Company
Built by an agency, against its own interests
AdSTARS is a marketing agency. We built Connect because we kept meeting businesses who had been burned by someone unverifiable — and because the honest answer to “can you do this cheaper than an agency?” is sometimes yes, just not by us.
The problem
Marketplaces optimised for volume, not for outcomes
The existing model is eighteen million profiles, purchasable ranking, reviews anyone can farm, and a client left to evaluate claims they have no way to check. It works beautifully for the marketplace and badly for both sides of the transaction.
What clients kept telling us
- “I cannot tell the good ones from the confident ones.”
- “I paid up front and then it went quiet.”
- “The case studies were screenshots with no baseline.”
- “I spent three weeks shortlisting and hired the wrong person.”
What specialists kept telling us
- “I pay to bid against people who undercut on price alone.”
- “Half the briefs have no budget behind them.”
- “I get paid sixty days after the work, if I chase.”
- “My best results are the ones I am not allowed to name.”
What we decided
Four things we will not trade away
These are constraints, not features. Each one costs us something, which is how you know they are real.
Ranking is never for sale
Sponsored placement in a shortlist would be the easiest revenue on this platform. It is also the moment the shortlist stops meaning anything, so it does not exist.
Verification levels are labelled honestly
It would look better to call everything “verified”. Instead every result carries the level its evidence actually supports, including the level that means “we have not checked this”.
We never hold your money
Escrow sits with Stripe, a regulated payment provider, not with us. We cannot spend it, cannot delay it, and cannot release it without the client approving the milestone.
Reviews require released money
It means we will always have fewer reviews than a marketplace that lets anyone rate anyone. It also means the ones we have are worth reading.
Two businesses, deliberately separate
The agency does not get a better seat
AdSTARS Agency is a managed marketing service. AdSTARS Connect is a marketplace. Keeping them apart is the only way the marketplace is credible.
AdSTARS Agency
Done for you
We take the brief and run the marketing ourselves, as your agency. Retained, managed, accountable to you directly.
AdSTARS Connect
Done with you
You hire and direct an independent specialist. We provide the matching, the contract, the escrow and the dispute process — and no preferential placement for ourselves.
Specialists on Connect are independent and are not employees or agents of AdSTARS. AdSTARS Agency does not receive placement advantages in Connect shortlists.
Where we are
Pre-launch, and saying so
The platform is built and in release QA. We would rather tell you that than imply traction we do not have.
- Built
- platform complete, in release QAEscrow, verification, disputes, workspace and analytics are implemented.
- Open
- specialist verificationOpen now, before public launch, from the specialist page.
- Soon1
- iOS and AndroidLaunch access goes to the list rather than to a date we might miss.
AdSTARS Connect is operated by AdSTARS. It introduces businesses to independent marketing specialists and does not perform the contracted marketing work itself.
- 1We do not publish a launch date because we will not commit to one we cannot hold. Everyone who requests launch access is emailed when the apps are live, and specialists who complete verification before launch appear in the directory from day one.