Affiliate disclosure

What an affiliate link is

An affiliate link is a normal product or merchant link with a unique tracking tag baked in. When you click it and buy something, the seller or network pays us a commission. The price you pay is the same whether you use our link or land on the product on your own. We never add a markup to cover our cut.

Affiliate income is the only way GearPuff makes money. We run no display ads, sell no products of our own, and take no sponsorship to change a verdict. That single income source is also why our reviews have to stay trustworthy: if readers stop trusting our picks, the site stops working.

The three kinds of affiliate relationships we use

Not every link on GearPuff flows through the same backend. We work with merchants in three distinct ways, and each one pays us a little differently.

1. Amazon Associates

Many of our product links point to Amazon through the Amazon Associates program. When you click one of these links and buy anything during that Amazon session, we earn a percentage of the sale. The commission rate is set by Amazon's standard fee schedule, not by us, and it applies to whatever you add to your cart, not only the item we linked.

Amazon's own rule is printed above: "As an Amazon Associate, GearPuff earns from qualifying purchases." That statement appears on every page that carries an Amazon link, not just here.

2. Direct partnerships with brands

Some brands run their own in-house affiliate programs instead of going through a network. With these direct partners, we apply through the brand (or its own referral platform), get a unique tracking link, and the brand pays us the commission directly when you buy. There is no middleman network between us and the company.

The upside for you is simple: a direct link usually routes straight to the brand's own store, often with the same price and terms you would get by typing the URL yourself. We only join a brand's program after we have already decided the product is worth recommending.

3. Affiliate networks

Many merchants list their affiliate programs inside third-party networks such as ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Impact, Rakuten Advertising, and Awin. We join the network once, and from there we can promote hundreds of vetted merchants. The network handles tracking, reports our sales, and pays us in a single monthly consolidation, while the individual merchant pays the network.

From your side, a network link behaves the same as any other: you land on the merchant's real checkout, the price is unchanged, and the commission is paid behind the scenes. The network is logistics, not a separate storefront.

At a glance

How tracking and cookies work

Each affiliate link we publish carries an identifier that tells the merchant or network the click came from GearPuff. That identifier is stored in a cookie on your device for a set window, often 24 hours to 30 days depending on the program. If you buy before that window closes, the sale is credited to us.

A few practical notes. Clearing your cookies or buying after the window expires means we may not get credited, and you still pay the same price either way. If you click our link, wander off, and return to the store through someone else's link, the most recent click usually wins the credit. None of this changes what you are charged.

How we keep reviews honest

Commissions never decide what we recommend. We buy the products we review with our own money, live with them in real use, and write down what actually happened, including the parts we did not like. A product that pays a richer commission does not leapfrog a better one, and a thinner commission does not get buried.

When a claim comes from the manufacturer rather than our own testing, we say so in the article. We would rather lose a commission than send you toward the wrong gadget.

How to spot an affiliate link here

Every affiliate link on GearPuff first points to our own short redirect path that starts with /go/ (for example, /go/example-product). That path then sends you to the retailer, whether that is Amazon, a direct brand store, or a network merchant. The /go/ folder is hidden from search engines, so only the destination product pages get indexed.

Affiliate links open in a new tab and carry rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow", which tells search engines we are not vouching for the destination as an editorial endorsement. Plain navigation links in the header, footer, and category menus are not affiliate links.

What it costs you

Nothing extra. The commission is paid by the merchant out of its own marketing budget. Prices, shipping, return windows, and warranty terms are set by the seller and are identical to what you would see without our link. If a price ever looks different, it is because the retailer changed it, not because of our referral.

Our promise to you

• We only recommend products we have tested or researched thoroughly.
• We tell you when a claim comes from the manufacturer rather than our own testing.
• We never take payment to change a rating or hide a flaw.
• We disclose every affiliate relationship in plain language, on this page and at the end of each article.

FTC compliance

This page meets the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requirement that affiliate relationships be clearly disclosed. Each review, guide, and blog post also carries its own disclosure at the end of the content, and the Amazon statement above appears on every page with Amazon links.

If you are in the European Union or California, your data and consent rights around tracking cookies are covered in our privacy policy.

Questions

Want more detail on how we make money or how a specific link works? Email hello@gearpuff.com or use our contact page. Our review process explains how we test before any of this comes into play.