How we make money and order search results

CONNECT is run by foodfacts.org (FOODFACTS.ORG, company number 15414442), a non-profit company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales. It has no shareholders and pays no dividends.

The money CONNECT makes pays for running CONNECT, and any surplus goes to foodfacts.org’s work against food misinformation. foodfacts.org publishes its own funding and disclosures (opens in a new tab), including the grants and donations it receives.

Clients: we don’t charge you a booking fee. You pay the price the practitioner sets, which is shown on their profile before you book. Payments are processed by Stripe.

Practitioners: our income comes from commission on bookings.

• 10% commission on paid bookings. When a client pays for a session or a package of sessions through CONNECT, we keep our commission and the rest goes to the practitioner. Practitioners on a paid plan pay a lower rate (see plans, below).
• No commission on free sessions. Free discovery calls cost the practitioner nothing.
• Twelve months per client. We only take commission on a client’s bookings with a practitioner for the first 12 months after that client’s first booking with them. After that, the practitioner keeps the full price.
• Refunds. If a paid booking is refunded, our commission is refunded too.
• No listing or lead fees. It’s free to join and be listed. We don’t charge for enquiries, messages or profile views.
• No commission on work arranged outside CONNECT. We don’t take a share of anything a practitioner earns outside CONNECT.

We don’t sell advertising, sponsored listings or higher places in search results, and we don’t take payment to mention anyone in our guides.

Every practitioner starts on our free Starter plan, with 10% commission on paid bookings. Some practitioners are on a plan that swaps a monthly or annual fee for a lower commission rate. Paid plans aren’t available to buy online yet.

A practitioner’s plan only changes the commission they pay. It never changes how we verify them or where they appear in search results.

• The first 25 practitioners we verify become Founding Practitioners. Places are given automatically, in the order we verify practitioners, until they’re all taken.
• Founding Practitioners pay 0% commission on bookings made through CONNECT for 6 months, including bookings from clients we introduce.
• The 6 months start on the date of their first paid booking, not when they join, so the offer isn’t used up while they set up. After that, their plan’s normal commission applies.
• Founding Practitioners have a “Founding Practitioner” badge on their profile and in search results. It means they were one of the first 25 practitioners to join. It isn’t a mark of quality, and it doesn’t affect where they appear in search results.

Our page for dietitians and nutritionists shows how many founding places are left.

Our directory only shows practitioners we’ve verified who have chosen to publish their profile.

Filters decide who appears

You can narrow the results by specialism, title (dietitian or nutritionist), type of session (video, phone or in person), maximum price, city or a keyword. A keyword search looks for the word in a practitioner’s name, headline or bio. The price filter uses the practitioner’s lowest price for a paid session. Filters only decide who appears. They don’t change the order.

The default order (“Top rated”)

Unless you choose another sort, results are ordered by these factors, in this order of importance:

1. Featured practitioners first. Our team can choose to feature a practitioner. Featured practitioners appear before everyone else, whatever their rating. Featuring is an editorial decision: practitioners can’t pay for it, and it doesn’t depend on their plan or on how much commission they earn us.
2. Average star rating, highest first. Practitioners with no published reviews yet come after everyone with a rating.
3. Number of published reviews, most first, when ratings are the same.
4. Name, A to Z, when everything else is the same.

Why this order: ratings come only from clients who have had a session, so they’re the most useful signal we have of other people’s experience. The number of reviews shows how many people a rating is based on. Alphabetical order is a neutral tie-break. Our reviews policy explains how ratings are calculated.

Other ways to sort

• Price, low to high or high to low, uses each practitioner’s lowest price for a paid session. Practitioners without a price come last.
• Most experienced uses the years of experience practitioners tell us. We don’t verify this. Practitioners who haven’t told us come last.

When you choose one of these, featured status and ratings make no difference. Practitioners with the same price or experience are listed alphabetically.

What doesn’t affect the order

• a practitioner’s plan or commission rate;
• being a Founding Practitioner;
• paying us anything, because we don’t sell higher places, sponsored listings or advertising;
• how many bookings a practitioner has had, or how many people have viewed their profile;
• whether they offer a free discovery call.

We show up to 60 practitioners for any search. If there are more, use the filters to narrow it down.

On our homepage

The “Meet the experts” section on our homepage shows four practitioners: those with the highest average rating first, then those with the most reviews, then those who joined most recently. Featured status doesn’t affect it.

If we change how we order results, we’ll update this page.

Practitioners on CONNECT are independent professionals running their own practices. They offer their services as traders (businesses), not as private individuals, and they aren’t our employees. When you book a consultation, your contract for it is with the practitioner.

Our cancellation policy gives you a full refund if you cancel at least 24 hours before a session, or if the practitioner cancels. Our terms of service set out the full details. If something goes wrong, see how to raise a concern.