Affiliate Disclosure
RenewalRate.ca earns commissions when readers fund mortgages through our partner brokerages. This page tells you exactly how that works, who pays us, and what it means for you.
The short version
Some links on RenewalRate.ca are affiliate links. If you click one, visit the partner's site, and eventually fund a mortgage with that partner, the partner pays us a referral commission out of their own marketing budget. You pay nothing extra. Your rate is not changed. Your experience with the partner is not changed. We still earn the commission whether or not the article is positive about the partner, and we disclose this relationship on every page where an affiliate link appears.
Material connection disclosure
Under section 74.01 of the Canadian Competition Act and the Competition Bureau's 2018 Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest (and subsequent updates on influencer marketing and testimonials), publishers who receive compensation in exchange for promoting a product must disclose that material connection clearly and prominently. We take that obligation seriously. Every article on RenewalRate.ca that includes an affiliate link carries a visible disclosure near the top of the page, and this dedicated page documents the relationship in full.
Current partners
As of the last-updated date below, our active affiliate relationships are:
- Homewise — a FSRA-licensed Canadian mortgage brokerage (Licence #12984). Our referral link is homewisepartners.com/ohms. Commission structure: per-funded-referral, paid after mortgage funding. Status: live.
- Citadel Mortgages — Canadian mortgage brokerage. Status: pending approval. Will be activated once program is live.
- Nesto — Canadian digital mortgage lender and brokerage. Status: pending approval. Will be activated once program is live.
- Fintel Connect network partners — Fintel is a Canadian financial affiliate network that aggregates several FSRA and provincially-licensed brokerages. Status: pending approval. When activated, specific downstream partners will be listed here.
This list is updated as partners activate, pause, or end. If you want to know whether a specific link on our site is an affiliate link, email [email protected] and we will tell you.
How commissions work
There are two common structures in this industry and we use both, depending on the partner:
- Flat per-funded-referral. The partner pays a fixed dollar amount for each reader who clicks through, completes an application, and ultimately funds a mortgage. The amount varies by partner.
- Revenue share. The partner pays a percentage of the commission they earn on the funded mortgage. The percentage and the underlying commission vary by partner.
Where we know the specific arrangement for a partner, we note it on this page. What matters for you, the reader, is this: the commission is paid by the partner out of their own budget. It does not increase your rate, your fees, or your costs in any way.
What does not change when you use an affiliate link
- Your mortgage rate is not marked up, and we receive no higher payment if you pay more.
- Your application is not prioritised, deprioritised, or treated differently by the partner.
- Your data handling is governed by the partner's own privacy policy, not ours, once you leave our site. See our Privacy Policy for details on the hand-off.
- You can always go directly to the partner's main website instead of using our affiliate link. You will get the same rates and the same service. We will simply not earn a commission.
Referral scope under Ontario regulation
RenewalRate.ca is a content publisher, not a mortgage brokerage, and is not licensed under the Mortgage Brokerages, Lenders and Administrators Act, 2006 (Ontario). We operate under the referral exemption in Ontario Regulation 407/07, section 1, which permits an unlicensed person to provide the name and contact information of a licensed mortgage brokerage to a prospective borrower, without providing mortgage advice or negotiating on the borrower's behalf. We do not provide advice, we do not negotiate, and we do not hold borrower funds. When a reader wants specific advice about their mortgage, they deal directly with the FSRA-licensed (or provincially-licensed) brokerage, not with us.
Competition Bureau guidance we follow
Our disclosure practices are modelled on the Competition Bureau of Canada's published guidance, including:
- Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest (Volume 4, 2018, and later volumes) on influencer marketing disclosure
- Competition Bureau enforcement positions on testimonials and endorsements under sections 74.01 and 74.02 of the Competition Act
- The Bureau's published view that disclosures must be clear, prominent, and understandable to the average consumer, not buried, not in small print, and not in ambiguous language