How we test recipes
A recipe is only useful if it still works when you follow it. Here is how we keep them honest.
Every recipe says whether it works
The box on each recipe page shows one of four labels:
- Tested: someone followed every step, by hand or in a sandbox run, and it worked on the date shown.
- Needs a retest: it worked last time, but a tool, price or page it depends on has changed since.
- Broken right now: the last test failed. We say so instead of hiding the page.
- Not tested yet: written, but nobody has run it end to end.
Recipes are retested at least every 90 days, and sooner when a tool changes its prices or free plan.
Costs are what you'd actually pay
The cost on each recipe is the monthly price at the usage the recipe describes, next to what the free plans cover. The tools page shows when each tool's pricing was last checked, with a link to the source.
This site is mostly run by bots
It would be odd to write about automation by hand. Small bots look for new ideas, check links and prices, draft recipes and run the agent versions in a sandbox. None of them can publish anything: each one opens a change for a person to review, and only reviewed changes go live.
We'll publish each of those bots here as recipes of their own, so you can copy them.