How we make money

We believe the fastest way to lose your trust is to be cagey about how a free site pays for itself. So this page spells it out in plain English, in keeping with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s guidance that a material connection like an affiliate link should be disclosed clearly and conspicuously.

The short version

Some of the links to products on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we may earn a commission — at no extra cost to you.The price you pay is exactly the same as if you’d gone to the retailer directly. That commission is how the site funds its time and hosting, and it never decides which product we recommend or where it lands in a ranking.

Amazon is our main affiliate partner

Circuit & Chime 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. Most of the buy links on this site point to Amazon, using our Associates tag. We may add other retailer or brand-direct programs over time; when we do, a link only earns us a commission if we’ve actually joined that program, and we’ll route you to whichever offer is genuinely better for you as the buyer, not whichever pays us more.

How our links are marked

Buy buttons carry an #adlabel and link back here, so you’re never in doubt about which links are commercial. Outbound affiliate links use the sponsoredattribute that search engines ask for, and they open in a new tab so you don’t lose your place. Every page that carries buy links also shows a short disclosure line above the first one.

Why it doesn’t change our advice

This is the part that matters. Our recommendations are built on published specifications, manufacturer documentation and running-cost math — the full method is on our how we testpage — and that reasoning is identical whether a link earns us anything or not. When a cheaper product is the better buy, we recommend the cheaper product, even though a pricier link would pay us more. When a system does its core job for free and a rival charges monthly, we say so plainly, because avoiding that recurring fee is the whole point of this site. If commission ever quietly shaped a pick, the site would be worthless to you and, frankly, to us.

About the prices you see

Prices in this category move constantly, so we never print one from memory. Every price on the site is pulled live from the retailer and stamped with the date it was checked (the current data was verified July 20, 2026). If a live price isn’t available, the button simply sends you to check the current price rather than showing a stale number. Always confirm the final price, availability and terms on the retailer’s own page before you buy — that page, not ours, is the authoritative source at checkout.

No fabricated reviews, ever

Being an affiliate site does not mean inventing praise. There are no fake testimonials, no invented star ratings, and no “in our testing” claims anywhere on Circuit & Chime, because we don’t run a test lab and won’t pretend to. What you read is our honest, spec-grounded opinion, funded transparently. If you have questions about any of this, the contact page reaches us directly, and our editorial standards are set out in full in the editorial policy.