit their books or contact their customers.

Verified against a public source

How it is earned: We matched the listing against a government or institutional record — a state licence register, a Department of Labor registered-apprenticeship record, a Secretary of State business filing, or an accreditor's published roster.
What it claims: A named public source carried this specific fact on the date we checked it. Where the fact is a licence, the record showed that licence as active on that date.
What it does not claim: It does not claim the record is still accurate today. Licences lapse, are suspended and are reinstated between our checks. It says nothing about work quality, and it is not a substitute for you confirming the licence yourself before signing anything.

Community reviewed

How it is earned: The listing has received reviews from site visitors. We have not confirmed that any individual reviewer was a customer.
What it claims: Only that people have submitted opinions about this organization on this site.
What it does not claim: It carries no verification weight whatsoever. It is not a score, a rank, or an indication that we have checked anything at all about the organization.

Not yet verified

How it is earned: The listing was compiled from public information and has not yet been confirmed by the organization or matched to a public record.
What it claims: Nothing. It is a pointer to a business or program that appears to exist.
What it does not claim: Being unverified is not a negative signal about the organization. It means our work is incomplete, not that anything is wrong. Most new listings begin here.

Why the strongest badge still sounds modest

An organization that completes our questionnaire has told us its own details are correct. That is worth publishing, and it is all we will say about it. The badge therefore reads “Information confirmed by organization” — never “True Trade Path Certified”, “Approved”, “Trusted Pro” or any other phrase that would let a questionnaire masquerade as an audit. We do not operate a certification program and we will not invent one, because the moment a badge implies quality it becomes something worth buying.

Dates, not permanence

Every verified listing displays the date of its most recent check. A verification is a snapshot. Licences lapse, businesses close, programs stop accepting applicants and phone numbers are reassigned. We re-check listings on a rolling schedule and a verification that has gone stale loses its badge rather than keeping it by default. Before you hire anyone, confirm their licence and insurance directly with the issuing authority.

How results are ordered

Directory results are ordered by four inputs, applied in this sequence. The sequence is the whole of the ranking logic.

Distance
Proximity to the location you entered. For trades where a professional must physically attend the job, this is the strongest predictor of whether the listing is useful to you.
Relevance
Whether the organization actually does the work you searched for. A plumbing contractor that does not do sewer lateral replacement will not surface above one that does.
Verification status
Listings confirmed by the organization or matched to a public record order above listings we have not yet confirmed. This rewards responsiveness to us, which is the only thing an organization can do to move up.
Criteria you select
Filters you apply yourself — emergency availability, licence class, union affiliation, languages spoken, program length — reorder results according to what you said matters.

Payment is not an input

There is no fifth input. Money does not appear anywhere in the ordering logic, there is no bid, no boost, no promoted tier and no tie-break that favours an advertiser. Two listings that are equal on the four inputs above are ordered alphabetically.

The review policy

Two kinds of review, labelled differently

A verified experience is a review where the reviewer supplied evidence of the transaction — an invoice, a work order, a permit number or a dated estimate — and we confirmed that the evidence refers to the organization being reviewed. We do not publish the document and we do not share it with the organization.

An unverified community review is an opinion submitted without evidence of a transaction. We publish it because it may be useful, we label it clearly because it may be wrong, and we never let it drive a verification badge or a ranking position.

What organizations can and cannot do

An organization may publish a response beneath any review of it. The response appears in full, attributed to the organization, and is not edited by us for tone.

An organization can never edit a user’s review, hide it, delete it, or have it removed by asking us. There is no paid route and no relationship route to removing a negative review. This holds regardless of whether the organization advertises with us, has completed verification, or disputes the account. If an organization believes a review is factually false it can respond publicly and it can send us evidence; the review stays unless the evidence shows it is fraudulent under the test below.

Fraudulent reviews

We remove reviews we determine to be manufactured rather than mistaken. The signals we act on are coordinated submission from a single source, review text describing work the organization does not perform, wording that matches a known paid-review template, submissions traceable to a competitor, and reviews offered in exchange for payment or a discount. Where the pattern is deliberate we remove the entire cluster, and we will remove positive fraudulent reviews as readily as negative ones — a business inflating its own rating is committing the same act as one attacking a rival. Repeated manipulation costs an organization its verification badge.

How the tools and estimates are produced

Calculators run entirely in your browser. Nothing you type into a tool is transmitted to us or stored on a server. The logic is deterministic: the same inputs always produce the same result, and every result is shown with the assumptions that produced it.

The underlying figures come from named, dated sources:

Wage and employment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, cited with the survey period.
Code-derived calculations built from the published requirements of the National Electrical Code, International Residential Code and International Plumbing Code, with the edition stated.
Equipment service lives and performance data from manufacturer documentation and industry association research.
Cost ranges assembled from published contractor pricing, regional cost indices and material pricing, with the collection period stated.

What the tools are not

Every tool on this site is a planning aid. None of them is professional advice, legal advice, an engineering determination, or a statement of what your jurisdiction will approve. Code requirements depend on the edition your jurisdiction has adopted and on local amendments, and they are interpreted by the authority having jurisdiction, not by us. Cost estimates describe typical ranges, not your job; a competent quote from someone who has seen the site beats any range we can publish. Where work will be inspected, where safety is involved, or where a permit is required, the calculation must be confirmed by a licensed professional before it is relied upon.

Our full sourcing rules, review cadence and corrections process are set out in the editorial policy.

How the site makes money

True Trade Path is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served into fixed slots, are labelled as advertising, and are the only source of revenue that touches this site. We do not charge for listings, we do not charge for verification, we do not operate a subscription, and we do not sell leads.

The firewall

Advertisers have no influence over tool logic, tool results, cost ranges, directory rankings, verification outcomes or editorial judgement. They do not receive advance notice of what we publish, they cannot review copy before publication, and they cannot request changes to it. No advertiser has ever been given, and will never be given, a ranking benefit, a badge, or the removal of a review. An organization that advertises with us is treated by the ranking code exactly as one that does not, because the ranking code has no way of telling them apart.

The constraints we place on ad placement — including the rule that an advertisement never appears between you and a tool’s inputs or its results — are set out in the advertising disclosure.

Corrections

We publish numbers, and numbers go wrong. If something on this site is inaccurate we want to hear about it, and we would rather hear about it from you than leave it up.

Send corrections to corrections@truetradepath.com. Include the page address, the specific figure or statement at issue, and what you believe the correct information is. A source we can check makes the correction faster.

Our commitments on timing:

We acknowledge every correction request within three business days.
We resolve substantiated corrections within ten business days of acknowledgement, or tell you why it will take longer.
We correct errors that materially change a result, a range or a recommendation immediately on confirmation, without waiting for a review cycle.
Substantive corrections are recorded on the page itself, with the date and a description of what changed. We do not quietly edit a figure and reset the review date.

Requests to correct or remove a directory listing follow a separate route, set out at update or remove a listing.

What this site will never do

These are not aspirations. They are the terms on which the site is built, and we expect to be judged against them.

Sell a position in search results, a listing page, a category page or a comparison table.
Sell, rent, broker or otherwise transfer your contact details to contractors, lead aggregators, lenders or data brokers.
Accept payment to add, improve, hide or remove a listing.
Accept payment to change the result a calculator produces or the range a cost guide publishes.
Let an advertiser see, influence or pre-approve editorial copy, tool logic or verification outcomes.
Run advertising that is designed to be mistaken for a tool, a result, a listing or editorial content.
Publish a review we know to be fraudulent, or remove a genuine negative review because the organization asked us to.
Describe an organization as certified, approved, endorsed or recommended by True Trade Path. We do not certify anyone.

If you believe we have done any of the above, write to corrections@truetradepath.com. We will investigate and respond.

Common questions

Can a business pay to rank higher?

No. Payment is not an input to ranking and there is no mechanism through which it could be. We sell display advertising only, and advertising purchases have no connection to the listing database or the ranking code.

Do you sell my information to contractors?

No. We do not operate a lead-generation business. When you contact an organization through True Trade Path you use the organization's own published phone number, email address or website. We do not sit in the middle of that conversation and we do not sell your enquiry.

Does a verification badge mean True Trade Path recommends this business?

No. The badges describe what we checked and when we checked it, nothing more. The strongest badge we issue says information was confirmed by the organization. We do not certify, endorse or rate the competence of any organization.

How do I get my organization removed from the directory?

Email listings@truetradepath.com from an address at the organization's domain and ask for removal. We honour removal requests without requiring a reason and without asking you to reconsider. We aim to action removals within five business days.

Can I rely on a calculator result for permit or code compliance?

No. Every tool on this site is a planning aid. Code requirements are set by the edition of the code your jurisdiction has adopted, together with local amendments, and are applied by the authority having jurisdiction. Any calculation that will be inspected must be confirmed against the adopted code and, where required, prepared or reviewed by a licensed professional.

How do you handle a review you believe is fake?

We remove reviews that show clear signs of manipulation: submissions from the same source targeting a single organization, reviews describing services the organization does not offer, text that matches a paid-review template, or reviews traceable to a competitor. Where a pattern is deliberate we remove the whole cluster rather than individual reviews.

Related policies

The specific documents behind the commitments on this page.