How We Make Money

Some things you should know, because they're true of every affiliate site and most don't tell you:

 

• Commission rates differ between brands. Amazon pays us roughly 1% on grocery items. A direct brand partnership might pay 15%. That's a real difference, and it's a real incentive.

• So here's how we handle it: rankings and scores are decided before we look at commission rates. Where two products score the same, we say they score the same — we don't break the tie on commission. Where a product we earn nothing from is better, we say it's better, and we link to it anyway.

• We link to products we score badly. If you want to buy it after reading why we didn't like it, that's your call, and we're not going to hide the link to make a point.

   

Where you'll see it

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Every page with affiliate links carries a disclosure at the top, above the content, in normal-sized readable text. Not in the footer. Not in grey 9-point type. At the top, where you'll actually see it.

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2. Display advertising

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We run automated display advertising through Google AdSense.

 

These ads are placed programmatically. We do not choose which advertisers appear, and advertisers do not know which article they'll appear next to. A gum brand cannot buy an ad on our site and get a better review — the ad network sits between us, and we have no commercial relationship with the advertisers at all.

If you see an ad on this site for a product we've criticised, that's the system working as intended, not a contradiction.

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We cap ad density at [3] units above the fold and we don't use pop-ups that block the article. If an ad is doing something it shouldn't — misleading creative, autoplay audio, anything malicious — tell us and we'll block it.

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3. Sponsorships and brand partnerships

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Brands can pay us for specific, clearly-labelled things. Here's the complete list of what's for sale:

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What brands CAN buy:

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• A sponsored article, labelled "Sponsored" at the top and in the URL, written by us and clearly marked as paid placement for $250 per article.

• A dedicated newsletter send to our subscribers, labelled as sponsored

• An integration in a video on our social channels, disclosed in-video and in the caption

• Priority in our testing queue — paying to have their product reviewed sooner than it otherwise would be

• Presently, NO BRANDS are paying for a sponsored article as of 9/17/2026.****

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What brands CANNOT buy — at any price:

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• A specific score, rating, or ranking

• A position in a "best of" list

• Removal or amendment of a negative review

• Removal of a verification verdict

• Advance sight of a review before it publishes

• Approval or veto over what we write

• Exclusion of a competitor from a comparison

 

On paid testing priority: a brand can pay to be reviewed sooner. They cannot pay to be reviewed favourably, and we publish the result whatever it is. If a brand pays to jump the queue and we don't like the gum, the bad review publishes, they don't get a refund, and the payment is disclosed at the top.

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On sponsored articles: a sponsored article is the brand's message, labelled as the brand's message. It is not a review, it never carries a score, it never appears in a ranking, and it is excluded from our comparison tables. We keep the two things completely separate so that "sponsored" never leaks into "reviewed."

 

What money doesn't touch

 

Some concrete commitments, so you can hold us to them:

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1. Ratings are set before commercial terms are discussed. Testing happens first. Money conversations happen after, or not at all.

2. We publish negative reviews of brands we earn from.

3. We will end a partnership rather than change a review. If a brand makes continued payment conditional on editorial changes, we decline and we say so publicly.

4. We don't take equity. We have no ownership stake in any gum company. If that ever changes, this page changes first and we'll disclose it on every relevant page.

5. Verification verdicts are never for sale, in either direction. A company cannot pay us to be marked Verified, and a company's competitor cannot pay us to mark them anything.

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Why we're telling you this

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We ask you to trust us when we say a seller isn't what it claims to be. That's a serious thing to publish about a business, and it only carries weight if you know where our money comes from.

 

So: this is where our money comes from. If anything on this page ever stops being accurate, we'll update it before the change takes effect, not after.

 

Questions about any of this? Ask us directly — we answer.

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The legal bits

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We participate 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.

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We also participate in affiliate programs with other retailers and brands. Our disclosures comply with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255).

Nothing on this site is medical or dental advice. Statements about dietary supplements and functional ingredients have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and no product reviewed here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Last updated: 9/14/2026 See also: How We Test · Privacy Policy · Contact