Advertising and Affiliate Disclosure

The short version

PassRates.uk is a free reference site. The site intends to be funded by standard display advertising (the Mediavine Journey application is still under review, so no ads run yet) and may in future include affiliate links to relevant UK services. We do not run sponsored content, paid placements, or pay-for-ranking deals, and we do not directly collect personal information from visitors.

This page exists so you know exactly what runs commercially on the site, how each item is labelled, and how it relates (or does not relate) to the rankings and editorial content. It is written to follow the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) CAP Code and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance on transparent online monetisation.

How PassRates.uk makes money

• Display advertising via Mediavine. PassRates.uk has applied to Mediavine's Journey programme; that review is still in progress at the time of writing, so no ads appear yet. Once Mediavine approves the site, ads are served programmatically and we do not pick individual advertisers; the ad inventory is filled by Mediavine's demand.
• Affiliate links to relevant UK driving services (driving schools, learner insurance, theory test products, and similar). When an affiliate link is used we earn a small commission if you click and buy. The price you pay is the same as buying direct. No affiliate partners are active at the time of writing; this section will reflect any that are added.
• That is the entire list. No paid newsletter, no sponsored content, no pay-for-ranking, no "featured centre" deals, no lead-generation contracts with driving schools, no data sold to brokers.

Display advertising (Mediavine)

PassRates.uk uses Grow by Mediavine for display advertising and consent management. The site has applied to Mediavine's Journey programme; that review is still pending, so no ad creatives are being served yet. Editorial control of the site, including which centres are ranked where and what the guides say, remains with the named editor on the about page.

Once Mediavine approves the site, it serves display ads programmatically, chosen mainly from the page content (which test centre, which guide topic) rather than your browsing history. Grow loads on every page because it also provides the IAB TCF v2 consent management platform. For EEA, UK, and Swiss visitors, advertising vendors do not process personal data until you accept on Grow's consent banner. If you reject, no ad creatives or advertising cookies are served. The "Cookie settings" link in the footer reopens that banner. Full details: Mediavine privacy policy.

Ad placements are visually distinct and do not look like editorial content.

Affiliate links

Where an external link on the site is an affiliate link, it is labelled inline near the link itself, for example with a small "Ad", "affiliate", or "partner" tag. We follow the ASA CAP Code requirement that paid-for content is identifiable as such before you click.

Affiliate links do not change the underlying data or rankings:

• Pass rate rankings are computed from the DVSA quarterly statistical release. No advertiser or affiliate partner can move a centre up or down a ranking.
• Guide articles cite verifiable gov.uk sources. The presence of an affiliate link in a guide does not change the editorial position of that guide.
• The same article is shown to every visitor regardless of which advertiser is bidding for the page's ad slot at any given moment.
• If a service we link to drops in quality or starts misleading users, the link is removed. We do not have minimum-volume commitments with any affiliate partner.

Affiliate links on tool pages

Some tool pages may carry affiliate links to insurance and driving-service partners, joined through the Awin network. These cover things like car insurance comparison, short-term learner cover and breakdown cover.

If a reader gets a quote or takes out a policy through one of these links, the site may earn a commission, at no extra cost to the reader. These affiliate partnerships never influence the data, rankings or editorial content on the site. Every affiliate link is marked with rel="sponsored" so it is identifiable as a paid-for link before you click.

Driving school recommendations

PassRates.uk is a data and reference site, not a driving school comparison engine. We do not maintain an editorially-vetted list of recommended driving schools or instructors. When a driving school appears as a link, treat it as:

• Affiliate if it is labelled with an "Ad", "affiliate", or "partner" tag, in which case we earn a commission on purchases.
• Reference if it is not labelled, in which case the link is editorial (for example, citing the official register of Approved Driving Instructors on gov.uk) and no commission is involved.

Either way, we cannot verify the quality of any individual instructor at scale, and the appearance of a school on the site is not a guarantee or endorsement of teaching quality. Always check the instructor's ADI registration on the gov.uk Find Driving Schools service before booking.

Sponsored content (not accepted)

PassRates.uk does not accept sponsored articles, paid product placements inside guides, paid "mentions" of a specific school, or pay-for-ranking arrangements. If this ever changes, this page will be updated first and the relevant content will be clearly labelled "Sponsored" in line with ASA rules.

Editorial independence

The rankings and methodology on PassRates.uk are decided independently of any commercial relationship. Specifically:

• Centre rankings come directly from the DVSA quarterly statistical release and are computed in code. No human (advertiser, affiliate partner, editor) can edit a centre's position by hand.
• Methodology changes (for example, the minimum-test-volume floor used in rankings) are documented on the methodology page with a dated changelog.
• Guide articles are reviewed against gov.uk sources before publication. The Last reviewed date on each guide reflects the date of that human review.
• If a fact is wrong or out of date, you can email hello@passrates.uk and we fix it. Corrections do not depend on the advertiser of the affected page.

What we do not collect

PassRates.uk itself does not collect personal information from visitors. The site has no sign-up, no contact form that posts to our servers, no comment system, no newsletter, and no user-generated content. Server access logs (IP, user agent, URL, timestamp) are retained for at most 30 days for security and debugging.

Third-party analytics services (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity) collect data only after you accept the cookie banner. Grow by Mediavine provides the consent banner itself, and any advertising data would be collected only if you accept. Full detail is on the privacy policy.

Current partners

The site is in the early stages of monetisation. As affiliate partnerships are added, the active list will be published here with the partner name, the type of service, and the commission arrangement (where the partner's terms allow disclosure). If you would like to discuss a partnership that fits the editorial rules above, email hello@passrates.uk.

Contact and complaints

Questions about advertising, affiliate practices, or commercial relationships: hello@passrates.uk.

Privacy or data-protection questions: privacy@passrates.uk.

If you believe a piece of paid content on the site is not clearly labelled, please tell us and we will fix the labelling within one working week. You can also report a labelling concern to the UK Advertising Standards Authority at asa.org.uk.