Affiliate Disclosure

Plain-English Summary

theRANKS participates in affiliate programs. That means when you click a "Buy" or product link on this site and then complete a purchase at the retailer, we may earn a commission from that retailer. The price you pay is unchanged whether you click an affiliate link or type the URL directly into your browser.

Affiliate income funds the editorial work that produces the rankings. It does not - and cannot - influence which products rank higher. The full mechanics are below.

FTC Compliance

This disclosure is published in compliance with the Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255), including the 2023 update. theRANKS materially participates in the affiliate programs listed below, and our content is a material connection to those programs as defined by the FTC.

Every page on theRANKS that contains affiliate links also carries a brief disclosure in the footer, with a direct link back to this page for the full text. Every "Buy" link on a product or ranking page is a marked affiliate link - there are no hidden affiliate URLs disguised as editorial recommendations.

Programs We Participate In

theRANKS earns commissions through the following affiliate programs. The list is comprehensive at the date below; new programs may be added as we cover new categories, and the next "Last updated" date reflects any change to this list.

• Amazon Associates - the primary affiliate program for the majority of products covered. theRANKS 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.
• Target Affiliates (via Impact) - secondary affiliate relationship for products available at Target.
• Best Buy Affiliates (via Impact) - secondary affiliate relationship for electronics available at Best Buy.
• Walmart Affiliate Program - secondary affiliate relationship for products available at Walmart.
• Awin and ShareASale partner networks - coverage for direct-to-consumer brands across mattress, kitchen, fitness, and wellness categories.
• Direct-to-consumer brand affiliate programs - individual programs run by select D2C brands (sleep, supplements, smart-home). These are disclosed individually on the specific product pages where they apply.

How Commission Rates Vary

Affiliate commission rates vary by retailer and by product category. Amazon Associates commission rates currently range from roughly 1% to 4% depending on the product category. Other retailers pay 1% to 10%. Some direct-to-consumer brands pay flat per-purchase commissions of $5 to $50.

This variability is the exact reason we have built a strict firewall between commission data and ranking data. A product that earns us a $50 commission has no advantage over a product that earns us a $1 commission. The composite score is computed first, then the affiliate ID is attached to the link at render time.

How Affiliate Income Does Not Influence Rankings

The composite score that determines ranking order is computed entirely from the five data dimensions documented in methodology - demand, trust, value, quality, and durability. Commission rate, retailer relationship, and any contractual minimum-payment terms are not inputs to the score and never have been.

Mechanically: the ranking engine reads only the product candidate data and the dimension signals. Affiliate URLs are joined to ranked products at the render layer - long after the score and rank position have been finalized. There is no code path in the ranking engine that has access to commission-rate data.

For the full editorial standard around independence from advertisers, see our trust page.

Sponsored Content Policy

theRANKS does not publish sponsored content under our editorial brand. We do not write paid posts, paid reviews, paid placements, paid "Best Of" inclusions, or paid product features. Brands cannot pay to appear in a ranking, cannot pay to rank higher in a ranking they already appear in, and cannot pay to remove a competitor from a ranking.

If we ever publish sponsored content - for instance, a clearly-marked partner article alongside the editorial content - it will be visually and structurally distinct, will be labeled "Sponsored" prominently, and will not be eligible for inclusion in any composite-scored ranking. The "Sponsored" label will appear in the article title bar, the URL slug, and the article metadata.

Gifted Products and Press Samples

theRANKS does not solicit free product samples for evaluation. Where a product is provided unsolicited by a brand or PR firm - the routine practice in consumer-product journalism - we do not treat that gift as a commitment to cover the product. We accept gifted samples only when (a) the cost of independent purchase would be prohibitive, and (b) editorial coverage is not promised in exchange.

When a member of the editorial team has personally evaluated a product, the article will note whether that evaluation involved a gifted unit, a retail-purchased unit, or a borrowed unit. This is a standard journalistic disclosure and does not relax our composite-scoring methodology.

Third-Party Tracking on Affiliate Links

When you click an affiliate link from theRANKS, the destination retailer (Amazon, Target, etc.) may set cookies or collect analytics about the referring page, the click time, and your subsequent purchase. Those data collection practices are governed by the retailer's own privacy policy, not theRANKS's. The retailer uses that data to attribute commissions to the referring site (us); we receive aggregate, anonymized click and conversion reports only.

theRANKS does not share any personally identifiable information about you with any affiliate network. The affiliate ID in the link is a site-level identifier, not a user-level identifier.

Contact for Disclosure Questions

If you have questions about a specific affiliate relationship, a particular product\'s commission structure, or a perceived gap in our disclosure, write to hello@theranks.com. We will respond and, where the question highlights a real gap, update this page within five business days.