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Whitewashed villa with an infinity pool above a calm Mediterranean bay at golden hour — illustrative scene
About us

About CompareVillas

An independent UK comparison site with one job: telling you the truth about holiday villas, whether or not the truth earns us a penny.

Who we are

CompareVillas is published by The Media Den, a small independent UK team behind a family of honest comparison sites. We're not owned by a villa company, a booking platform or a travel group, and no provider has any say in what we publish.

We don't put founder photos and life stories on this page, because who we are matters less than how we work. What we will tell you: we're based in the UK, we book villa holidays for our own families like everyone else, and we got tired of the gap between what listings promise and what turns up.

Why villas, of all things? Checked July 2026

Because a villa is the highest-stakes accommodation booking most families ever make — and the one with the least verifiable information behind it.

Think about what a typical villa booking asks of you: often thousands of pounds, paid months in advance, for a specific private property you've never seen, chosen from photos and a description written by the person selling it. There's no hotel chain standard to fall back on, no front desk if something's wrong, and on some large platforms you don't even see the exact address until after you've paid. "Five minutes to the beach" is a claim, not a measurement.

Hotels, flights and insurance all have mature comparison tools. Villas mostly don't — so that's where an honest referee is worth the most. We score villas on things we can actually verify: measured beach distances from open map data, amenities from published specifications, financial protection from the provider's own registrations. Where we can't verify something — like how peaceful a villa really is — we say so plainly and publish the gap rather than a guess. You can read exactly how on our methodology page.

Whitewashed houses above a clear turquoise cove at golden hour — illustrative scene
why trust us?

Our side of the deal

Anyone can say they're honest. What follows is the pledge we publish, date-stamp — and invite you to hold us to.

Our word, in writing

Our editorial independence pledge

Some links on CompareVillas may pay us a commission if you book — that's how the site plans to keep the lights on, and it costs you nothing extra. But money and editorial never mix. Specifically:

  • Commission never affects a score, a verdict or a ranking. The scoring runs on data; the data doesn't know who pays us.
  • No provider sees our content before publication, and none can pay to change it, remove it or rank higher.
  • We link to the right provider even when the link earns nothing. If the best fit for you is a company we have no commercial relationship with, that's who we point you to.
  • We publish our working. Factual sections carry a "Checked" date, claims are sourced, and when we get something wrong we correct it visibly — see our complaints and corrections policy.

The full plain-English version lives on our How we make money page — including the honest detail that, as a pre-launch site, most of our links currently earn us nothing at all.

Where we are on the journey

CompareVillas launches fully in autumn 2026, when our scored villa comparisons go live. Our first researched guides are published now — starting with the Algarve, UK villa companies compared and the true cost of a villa holiday — so you can judge the standard of our work before you trust it with a booking decision.

One thing will never change between now and launch: we are an introducer, not a travel agent or booking platform. We never take your booking or your money — you always book directly with the villa company or platform, and your contract is with them. Our terms of use spell that out.

Questions, corrections, partnerships?

We'd genuinely like to hear from you — especially if we've got something wrong. Contact us and we'll reply within five working days.