Affiliate-aware, not affiliate-driven.
We do take affiliate fees where vendors offer them. They never set the verdict. Every link that earns us a referral is flagged on the page and listed here.
What an affiliate link is.
Some product reviews on Resonance Stack contain affiliate links — URLs that pass our publisher ID to the vendor (Amazon Associates, 博客來, B&H Photo, and a small number of self-hosted SaaS programs). If you click through and later buy a paid plan or a piece of hardware, the vendor pays us a referral fee — usually 2–10 % of the purchase. The price you pay is identical whether you use our link or visit the vendor directly.
Every affiliate link carries the rel="sponsored nofollow noopener"
attributes required by Google's Search guidelines and FTC disclosure norms.
Inside an article they appear as a Tool Card with the
"Affiliate link" label printed directly on it. In the footer they
appear as the "Affiliate disclosure" link that pointed you here.
Why we run them.
Resonance Stack is independently published. Affiliate fees and a small AdSense placement together cover hosting (Cloudflare Pages), hardware review purchases (we buy the thing, then write about it), and the contributor honoraria for guest reviewers. They do not cover salaries.
We chose this model over sponsored posts and paywalls because it keeps the editorial decision separate from the commercial relationship: we link to a vendor only after we've already published the verdict.
How we keep the verdict honest.
Verdict first, link second.
The waveform signature (CLEAN_SIGNAL through NOISE_FLOOR) is decided before we check whether the vendor runs an affiliate program. If the review is NOISE_FLOOR, we don't add an affiliate link — we say "don't buy it."
One affiliate region per piece.
At most one affiliate region per article: a single Tool Card for a focused review, OR a tiered hardware-picks block when the article naturally points to a known buying decision. A tiered block names options at different reader intents — "what we use", "best value", "future-proof" — not competing reviews of equivalent SKUs. Comparison articles (where the entire piece is the table of alternatives) are the dedicated exception.
Disclosure on every link.
The Tool Card carries the disclosure on the same screen, not buried in a footer. The FTC's "clear and conspicuous" standard is the floor, not the ceiling.
No paid placement, no upgrades for cash.
Vendors can pitch us a tool, send us a free trial, or fly us out for a demo. None of that changes the waveform. We accept review copies and disclose them. We do not accept money for a better verdict and we do not edit verdicts after publication except to correct a factual error.
Programs we participate in.
The list below reflects the programs active as of the date at the bottom of this page. New programs are added here within seven days of joining, and dropped programs are crossed out, not deleted.
| Program | Used for | Joined |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Associates (US) | Apple Silicon hardware, peripherals, books referenced in reviews | 2026-06 |
| 博客來 (Books.com.tw) | Traditional Chinese technical books and 中文書 | 2026-06 (pending) |
| Google AdSense | Display advertising on article pages (not affiliate; disclosed separately by the data-ad-client tag in source) |
2026-06 (pending) |
How to spot an affiliate link in the page.
Inside a review, the affiliate link lives in the Tool Card
block — a bordered aside with "Affiliate link" printed underneath the
CTA. If you hover over the link, your browser shows it points to the
vendor's domain with our publisher ID appended (e.g.
amazon.com/dp/B0XXX?tag=resonancestack-20).
If you ever find a link on Resonance Stack that earns us a fee without the disclosure label, that's a bug and we want to know. Email editors@resonancestack.example.
繁中摘要 / Traditional Chinese summary
共振站部分文章包含聯盟行銷連結（Amazon Associates、博客來等）。讀者點擊 後購買，廠商支付我們小額推薦費，讀者實付金額不變。
我們的編輯立場與聯盟收入嚴格分離 — 評等（waveform）在我們確認廠商是否
有聯盟計畫之前就已決定。NOISE_FLOOR（不推薦）的評等不會放聯盟連結。
所有聯盟連結都依美國 FTC 規範與 Google 搜尋指引標示
rel="sponsored nofollow noopener"，並在 Tool Card 內附
明確說明文字。
若發現任何未標示的聯盟連結，請來信 editors@resonancestack.example — 那是 bug，我們會盡快修正。
This page itself.
Last reviewed: . Material changes will be timestamped here. Past versions live in the site's public git history at github.com/joshchen314/josh-content-os — note the repository itself is private, but the file you are reading is part of the public deploy.