Commercial relationships
OrderBridge may receive compensation from restaurant-technology providers when an owner or operator requests an introduction or follows an eligible link and later purchases a product or service. Any compensated relationship is disclosed at the point of use. The restaurant’s price is not increased by that relationship.
This disclosure is intended to satisfy the Federal Trade Commission’s endorsement guidance and, more importantly, to make the site’s incentives legible. Material commercial relationships are disclosed before related links or requests are published.
The affiliate editorial policy
Affiliate revenue supports the editorial operation. It follows the editorial judgment; it never leads it. Four rules govern every affiliate relationship, and they are checkable from the outside:
Partners are listed on editorial merit. A vendor appears in field notes, comparisons, or tools because it keeps arising in operator conversations and holds up under scrutiny — not because it pays. Several vendors covered on this site pay OrderBridge nothing.
Paying partners get no priority. Not in placement, not in tone, not in which criticisms survive editing. The Toast and ChowNow field notes carry the same sourced criticisms they carried before either relationship existed, and future partners are covered under the same rule.
Category coverage includes non-affiliate players. Where a category is covered — POS systems, ordering platforms, fee structures — the comparison includes vendors with whom OrderBridge has no commercial relationship. A comparison that only listed paying vendors would be an advertisement, and it would be labeled as one; we would rather not publish it at all.
No bias, and a way to check. When a vendor's name in a thread or story links to a partner page, the link is automatic, marked rel="sponsored", and accompanied by a plain-language disclosure on that post. Members write their threads without any involvement from partners; the linking never edits, promotes, or suppresses what an operator said.
What commercial revenue funds
Commercial revenue supports verification work, moderation, infrastructure, editorial synthesis, and community utilities. It does not purchase access to members, favorable placement, or control over conclusions.
The same rule holds for the paid membership: subscribing buys fresher analysis and conveniences. It does not buy interviews, publication, or editorial attention. There is no paid publication on OrderBridge and there never will be.
Anonymization is one-way
When a member chooses to publish anonymized — a thread, a story, an interview — that choice is permanent and binding. There is no flow, no administrator, and no later request from anyone, including the member, that attaches a name to content that was published anonymized. The database itself refuses the change.
Anonymized content persists after a member leaves. When a member deletes their account or their individual threads, the text is removed or tombstoned identity-free — never re-attributed, never quietly restored. A pseudonym-to-identity mapping exists in a restricted internal system for account recovery, moderation, and deletion only; every access to it requires a written reason and leaves a permanent audit record.
Member data is not a product
OrderBridge does not sell, rent, exchange, or provide member data to third parties. Verification records are used to decide community eligibility. Posting identities are separated from contribution records. Commercial partners receive no member list, application detail, pseudonym mapping, private profile, points, or member discussion content.
A restaurant owner or operator may separately submit a business connection request using their own contact information. That record is not linked to membership or community activity. OrderBridge shares only the fields visible on that form, only with the selected provider, and only after the submitter explicitly authorizes the handoff. A request never reveals whether the operator is a member or discloses a verification record.
The Sentrix relationship
The founder of OrderBridge is also the founder of Sentrix, a restaurant knowledge infrastructure company. The two are operated separately: Sentrix does not participate in the community, moderate discussions, set editorial direction, or receive member information. No data flows between OrderBridge and Sentrix without an explicit, specific member opt-in — and no such opt-in exists today.
If that relationship ever changes in a way that touches member data or editorial control, the change falls under the notice commitment below — it will not arrive quietly.
Possible future revenue
Future funding may include sponsored question-and-answer sessions or reports built from aggregate, anonymized patterns. A sponsored session would be labeled before registration, and members would choose whether to participate. An aggregate report would require a sufficient sample to prevent re-identification and would never include application records or attributable quotations.
No new revenue line will silently expand the permitted use of existing member data. Material changes require clear notice and, where a new use depends on member information, explicit consent.
Thirty days' notice
Any material change to the standards on this page — the affiliate rules, the anonymization commitment, the member-data boundaries, the Sentrix separation — will be announced at least thirty days before it takes effect: on this page, and by email to every member. A change that would weaken the anonymization commitment for content already published is not on the table at any notice period; that promise is retroactive-proof by design.
Editorial independence
The Editors retain final control over topics, language, corrections, and publication. Commercial relationships do not influence which tools are featured in field notes, which operators are interviewed, or which stories enter the library. Coverage follows the frequency and significance of operator conversations, not the value of potential compensation.
Questions about this policy can be sent to editor@orderbridge.app. Privacy and deletion details appear in the privacy policy.