Affiliate Disclosure
How this site is funded, in plain English — and our promise about what that does and doesn't affect.
Wide Open Gear is free to read. We keep it that way with affiliate links. This page explains exactly how that works, because you deserve to know how a site that recommends products to you makes its money.
How affiliate links work
Some of the links to products on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we may earn a small commission from the retailer — at no extra cost to you. The price you pay is exactly the same as if you’d gone to the retailer directly. The commission comes out of the retailer’s margin, not your pocket.
Our product links route through a redirect on our own domain (paths starting with /go/) before sending you to the retailer. That’s a standard, transparent way to manage affiliate links; it doesn’t change your price or collect anything extra from you.
The Amazon Associates program
Wide Open Gear is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
At launch, Amazon is the retailer we link to. If we join other retailers’ affiliate programs in future, we’ll link to them where they’re a better option for you — and this disclosure applies to those links too.
Our promise: commission never decides the pick
This is the part that matters most. Earning a commission never changes which product we recommend.We rank for the buyer, not the payout. When a cheaper option is the smarter buy for most people, that’s our top pick — even though a pricier product would earn us more. When we think you should skip something, we say so. The reasoning on every page is the same whether a link earns us anything or not, and it’s spelled out so you can check it. You can read exactly how we evaluate products on our methodology page.
About prices
Prices shown on this site are pulled automatically from the retailer and carry the date they were last checked. Prices change constantly, so always confirm the current price on the retailer’s own page before buying — the price there is the one that applies. Where we don’t have a live price, we say “Check price” rather than show a number we can’t stand behind.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you’d like to know more about how we’re funded, please get in touch. Our full standards are in our editorial policy.