How this site makes money.

Affiliate links

Many of the outbound product links on this site, particularly the “Buy at Amazon” buttons on the gear page and inside blog posts, are affiliate links. If you click one and end up buying, the retailer pays me a small commission. Usually a few percent.

Your price is unchanged. The commission comes out of the retailer's margin, not your wallet. You pay the same whether you click a link here or type the product name into Amazon yourself.

That commission is the only revenue this site generates. It covers the gear budget for the next round of testing and not much else.

No sponsorships

I don't run sponsored posts. I don't run sponsored videos. I don't do paid placements, paid mentions, or affiliate “partnerships” that come with editorial input from the brand. If you see a product in a NodeRig post, no brand paid for it to be there.

That rule cuts both ways. It means I can't cover gear I can't afford to buy. It also means every recommendation on this site is something I chose, paid for, and would have written about whether anyone was paying me or not.

No review units

Brands sometimes offer to send hardware for review. I send it back. If something shows up uninvited at the door, it goes back too. The gear in every video and on the desk behind me is what I actually use, bought at retail at retail prices.

The reason is simple. The moment you start accepting free units, the math on what you cover changes. You start prioritising what arrives in the mailbox over what people actually want to hear about. The free-unit pipeline ends up running the editorial calendar, not the audience.

Editorial independence

Affiliate commission doesn't bend my take. The bar for a recommendation is the same in every category: would I keep using this if no one was paying me anything? If the answer is no, I'll say so plainly, even when it costs me a commission on the cheaper alternative.

Honest experience is the whole reason this channel exists. It's the only thing worth protecting.

Questions

Email me@noderighq.com if you want to ask about a specific recommendation, a specific link, or anything else on this page. I'm happy to walk through how I arrived at any take on the site.