PetPalHQ

Disclosure

Affiliate disclosure

Last updated: 2026-08-19

PetPalHQ is funded by Amazon affiliate commissions and by clearly-labelled sponsored placements. When you click a product link on this site and buy something, Amazon pays us a small percentage at no extra cost to you. That commission income covers the editorial work behind every guide. Sponsorship is the other part: today we run exactly one paid placement — a Waggle listing unit on our best pet cameras guide, marked Sponsored and kept in its own section. It is the only sponsored placement on the site, and this page will name any future one the same way. Either way, rankings, scores, and picks are never sponsored and never for sale.

Amazon Associates Program

PetPalHQ 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. Every clickable product link on this site carries our Associates tag petpalhq08-20 in its URL — that tag is what signals to Amazon that the visit came from PetPalHQ. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Seven kinds of places carry affiliate links on our guides. Three of them are on every buyer's guide that has a ranked roster:

  • Pick cards. Each ranked product in our buyer's guides has a price and a "Check price" link that goes to amazon.com with our tag attached.
  • Inline product-name links. When a product name appears anywhere in a review's body prose, verdict paragraph, or bottom-line summary, it's automatically wrapped in a link to that product's Amazon page. This is rendering convenience — it does not change which product we recommend or how strongly.
  • Comparison tables. Product names in our comparison tables link through to the corresponding Amazon listing.

The other four appear only in specific places:

  • The mobile price bar. On phones and small tablets, a bar pinned to the bottom of a guide repeats the top pick's price and its "Check price" link. It is the same link as that pick's card, shown again where a thumb can reach it.
  • Seasonal cross-guide blocks. A small number of guides carry a short seasonal block pointing at a pick from a related guide. On phones and tablets it sits in the body of the guide. Those links carry our tag too.
  • The seasonal promotions module. During shopping seasons, those same few guides also carry a small promotions card in the sidebar on wide screens. It is the same kind of cross-guide recommendation as the block above, tracked separately from it, and it carries its own "Affiliate link — we may earn a commission" note on the card itself.
  • Our sponsored placement. The Waggle unit on our best pet cameras guide has two "Check price" links of its own. Waggle pays for the space; the links are ordinary affiliate links, tagged separately so we can tell sponsored clicks apart from editorial ones. Nothing in that unit is ranked, scored, or considered in the guide's picks.

Affiliate links do not appear in our short-answer summaries or in FAQ answers — those sections stay clean for source citation and machine-readability. Editorial source citations (e.g., Merck Veterinary Manual, AAHA, AVMA, peer-reviewed studies) are always plain non-affiliate links to the original publication.

What an Amazon commission does — and doesn't — change

The commission rate Amazon pays for a category is not a factor in which products we recommend or how we rank them. The PetPal Gear Score (full breakdown on the methodology page) weights expert consensus (30%), effectiveness (25%), animal safety (20%), durability (15%), and value (10%). Commission rate is not a sixth factor, and the formula is publicly versioned.

We do not accept payment to change a score, a ranking, or a verdict. No brand can buy a review, a higher score, or a place among our picks. The sponsored placement we run is labelled as sponsored and sits in its own section, separate from editorial — never folded into a guide's rankings, scores, or picks, because those are not for sale at any price. If a manufacturer sends us a product to try, we say so in the coverage that comes out of it, and the conclusion is still ours. Brand-supplied review copy is not published verbatim. When manufacturer technical pages are cited, they're cited alongside independent sources and labelled as manufacturer documentation.

Federal Trade Commission compliance

This disclosure exists to comply with the United States Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255), which require clear, conspicuous disclosure of material connections between an editorial site and the products it covers. There are two here, and both are stated plainly above: PetPalHQ earns a small commission when readers buy through Amazon links on this site, and Waggle pays for a labelled sponsored placement on one guide. Neither connection buys a rank, a score, or a verdict — including on the guides where Waggle's own products are ranked, which carry the same disclosure.

PetPalHQ also abides by the Amazon Associates Operating Agreement, which requires the identification statement included above and forbids misrepresentation of pricing, availability, or product attributes. Pricing and stock are checked at the lastProductCheck date shown in each guide; if you spot something that's gone stale, tell us.

Questions or corrections

Send corrections, source suggestions, and disclosure questions to editor@petpalhq.com. The companion documents are our privacy policy (data, cookies, analytics) and the methodology page (how a product gets recommended in the first place).