We are KilnGuides. We publish free, plain-English guidance for self-employed workers across the UK, one trade at a time. By "workers" we mean people earning their living from a trade or occupation, including sole traders, limited company directors, agency workers, zero-hours staff and platform or gig workers.
This page sets out the ten commitments we make to the people who read us, the contributors who help us, and the sponsors who fund us.
This is version 1.0, published 22 April 2026. We review this Charter every quarter and publish a changelog on this page whenever it changes.
Free for workers, forever.
Every guide, tool, template and reference card on every KilnGuides vertical is free. No premium tier. No subscription gate. No paywalled calculator. No "unlock to download" on letter templates when someone's livelihood is on the line. We will not introduce a paid tier for workers on any KilnGuides property.
Email gates on builder tools exist only to verify you are a real worker in that trade, not to charge you. We do not sell or rent these email addresses; they exist to keep abuse and automated sign-ups out of worker-only tools. Printed reference cards are available as an optional paid product for those who prefer laminated pocket copies. B2B licensing exists for training providers who want to issue these guides as their own teaching resource. Workers pay nothing, ever.
Primary sources only.
Every factual claim on every KilnGuides page is traceable to a source we name and link. Legislation. Gov.uk guidance. HSE documentation. HMRC manuals. ACAS publications. Tribunal judgments. Regulator decisions. Trade body standards. By "primary source" we mean the original publisher of a rule, judgment or standard, not commentary about it. If we cannot link it to a primary source or clearly label it as informed practice rather than law, it does not go on the site. Reddit, TikTok and blog posts are starting points for research. They are never our sources.
Human editorial, end to end.
We use AI as a research assistant to surface sources and cross-check facts. We use AI tools to build and maintain the code that runs the sites. We do not publish AI-generated text without a human editor taking responsibility for every line. Every guide is written, reviewed and edited by a human making the call on every sentence. Where a trade contributor co-authored or reviewed a guide, they are named.
Editorial and commercial are separate.
Our editorial team decides what goes on KilnGuides. Our commercial team sells sponsorship. They do not share decision-making on content. No sponsor sees a guide, tool or template before it goes live. No sponsor has ever softened a word on any KilnGuides vertical, and no sponsor will. If a sponsor ever has editorial control over a piece of content, we will label it clearly as advertising in line with the UK CAP Code.
Safety content carries no sponsor placement.
Mental health, crisis signposting, domestic abuse, assault reporting, women's safety, trans safety, menopause, immigration distress and similar pages run sponsor-free across every KilnGuides vertical. We treat these as welfare and safety content, not inventory. If a sponsor wants adjacency to workers in a vulnerable moment, the answer is no. Charities listed on these pages are listed because they help, not because they paid.
No affiliate links.
Not in guides. Not in tools. Not in comparison tables. Not in emails. Not in downloads. Not in reference cards. Not one, on any KilnGuides vertical. We have removed the incentive entirely so there is no quiet pressure on editors to rank a product higher than it deserves.
No agency resellers.
Sponsorship is sold direct. We do not work with media agencies, programmatic networks or lead-generation brokers, so we can say exactly who we take money from and why. Every sponsor on every KilnGuides vertical has a name, a direct contact and a start and end date.
Corrections are public.
If you spot an error, email hello@kilnguides.co.uk. Verified corrections are made promptly. A correction note stays on the page. A separate corrections log is public per vertical. The review date on the guide is updated. We do not quietly rewrite history. Where an error could reasonably have affected someone's legal or financial decisions, we will prioritise fixing it and, where appropriate, highlight the correction more prominently.
Right of reply for anyone named.
If we name a company, platform, council, regulator or public body in a factual piece, that organisation has a right of reply. Send us a written response and we will publish it, in full and unedited, adjacent to the piece, except where we have clear legal or safety reasons to remove parts (for example, defamatory or personal information). This does not extend to asking us to remove or soften the original reporting. The facts stay. Your response sits next to them.
Opinion is labelled as opinion.
Where we publish our own view, we say so. Look for "We believe", "Our view is", "KilnGuides' position is". Our charters, our asks and our campaign pages are labelled editorial positions. Our guides are neutral explanations of the law and the rules as they stand. Where interpretation is needed, we explain it.
These ten commitments are the editorial position of KilnGuides, published under Kiln Guides Ltd, a UK-registered company. They are not the views of any sponsor. Sponsors do not see this Charter before we publish it. Our full funding policy is at /how-we-are-funded.
As KilnGuides grows and hires editorial staff, our intention is to seek regulation under the IMPRESS Standards Code, so that this Charter is backed by an independent UK press regulator as well as our own promises.