Staying Independent
No sponsorship taken. No product placement accepted. This page sets out exactly how the money works, and how it's kept away from every verdict, every time
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Every product on this site is bought personally. Nothing arrives free, and nothing is reviewed for payment.
Where the money comes from
BOST carries affiliate links to Amazon and a small number of directly negotiated retailer programmes from time to time. Clicking through and buying earns a small commission at no extra cost to the buyer. That commission funds the products bought for testing, the equipment used to test them, and the hosting behind the site.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
No display advertising runs on this site. No brand pays for placement, and no manufacturer supplies a free review unit.
What independence means here
- The principal investigator is a very fussy and hard to please person. This comes from being very sensory sensitive and a life of being frustrated and let down by most product categories. That disposition is not very compatible with gushing promotion, and so you won’t find any of it on this site. It also means that a business model based on gushing reviews was unlikely to ever fly – so the site is orientated around lab based data gathering and real world testing.
- Every product reviewed is bought at full price. None are supplied free, discounted, or loaned by a manufacturer.
- No payment, discount, or gifted product changes a verdict. A product that fails testing is marked Flagged regardless of any affiliate relationship attached to it.
- The verdict is set first, from the workbook data. Only afterwards is a retailer link chosen.
- Commission rate is never a factor in which product gets tested next, or which verdict it receives.
How testing stays separate from revenue
Every investigation runs against a fixed, published methodology before a single verdict is written. Three investigation methodologies are live so far:
About the investigator
For more information about the lead reviewer see the About page.