Affiliate Disclosure
How we earn - and how it doesn't affect our recommendations
Plunge Depth participates in affiliate programs. When you buy through our links, we may earn a small commission. This is how we fund the site.
How It Works
We use affiliate links to Amazon, brand direct websites, and authorized retailers. When you click a product recommendation link on this site and complete a purchase on the retailer's site, we receive a percentage of the sale value as a commission. This is paid by the retailer and does not increase the price you pay - you get the same price whether you arrive through our link or navigate directly to the product page.
Commission rates vary by retailer and product category. We do not have insight into specific commission rates for every product we cover, and commission size plays no role in our scoring or ranking methodology.
Editorial Independence
Affiliate commissions don't determine what we recommend. Our rankings are based on testing criteria - temperature performance, chiller efficiency, build quality, filtration, noise levels, and value for money - that we apply consistently regardless of whether a brand has an affiliate program.
We have passed on affiliate relationships with brands whose products scored poorly in our testing. If a tub doesn't perform, we say so - regardless of whether the brand offers a commission.
We have also recommended products from brands that offer no affiliate commission, when those products genuinely outperformed better-monetized alternatives. Our goal is a reputation for honest assessments. That is worth more to us long-term than optimizing for commission rates.
No brand pays us to be included in a round-up, to receive a higher placement, or to influence the language of a review. If that ever changes, we will say so clearly at the top of the relevant article.
Identifying Affiliate Links
Any product recommendation or "Buy" link on this site may be an affiliate link. These links include rel="nofollow sponsored" attributes in the HTML source code, which is the standard technical method for identifying monetized outbound links to search engines.
We do not mark every individual link with a visible badge because doing so would clutter the reading experience. Instead, we disclose our affiliate relationships clearly and prominently - on this page, at the top of every article page in a disclosure notice, and in our About page. When in doubt, assume any product link on this site may be monetized.
FTC Compliance
In compliance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines on endorsements and testimonials (16 CFR Part 255), we disclose all material connections between this publication and the brands and retailers whose products we cover. Receiving a commission from a purchase qualifies as a material connection under FTC guidance.
This disclosure page, combined with the per-article disclosure notices, satisfies our ongoing FTC disclosure obligation. If you have questions about a specific relationship or want to know whether we have an affiliate arrangement with a particular brand, email hello@plungedepth.com.
Questions
Questions about our affiliate relationships, our independence, or how we apply our methodology can be sent to hello@plungedepth.com. We respond to substantive questions about editorial process within 5 business days.