How this site makes money

The short version

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, we earn a commission from the retailer. It costs you nothing extra: the price you pay is the same as it would be if you had typed the address in yourself.

That is the entire business model. There is no paywall, no advertising, no sponsored content, and no newsletter selling your address on.

Which programs

Edge & Powder 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. Our Amazon tracking ID is fafedgeandpowder-20.

Amazon is currently the only program we participate in. We link to other retailers and brands where they are genuinely the better place to buy, and we earn nothing from those links. The pages say so where it comes up.

• Amazon - we earn a commission on qualifying purchases.
• evo - reference links only. We are not in their affiliate program and earn nothing if you buy there.
• REI Co-op - reference links only. We are not in their affiliate program and earn nothing if you buy there.
• Smith Optics - reference links only. We are not in their affiliate program and earn nothing if you buy there.
• Giro - reference links only. We are not in their affiliate program and earn nothing if you buy there.
• POC - reference links only. We are not in their affiliate program and earn nothing if you buy there.
• Patagonia - reference links only. We are not in their affiliate program and earn nothing if you buy there.

How the links work

Every commercial link on this site goes through a short address of our own beginning /go/, which then forwards you to the retailer. That exists for two reasons: it lets us count how many people click a recommendation without any tracking of you personally, and it means a link never breaks when a retailer changes a URL. Those links carry the technical markers search engines ask for on paid links, and they are excluded from search indexing.

Why commission does not decide the picks

Every publisher in this category says its recommendations are independent, and the claim is unfalsifiable on its own. So here is the evidence rather than the assertion:

• The most-read pages on this site tell people not to buy things. The buy versus rent section works out the break-even day count for every category and concludes that a once-a-year family should rent skis, boots and poles, which are the most expensive items involved. There is no commission in a rental. We publish it because it is what the arithmetic says.
• Every roundup names something not to buy. A roundup where every pick wins is an advertisement. Ours each carry at least one entry marked as a skip, with the reason drawn from the published specifications.
• The ranking is computed, not chosen. Scores come from arithmetic over published figures, and the weights and breakpoints are published. If we quietly promoted a product for commercial reasons the working printed under its score would not match the number above it.
• No brand can buy a place. We accept no payment for placement, no sponsored picks and no free product, which is also why we never claim to have tested anything.

About the prices

Prices shown next to a buy button come from the retailer and carry the date they were last verified. Prices move constantly, so the figure on the retailer’s page at the moment you click is the real one. Where no verified live price exists, the button reads “Check price” rather than showing a number we cannot stand behind. The full policy on prices is here.

Questions

If anything on this page is unclear, or you think a recommendation looks commercially motivated, write to info@edgeandpowder.com. Our editorial policy covers corrections and how this content is produced.