Transparency
How we make money
Samui Local Hub is free for travellers. Running a guide that stays correct costs time and money, so we earn in three ways — and we label every one of them.
Our three sources of income
Partner and Featured listings
Local businesses can buy a Partner or Featured listing. Paid placements are always marked “Sponsored” or “Featured”.
Commission from local providers
When our local team arranges a service for you, the provider pays us an agreed commission after the service. It is never added to your price.
No affiliate links
We currently use no partner (affiliate) links and do not send you to booking platforms. Tours, activities and rentals are requested through us and arranged with local providers.
What money never changes
- Live notices, safety information, transport alerts and weather warnings are never sponsored and never carry partner links.
- Default order = relevance, verification status, distance and freshness. Featured partners appear in a separate, labelled row and never change editorial order, ratings, or transport/safety/weather info.
- Community reports come from registered users, are checked by our team before publication and are never paid for. Businesses cannot remove negative reports or submit reports about themselves.
How to recognise paid content
These are the only labels we use. If you see one, money is involved.
- Sponsored
- a business paid for this placement.
- Featured
- a business paid to appear in a separate, labelled row.
- Partner
- this business has a paid partner listing.
- Partner link
- an external link that may earn us a commission.
Affiliate links and paid placements
At the moment Samui Local Hub uses no partner (affiliate) links. If we use them in future, they will be marked “Partner link”; the partner may then pay us a commission, and the price you pay stays the same as when you go to the partner directly.
Partner links lead to independent third-party websites. Your contract is with that partner, not with us, and their terms, privacy and cookie rules apply. We have no influence on their prices, availability or customer service.
Partner links pass through a short redirect on our own domain (/go/…). We count one anonymous click per partner and page section; we store no IP address, set no cookie and create no profile for this.
Paid placements by local businesses are marked “Sponsored”, “Featured” or “Partner”. Payment never changes ratings, editorial order or community reports, and never appears in live notices, safety information, transport alerts or weather warnings.
Partner links are marked rel="sponsored" for search engines.
Partner programmes
None at the moment. If that ever changes, every such link will carry the “Partner link” label.
What we count
When you open a partner link we count one anonymous click per partner and page section. We do not store your IP address, set a cookie or build a profile. The partner's own website has its own privacy and cookie rules.
Run a business on Koh Samui?
A basic listing is free. Paid options are labelled and never buy a better rating.
For local businessesQuestions or a correction?
If you think something is labelled wrongly or not at all, tell us — we fix it.