Affiliate disclosure

The statement

As an Amazon Associate, Openear Club earns from qualifying purchases. When you click a “Check price on Amazon” button or another product link on this site and buy something on Amazon, Amazon pays Iron Mako Media a commission. It costs you nothing extra; the price you pay is Amazon's price.

Iron Mako Media also runs brand-direct partner programs through the Impact affiliate network. A “Check price at Shokz” or “Check price at Suunto” button goes to that brand's own store, and if you buy there the brand pays Iron Mako Media a commission. The same thing is true as on Amazon: it costs you nothing extra, and the price you pay is the brand's own price. Where a brand-direct price is printed next to a button it is the maker's published list price with the date we read it — we do not claim a discount we have not verified, and the brand sets the price on the day, not us.

Which links earn

Every buy button and product link on the site. They route through a short redirect on our own domain (the address starts with /go/) that adds our tracking for that retailer — our Amazon Associates tag for Amazon, our Impact link for Shokz or Suunto — and then sends you on. Those links are marked in the page code as sponsored, and a “#ad” note with a link to this page sits under every buy button, including the ones that read “Check price” with no number. A link to a manufacturer's spec page or an independent review is a plain reference link and earns nothing.

Active affiliate relationships: Amazon, Shokz, Suunto — Amazon through Amazon Associates and the two brand-direct programs, Shokz and Suunto, through the Impact network. No other affiliate network or brand program is active; links to the other headphone makers' own sites (Bose, Soundcore, Nothing, Beats, JLab, Baseus, Cleer, Creative, H2O Audio, Mojawa, Raycon) are untracked reference links that earn nothing. If that changes, this page will say so.

Where the price in the button comes from

Amazon prices change daily and Amazon's rules require any displayed price to be current. Every price on this site is pulled from Amazon's own product feed and carries the “as of” date it was read. It disappears automatically once that feed is more than 48 hours old and the button falls back to “Check price on Amazon” rather than showing a number we can no longer stand behind. No price is ever typed into the copy. Where a page says a product is “under $100,” that refers to the maker's own list price on the date checked, stated as such, never a live Amazon price.

What commissions don't change

The rankings. Every score is a weighted mean of published rubric metrics (How We Rank), fixed before a product is scored. A product's commission rate is not one of the metrics. Several picks on this site link to makers' sites that earn us nothing; they're there because they answer the question. Full detail in the editorial policy.

FTC

This disclosure is provided in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines on endorsements and affiliate marketing. Openear Club is operated by Iron Mako Media. Questions: contact@openearclub.com.