Editorial Policy & How We Rate

Every card and loan entry is built from the Lender's public MITC, Key Fact Statement, fee schedule and offer pages, cross-checked against partner product feeds. We record a "last verified" date on each product and re-check popular products at least monthly and all products at least quarterly, or sooner when a Lender announces a change.

Each card receives a CardSparrow score out of 100 built from:

1. Effective reward rate – rupee value of rewards at realistic spends, after caps and exclusions, not the headline "10X".
2. Fee-to-value – joining and annual fees against the welcome benefit, milestone rewards and realistic fee-waiver thresholds.
3. Usable perks – lounge access (counting spend conditions), forex markup, insurance, fuel waivers and partner benefits most people actually use.
4. Ease of approval – income and credit-score requirements, documentation and digital issuance.

Loans are assessed on interest-rate band, total cost including processing fees, disbursal speed, flexibility (prepayment, part-payment) and lender reputation.

The star rating out of 5 is our editorial rating derived from the score above. Where a review count is displayed, it is the number of verified user ratings; where no count is shown, the rating is editorial only.

"Editor's pick" marks products that score highest in their category this month. "Best for" summarises the single use-case where the product beats alternatives. Both are updated as scores change and are never sold.

Card Finder ranks every active product in our catalogue against your answers using the published rules in our ranking engine: spend-category fit, rupee value of rewards at your monthly spend minus the annual fee, your fee preference, lounge and forex needs, and the Lender's income and employment rules. The editor score is a small tie-breaker. Referral payouts are not an input.

Referral fees vary by Lender. Our writers do not see payout figures when scoring products, and ordering on the site is by score, not by payout. Any paid placement will be labelled "Sponsored" and excluded from "Editor's pick".

We correct errors promptly and note material corrections on the affected page. Spotted something wrong? Write to hello@cardsparrow.com with the product name and a link to the Lender's document.