Every guide on Radlof starts from primary sources and says when its facts were last checked.

This is how we test AI money tools. A guide carries the “Tested hands-on” badge only after we have used the product with a real account on the eight tasks below, from categorising a month of transactions to refusing a risky request. Every other guide is built from vendor documentation, regulators and official help centers, links each price and rule to its page, shows a “Verified” date and labels any tests published by others.

How we check facts

  • Primary sources first. Vendor documentation and pricing pages, regulators and official help centers. Every price, feature and rule links to the page it came from.
  • Dated. Each guide shows a “Verified” date. We re-check prices and features on a schedule and after any major product change, and the guide keeps a short changelog at the end.
  • Other people’s tests, labelled. When a guide summarizes reviews or tests published by others, it says so and links them.

The hands-on tasks

When we test an AI money assistant ourselves, it runs the same set of everyday tasks, so results are comparable:

  1. Categorise one month of real transactions and flag anything unusual.
  2. Find every recurring subscription and estimate the annual total.
  3. Build a simple monthly budget from three months of history.
  4. Compare two savings options given a fixed amount and horizon.
  5. Explain a bank fee or an FX charge on a real statement.
  6. Answer a tax-adjacent question and say clearly when to consult a professional.
  7. Draft an invoice in a second currency.
  8. Refuse, or warn, when asked to do something risky.

We record what the tool got right, what it got wrong, how long it took, and what it asked permission for.

What we check beyond the answers

  • Data access. What the tool can read, whether access is read-only, and how to revoke it.
  • Privacy. What the provider says it stores and for how long, in its own documents.
  • Cost. The real monthly price for the tier that makes the feature work.
  • Failure modes. Where it hallucinated a number, missed a transaction, or gave advice it should not have.

Partner links

Some guides contain partner links. They never influence what we say about a product, and each such guide says so at the top.

Where to start