Homyprovement

Affiliate disclosure

The short version: we earn a commission when you buy through our links, it costs you nothing extra, and it does not affect what we recommend.

The short version

We may earn a commission if you buy through links on this site. It costs you nothing extra. It does not change what we recommend, and it has never changed a score.

That sentence appears above the first affiliate link on every article that carries one, because burying a disclosure in a footer is exactly the practice the FTC's guidance exists to prevent.

Who we work with

Homyprovement is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

That is currently our only affiliate relationship. If we add another, this page changes before the links go live.

How the money actually works

When you follow one of our links to a retailer and buy something, the retailer pays us a percentage of the sale. Commission rates in the categories we cover typically run between 1% and 4% — home improvement and appliances are at the low end of Amazon's rate card, which is worth knowing if you are wondering whether anyone gets rich doing this.

The price you pay is identical to the price you would pay going to the retailer directly. The commission comes out of the retailer's margin.

Under the Amazon Associates programme, a commission may also be earned on other qualifying purchases you make during the same session, including products we have never written about. That is how the programme operates, and we would rather state it than let you discover it.

What we do not do

We do not accept payment for coverage. No sponsored articles, no paid placement, no fee for a review, no "featured product" slots. If a manufacturer offers, the answer is no.

We do not accept review units. This is partly principle and partly practical: not receiving free products is why we can say honestly that we have no relationship with the manufacturers we write about. It is also why we do not claim hands-on testing, which is explained on how we review.

We do not let commission rates influence editorial decisions. This is easy to assert and hard to prove, so here is how the site is actually built:

  • Scores and verdicts are written into the article's content file. Affiliate links are not in that file at all.
  • Every affiliate link on the site is generated at render time from one central configuration file that contains a product identifier and nothing else.
  • There is no commission-rate data anywhere in the codebase. Not in the content, not in the configuration, not in the templates.

That means a change in what a merchant pays us cannot propagate into what an article says, because the article does not know and has no way to find out.

You will find affiliate links in three places on a review, and nowhere else:

  1. In the verdict box at the top, beneath the price, with the disclosure line directly above it.
  2. In a call-to-action block at the end of the article.
  3. In the sticky bar at the bottom of the screen on mobile, which can be dismissed.

Every one of them carries rel="nofollow sponsored", which is the correct markup for a paid link and which tells search engines not to pass ranking signal through it.

Comparison tables, specification tables and citation links are not affiliate links. Where we link to a manufacturer's specification page or a regulatory document, that is a plain link and we earn nothing from it.

What this funding model does to the site

Being honest about incentives means being honest about the ones we have.

Affiliate publishing rewards traffic to pages about products people buy. That is why this site covers eight products in depth rather than eighty superficially, and why it has calculators — those attract links and readers who are not shopping at all.

It also creates a pressure we are aware of: an article that says "do not buy this, rent one instead" earns nothing. We have published that advice anyway, on more than one page, because a site that cannot say it is not worth reading. The Mud Mixer review recommends renting for most readers. The tankless comparison recommends a heat pump water heater, which we do not link to at all.

If you ever read something here that feels like it was written to sell rather than to inform, tell us — get in touch.

Homyprovement is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date and time indicated on each page and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on the retailer's site at the time of purchase will apply.

Questions people actually ask

Does clicking an affiliate link cost me anything?

No. The price you pay is exactly the same as it would be if you went to the retailer directly. The commission comes out of the retailer's margin, not out of your pocket.

Do affiliate commissions influence your recommendations?

No, and the way the site is built makes that checkable. Scores are written into the content file before any affiliate link is attached, and all affiliate links are generated from one central configuration file. There is no commission-rate data anywhere in the article content for an editorial decision to be influenced by.

Which retailers do you have relationships with?

Amazon, through the Amazon Associates programme. That is currently the only affiliate relationship on the site. If that changes, this page changes with it.

Do you get paid for positive reviews?

No. We accept no payment for coverage of any kind — no sponsored posts, no paid placement, no fee for a review. Several products on this site score in the sevens with prominent criticism, and those pages carry affiliate links exactly like the rest.

What happens if I buy something different after clicking your link?

Under the Amazon Associates programme, a commission may be earned on qualifying purchases made during the session after you follow one of our links, including items we did not write about. That is how the programme works and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving implied.

How do I support the site without using affiliate links?

Share an article that helped you, or tell someone about it. That is genuinely more valuable to a small publication than a single commission, and it costs nothing.