Editorial Policy

Last Updated: July 29, 2026

Small Apps Worth Knowing exists to help readers find genuinely useful Apple apps from independent developers. That only works if readers can trust every word. These are the standards the publication is held to — they are not aspirational; they are the rules.

1. Consideration is free

Submitting an app for editorial consideration costs nothing and never will. There is no paid queue, no expedited review, and no fee of any kind connected to editorial decisions.

2. Coverage is never guaranteed or purchasable

Coverage is earned through the testing process and nothing else. Developers cannot pay to be featured, to improve how they are described, or to remove a published assessment. Advertising inquiries, affiliate arrangements, and gifts do not influence what gets covered or how.

3. Corrections are welcome; verdicts are not negotiable

If we publish a factual error — a wrong price, an outdated screenshot, a feature we misdescribed — developers and readers are encouraged to tell us, and we will correct it promptly and note the correction on the article. What developers cannot do is control the verdict. Our assessment of an app is ours, formed during testing, and it does not change because a developer disagrees with it.

4. Sponsorships are always labeled

The pilot launches without sponsorships. If sponsorship ever supports this publication, sponsored placements will be clearly and unmistakably labeled as such, visually distinct from editorial content, and never written to look like an editorial recommendation.

5. NovoBuild's own apps are a disclosed conflict

NovoBuild publishes its own apps, which means this publication has an inherent conflict of interest. We handle it in the open: if a NovoBuild app appears in Small Apps Worth Knowing, the article will disclose the relationship at the top, and the app goes through the same testing template as everyone else's. Readers can weigh our words accordingly.

6. No other NovoBuild service buys coverage

NovoBuild also offers consulting and paid developer services, including App Store Release Help. Purchasing any NovoBuild service can never buy, improve, guarantee, accelerate, or influence editorial consideration, selection, placement, or coverage — and declining to purchase one can never count against an app. The editorial and commercial sides of NovoBuild are separate by policy.

7. Scope of the pilot

The initial pilot covers useful consumer apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac made by individuals or very small teams (up to five people). Games are excluded from the pilot; they may become a dedicated editorial track later, with testing criteria appropriate to games. We publish no recommendation we have not tested — an empty publication is better than a dishonest one.

8. How testing works

The full testing process — devices, duration, fact-checking, and the article template — is documented in How we select and test the apps we feature.