Affiliate Disclosure
How this site makes money, in plain words and in full.
Last updated September 1, 2026
The one-line version
Clear Carafe is reader-funded. Some links on this site are affiliate links, and we may earn a commission when you buy through one — at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. That sentence, or a shortened form of it, appears under every buy button on this site and in the footer of every page, because a disclosure that only exists on a page nobody visits is not a disclosure.
What an affiliate link is, mechanically
When you click a buy button here, you pass through a short redirect on this domain (a /go/ link) which attaches our tracking identifier and sends you to the retailer. If you then buy something, the retailer pays us a percentage of the sale. The price you pay is identical to the price you would pay arriving at the retailer any other way — the commission comes out of the retailer's margin, not out of your pocket.
The redirect exists so that a destination can be corrected in one place when a product is discontinued or a program changes, rather than editing dozens of pages. It sets noindex and is disallowed in our robots file, so search engines never index it.
Which links actually earn
At launch Clear Carafe participates in exactly one affiliate program. We have not joined any commission network beyond Amazon Associates, which means most brand-direct links on this site earn us nothing at all — and where that is the case, the button says so explicitly rather than staying quiet about it.
| Retailer | Program | Do we earn? |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Amazon Associates | Yes — commission on qualifying purchases |
| SpringWell Water | None | No — this link earns us nothing |
| Aquasana | None | No — this link earns us nothing |
| Clearly Filtered | None | No — this link earns us nothing |
| Waterdrop | None | No — this link earns us nothing |
If that table ever shows more active programs than it does today, this page changes on the same day. It is generated from the site's own link configuration, so it cannot quietly drift out of date with what the buttons actually do.
What commission does not do
Commission has no role in a ranking, and there are three specific ways that is enforced rather than merely promised:
- Picks are made before links are attached. The ranking on a roundup comes from certification status, published performance data and cost-per-gallon math, documented on the methodology page. The affiliate link is added afterwards to whatever won.
- The cheaper option is allowed to win, and frequently does. A twenty-dollar pitcher earns us a fraction of what a whole-house system earns. Several pages here end by telling a reader that the cheap answer is the right answer, and at least one ends by telling them to buy nothing at all and read their utility report first.
- Every product carries a stated reason not to buy it. That field is required in our content model — a product cannot be published here without one.
What we do not accept
No sponsored placements. No paid rankings. No free or discounted products from manufacturers in exchange for coverage. No advertiser has ever seen a page before it published, and none has any input into what is recommended. Nobody has ever paid to appear on this site, and if that changes it will be labeled on the page itself, not buried here.
Prices, and why some are missing
Where a live, verified price exists, it appears inside the buy button with the date it was checked. Where one does not, the button reads "Check price" and shows no number at all. We do not display a remembered price, a manufacturer list price, or a figure we cannot verify today — a stale price is a small lie that costs a reader real money. Prices at the retailer change constantly and the retailer's page is always the authority.
The formal statements
Clear Carafe 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. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
This disclosure is made in accordance with the United States Federal Trade Commission's endorsement guides. Every outbound commercial link on this site carries rel="sponsored nofollow" in accordance with Google's outbound link qualification guidance.
Questions about any of this, or about a specific link, go to info@clearcarafe.com. The rules that govern how picks are made are in the editorial policy.