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BuiltInEu

Methodology, affiliate policy and corrections

What counts as European, how the editor tests products, how affiliate partnerships work, how sources and datasets are handled, and the log of past corrections.

What counts as European

A product is listed only when the company that makes it has its legal headquarters in one of these 32 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. That is the 27 EU member states, the three other EEA countries, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Founder nationality does not count: a company incorporated outside these countries, for example in Delaware, is not listed even when its team works in Europe.

The owner counts too. A company whose parent is headquartered outside these countries is not listed, even when the product is built in Europe. Products that are not yet available, such as a waitlist or a private beta, are not listed either.

New submissions are checked against the company's own website and, where one covers the company, an official register: the EU VAT system (VIES), the Global LEI index (GLEIF, which also records direct and ultimate parent companies), the Brønnøysund Register Centre (Norway), ARES (Czechia), the Estonian e-Business Register and Zefix (Switzerland). A parent outside Europe found in GLEIF blocks the listing and cannot be overridden. A register that cannot be reached counts as not checked, never as passed.

Not checked yet: whether a service runs on infrastructure owned by a company outside Europe, such as a US cloud provider or content delivery network.

How we test

Reviews on this site are written by the editor, not by a staff of reviewers. Every product is placed into one of three categories, stated plainly wherever it matters:

  • Desk researched: built from the provider's own documentation, pricing pages and support articles, each claim tied to a dated source. No account was created and no feature was used directly.
  • Hands-on tested: the editor used the product directly and recorded what happened. A hands-on test record states who ran it, the account state (signed in or out, fresh or existing), the plan or tier used, the dataset or input used for the test, the date it was run, how many runs were made, the results, and the test's limitations. Device and screenshots are recorded when the test involves them. The published DeepL and Google Translate Dutch comparison is an example of this record format: a signed-out, screenshot-free test with its limitations stated openly.
  • Confirmed by the company: a factual claim (encryption model, headquarters, ownership) that the provider has confirmed directly, beyond what its own marketing pages state.

Screenshots are reviewed for account or file identifiers before publication; that review removed three unsafe screenshots in the September 2026 corrections (see below). Pricing carries a capture date because prices change; a price without a date should be treated as unverified.

Affiliate policy

Some of the products listed here have affiliate partnerships. When you sign up through a partner link, the editor may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That revenue funds hosting, research time and testing.

Partner status never decides order. Lists, comparison tables, “Which should you choose?” sections and calculator results are ordered without reference to affiliate partnerships. On an alternatives page the order is the editor's judgement of fit for someone leaving that product. A calculator orders by its published score and breaks an exact tie alphabetically. A partner can appear in a separate slot labelled Partner, and partner products carry a Partner badge wherever they are listed.

Commissions do not change verdicts. A verdict or a “Pick it if” line is written from the checked facts on the page, never from whether a commission is paid or how large it is.

Until 29 September 2026 a house rule put the affiliate partner first among otherwise comparable products. That rule is withdrawn. Older blog posts that still follow it are corrected when they are next updated.

Every tracked affiliate link carries rel="sponsored", the attribute search engines expect for a paid or commission-bearing link. The site is cookieless: clicking an affiliate link records the page path, the placement on that page, a CTA identifier and the partner's sub-ID, with no cookie and no visitor identifier attached.

Data and sources

Factual attributes (whether a product is open source, whether it is self-hostable, whether it has a free tier, its headquarters, its parent company, its price) are published only when there is an exact-quote source behind them. When no such source exists, the field is left null rather than approximated or inferred.

Published pricing datasets, such as the European Cloud Storage Cost Index, link every price to the provider's own pricing page and the date we captured it. Prices are never converted between currencies: a price quoted in US dollars is shown in US dollars, a price quoted in euros is shown in euros, and the two are never mixed into a single comparison figure.

Corrections

When a published claim turns out to be wrong, outdated or unsupported, it is corrected and logged here with the date, the pages affected, and a short summary. Spotted something that belongs on this list? Write to info@builtineu.eu.

  1. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: removed Recursive Superintelligence. The May edition listed it at $4.0B as a confirmed UK-legal entity and said it had not flipped to a US structure. The $4.0B was the pre-money figure of reports made before the round closed; the closed round was $650M at $4.65B. The company's own terms and privacy policy name Recursive Superintelligence, Inc. in San Francisco under California law, and the UK company has filed no share allotment since its ÂŁ10 incorporation, so the equity sits in the US company. The statements that the founders chose UK incorporation as a regulatory choice and that it 'did not flip' were also removed.

  2. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected Harmattan AI's valuation from $1.5B to $1.4B. Every USD source for the January 2026 Series B gives $1.4B, which was below the May edition's own $1.5B threshold. Harmattan AI now appears as an honourable mention, placed by value.

  3. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: removed Multiverse Computing. The May edition ranked it at $1.76B, which was €1.5B converted at the May rate: the pre-money valuation of a Series C that had not closed. The company announced the round on 27 July 2026 as one that 'may remain open', and no closing has been announced. Its last closed round (Series B, June 2025) disclosed no valuation, so it has no confirmed valuation that qualifies.

  4. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: removed Wonderful. Its privacy policy states that Wonderful is incorporated under the laws of the State of Israel and acts as the data controller, the same ruling the index applied to Fundamental in May. The May row also had two wrong figures: the Series B was $150M (shown as €130M, a third-party conversion) and total raised was $286M at that point (shown as $180M).

  5. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: removed Owkin and Tractable from the companies just below the top 15. Both are consolidated by Delaware parent companies in the GLEIF register, so neither met the legal-headquarters rule in May. Owkin's stored '$175M strategic round, September 2024' is not supported (the cited page returns 404; its $1B dates from Sanofi's November 2021 investment). Tractable's $1B dates from its June 2021 Series D, not the 2023 Series E as stated.

  6. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index sidebar: corrected Poolside from $12B to its last confirmed valuation of $3B (Series B, October 2024, Bloomberg-reported). The $12B round of October 2025 was reported as 'in discussions' and, according to the company's investor letter as reported in August 2026, never closed.

  7. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index sidebar: corrected ElevenLabs. The May edition showed $3.3B (Series C, January 2025), but ElevenLabs had announced a $500M Series D at $11B on 4 February 2026, before the May research. Its legal entity is Eleven Labs Inc., a Delaware company, not 'New York, US'. A September 2026 employee tender at $22B is a secondary sale and is noted separately.

  8. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected the Aleph Alpha entry. It said Aleph Alpha was acquired by Cohere in 2025 and that its founder departed. The combination was announced on 24 April 2026 and a definitive agreement signed on 16 September 2026; it had not closed as of 7 October 2026. Jonas Andrulis gave up the CEO role in October 2025 and moved to chair the advisory board. The FAQ also listed Cohere among public parent companies; Cohere is private.

  9. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected the Faculty AI entry. Accenture plc, which completed the acquisition on 16 March 2026, is domiciled in Ireland, not a 'US public parent'. Accenture did not disclose the price; about $1B is reported only.

  10. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected the Builder.ai entry. Its parent, Engineer.ai Corp., is a Delaware corporation, so it would not have met the legal-headquarters rule. Sachin Dev Duggal stepped down as CEO in early 2025; Manpreet Ratia was CEO at the insolvency. The $1.5B was 'once valued at about' per Bloomberg, not a stated May 2023 post-money figure, and the sources say it raised more than $450 million, not that $450 million was lost.

  11. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected the Stability AI entry. The UK company is 75% or more owned by Stability AI, Inc. (Delaware), so it would not have met the legal-headquarters rule. James Cameron joined the board on 24 September 2024, not June 2024. The company raised a $76M Series B in August 2026 without disclosing a valuation, so 'no primary round since' no longer holds.

  12. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected the Quantum Systems note 'Targeting an early-2027 IPO with Morgan Stanley'. It combined two reports: a possible listing by early 2027 (Manager Magazin, via Reuters) and Morgan Stanley's mandate to run a private financing round.

  13. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: corrected or removed unsupported totals raised. Helsing's $2.4B had no source and is now shown as not disclosed. Synthesia's $420M did not match the company's own figures (over $330M before its $200M Series E) and is now shown as not disclosed. Wayve's total now uses the company's stated $2.8B. AMI Labs' valuation changed from $4.5B to $4.53B: the May edition rounded the same derived post-money figure, the sum of the published $3.5B pre-money valuation and the $1.03B round, and the row now shows it unrounded and labelled as derived.

  14. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: noted rounds the May edition did not assess. Nscale's Series C (about $14.6B post-money) closed in March 2026, before the May edition, and was not considered because the index had not ruled on AI infrastructure; it is now admitted. Legora's valuation was already $5.6B post-money on 30 April 2026, not $5.55B. Roark Aerospace's registered office is in Mildenhall, not Cambridge, and the May text named database sites (Crunchbase, Tracxn, PitchBook) as reporters of its round, which the index does not accept as sources; it now cites the company's December 2025 release as described by Resilience Media.

  15. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    European AI Index: replaced the US comparison. The May edition compared Europe's total with OpenAI at $852B and a US top 10 total of $1.715 trillion, both from an aggregator (Multiples.vc) dated 30 April 2026. OpenAI's $852B is now cited to CNBC as its March 2026 round. The US top 10 total was dropped: no current primary or tier-1 source gives one, and two of its ten companies are no longer private (xAI merged into SpaceX, which listed in June 2026; SpaceX completed its acquisition of Cursor in August 2026). Anthropic is shown separately at its May 2026 post-money valuation.

  16. /products/proton-mail, /alternatives/gmail, /alternatives/outlook

    Removed a five-star review of Proton Mail that the editor had posted as a community review. Proton Mail is an affiliate partner, and that single review produced the 5.0 rating shown beside it on alternatives pages and in the rating markup read by search engines. Ratings are now summarised, and rating markup emitted, only once a product has three reviews.

  17. /methodology, /

    Withdrew the house rule that listed an affiliate partner first among otherwise comparable products, which sat beside the homepage line 'Rankings are never sold'. Partner status no longer affects the order of any list, table, 'Which should you choose?' section or calculator result, and paid banners that were labelled 'Editor's pick' are now labelled 'Partner'.

  18. /, /methodology, /about, /faq

    Removed claims the site could not back: that every listing is checked for where your data is hosted (no hosting check exists yet), and a weighted evaluation score (data sovereignty 25 percent and so on) that no process computed. The methodology page now states what counts as European, which registers new submissions are checked against, and what is not checked yet. The About page no longer lists EU candidate countries, which the directory does not accept.

  19. /switch, /blog/proton-mail-vs-gmail-comparison

    The 'How do I leave Gmail?' route on Switch Lab, and the verdict box of the Proton Mail vs Gmail comparison, linked a migration guide for Outlook. Switch Lab now starts each 'leave' route at the researched comparison for that product (Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox), and a guide is only linked when it starts from the product being left.

  20. /products/proton-mail, /map

    Removed badges from 422 listings that no source supported: 'GDPR Compliant' (a law every listing must follow, not a certification), 'EU-Based' (the flag already shows the country), 'EU-hosted' on 37 companies based outside the EU, and 'Open Source' or 'Self-Hostable' where our own audit found otherwise. Product pages now show plan prices only from a source: our Cloud Storage Cost Index, or a price quoted with the page it came from. Proton Mail's page had shown Mail Plus at €2.99 a month; the price captured from Proton's own page is €4.99 a month, or €47.88 a year. The remaining badges are being re-checked against each vendor's own pages.

  21. /blog/your-personal-data-is-for-sale-data-brokers

    The post called Incogni a Lithuanian, EU-based company. Its privacy policy names Incogni Inc., registered in Mission Viejo, California, as the operator. The post now says so, and Incogni is no longer listed.

  22. /categories

    Removed 32 listings. Twenty-six are not European by their own pages or registers: Freedcamp, Venice AI, Authentik, Lightspeed, Incogni, GlitchTip, EspoCRM and Medusa name only companies outside Europe, Omio's site is operated by a Delaware corporation, Exness's site by entities in the Seychelles, Curaçao, the British Virgin Islands and Belize, and Mubi's privacy policy names MUBI Inc., with its terms under California law; GoCardless, Sky, Sky Go and Deliveroo (now part of DoorDash) have US parents in GLEIF, Yonder belongs to TSS, whose parent is Constellation Software (Canada); Pipedrive says its headquarters is in New York; Vonage is a US company owned by Ericsson; Timeneye (now Lucen Track) was bought in 2025 by Lucen Software, a US company, and YouCanBook.me joined Capacity, based in St. Louis, USA; Just Eat is majority-owned by Naspers/Prosus, whose controlling shareholder Naspers is South African; Keycloak, mCaptcha and Kanboard name no European company; IVPN is registered in Gibraltar, which is not on our country list; Easybrain runs a company in Minsk, Belarus. Three no longer exist: dns0.eu, Fortech's website and Infomaniak my Easy Site. ModernMT is closed to new customers and shuts down at the end of 2026, Mullvad's public DNS service ends on 2 November 2026, and EARLY (formerly Timeular) now sends new sign-ups to TimeTac. Corrected the country of ten listings to the one on the company's own legal pages (UptimeRobot SK, DataForSEO EE, Cradle CH, blockbuster.dk SE, BlazingCDN PL, Phare EE, Uptimia DE, PingPing NL, INWX CH, Luminar Neo CY), updated renamed products and moved websites (Platform.sh is Upsun, Yousign is Youtrust, MessageBird is Bird, Lexoffice is Lexware Office), and corrected four founding years to the ones the companies state (eclipso 2003, Passbolt 2017, Plausible 2018, Simple Analytics 2018).

  23. /blog/proton-mail-vs-gmail-comparison

    Removed the claim that Gmail reads your emails to serve ads and train AI. It appeared in the excerpt, the opening paragraph and the social copy, and therefore in the article's structured data. Google's own pages state that Gmail messages are not scanned or read to show ads and that personalised ads are not based on Gmail content. The article now states what Google documents that it does process (spam, phishing and malware filtering, and smart features that the user can switch off), notes that Google's no-training commitment is written for Workspace customers rather than consumer Gmail, and relocates the comparison to the encryption model, the jurisdiction and the business model.

  24. /research/european-ai-index-2026, /research/european-ai-index-2026/press, /blog/european-ai-companies-2026

    Recalculated the European AI Index totals from the company rows. Two comparisons were stated backwards (the European total of $73.16 billion exceeds Cursor's $50 billion, and Germany excluding Helsing exceeds France excluding Mistral), the press kit counted seven countries and five defence companies where the dataset holds six and four, and the Dataset structured data pointed at download URLs that did not exist. Removed a 2020 to 2026 valuation timeline and two graphics whose figures could not be reproduced from the dataset, and replaced a 'triple-sourced' claim with the per-row source links. No company valuation changed; funding rounds and legal headquarters were not re-verified.

  25. /blog/best-eu-cloud-storage-2026

    Replaced an exposed Proton Drive screenshot with a lossless conversion of Proton's own official version-history illustration. Decoded pixels match, and the retention example is explained as configurable, not a new account test.

  26. /blog/best-eu-cloud-storage-2026, /blog/proton-pass-review-2026

    Removed three screenshots and their identifier-bearing captions and alt text (an Internxt dashboard image and two Proton Pass vault screenshots) because they exposed account or item detail. No replacement screenshots were substituted.

  27. /blog/pcloud-review-2026, /blog/proton-pass-review-2026

    Stripped EXIF, XMP and IPTC metadata from 14 inline screenshots, with decoded pixels verified unchanged, and corrected captions describing pCloud's Rewind, encryption and business pricing screens and Proton Pass's import screen so the text matches what each screenshot shows.

  28. /blog/best-eu-cloud-storage-2026, /about

    Corrected kDrive's encryption model, Proton's ownership structure, and Tresorit's cryptography and business-compliance claims, and removed an unsupported CLOUD Act immunity claim, an unsourced 70 percent statistic, breach guarantees, an acquisition prediction, and stale prices.

  29. /blog/pcloud-review-2026

    Distinguished pCloud's 6 September USD promotional pricing, historical EUR screenshots, and the separately captured 5 September lifetime Crypto price, and made lifetime terms and region-switch costs explicit instead of presenting historical quotes as current offers.

  30. /blog/pcloud-review-2026

    Removed an obsolete transcript field from the public rendering of a historical pCloud video while preserving the video's ID, date, title and chapters, and added a note that the recording has not been re-recorded or corrected.

  31. /blog/proton-pass-review-2026

    Separated Proton Pass account reset from data recovery so losing one recovery method is no longer described as inevitable vault loss, corrected Bitwarden Premium to US$19.80 billed annually before tax with third-party alias costs and offline caveats stated separately, and labelled historical Proton pricing instead of presenting a mixed-currency savings claim as current.

  32. /deals

    Required every listed deal to have both active European software and a valid, configured affiliate destination, and rejected empty, unsafe or misassigned links so the page no longer implies a commission-bearing offer where only an ordinary website link exists.

  33. /products/proton-pass, /products/proton-vpn, /products/proton-meet

    Fixed a campaign mismatch on Proton Pass's affiliate link, resolved historical Proton campaign aliases to their current equivalents, and kept Proton Meet on its ordinary website until an approved affiliate campaign exists for it.

  34. /free/vpn-services, /open-source/password-managers

    Removed unsupported blanket GDPR, data-use and data-sovereignty claims from free and open-source category pages, in both visible text and structured data, and aligned the visible FAQ answers with what the page's schema markup states.