Sofia, Bulgaria · Independent test desk · Est. 2021
We test everything.
We publish almost nothing.
Every offer submitted to Alo Boost is put on the same bench, followed from signup to cancellation, and scored — and only the top three percent ever reach the shortlist.
Pass rate 3% Cadence 14 days Paid placement none Current issue No. 47
Bench log — 12 months to 30 June 2026
1,482
Offers on the bench
Submissions accepted for testing. A further 611 were returned unopened for missing terms.
97.0%
Closed after testing
Failed on terms, redemption, support or expiry behaviour. Each closure keeps its test file.
11d
Median time on bench
From intake to decision. Anything involving a cancellation window runs longer by design.
The 3% rule
Three in a hundred. Not a target — a ceiling.
We opened with a simpler policy: publish what looks good. It produced a long shortlist and a steady stream of mail from readers who had followed our links straight into conditions we had never read.
The 3% rule replaced it in March 2023. Out of every hundred offers that reach the bench, at most three are published. If fewer than three clear it, we publish fewer — twice we have shipped an issue with a single entry, and once with none at all. The rule cannot be bought around, because we sell no placement and take no commission on redemption.
How an offer moves through the desk
Four stages, in order, every time.
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Intake
Everything arrives the same way: a submission form, a merchant name, a live link and the conditions in writing. We log the date, the claimed value and who sent it, then add it to the queue. There is no fast lane, and merchants cannot pay to skip ahead.
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Test
An editor opens the offer on a clean profile and follows it end to end — signup, redemption, one support enquiry, then cancellation. We record what the merchant promised next to what actually happened, with timestamps and screenshots kept in the file.
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Score
Five weighted axes: clarity of terms, redemption success, value once every condition is subtracted, support response time, and how the offer behaves on the day it expires. Anything below 82 out of 100 is closed and filed with the reason attached.
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Publish
What survives goes into the next issue, every second Thursday, with its test date and score printed beside it. Readers get the same file the editors worked from, and we re-test anything still listed after ninety days.
Acceptance criteria
What makes the cut, and what doesn't.
Makes the cut
Score 82+- Terms a reader can finish in one pass, with nothing held back for later
- A link that still works on the morning we publish, checked twice
- Expiry date and eligibility stated by the merchant, in writing
- A support channel that answers a plain question inside 48 hours
- Value that survives once every condition has been subtracted
- Cancellation possible in the same place the signup happened
What doesn't
Closed & archived- Conditions that change between the landing page and the confirmation screen
- Codes that only work for accounts we cannot open ourselves
- Offers that require a phone call to cancel, or a form we never receive
- Pages that redirect to a destination we did not test
- Anything a merchant declines to put in writing when asked directly
- A payment offered to us in exchange for the listing
About the desk
Four people, one bench, no clients.
Alo Boost is a four-person editorial desk on the third floor of an office building near Slaveykov Square in Sofia. We started in 2021 as a shared spreadsheet between people who kept getting caught by the same fine print, and the method has barely changed since — only the record-keeping got stricter.
The shortlist is funded by its readers and by two clearly labelled display panels in each issue. Merchants are welcome to submit an offer and are told the same thing every time: it goes on the bench in the order it arrived, and we publish the result either way.
Where to find us
Alo Boost EOOD14 Tsar Ivan Asen II Street, Floor 3
1124 Sofia, Bulgaria
contact@aloboost.com