Our approach
The details

Affiliate disclosure

Some links here earn SharpAndLean a commission. What that pays for, what it never buys, and how to spot one. Effective 20 September 2026.

The plain-language version

SharpAndLean is published independently, with no parent company and no ownership tie to any supplement brand. Some links to retailers or product websites are affiliate links. If you follow one and complete a qualifying purchase, SharpAndLean earns a commission from the seller or the affiliate network. You pay nothing extra for using the link — the seller sets its own prices, taxes and delivery charges, and they are identical whether you arrive through this site or type the address yourself.

Commission is compensation, and United States law treats compensation as a material connection that has to be disclosed where you will actually see it. That is why the notice sits beside the button rather than in small print at the bottom of the page.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Who pays the commission

SharpAndLean participates in four programmes: the Amazon Associates Program, ClickBank, Awin and Gurumedia. Each tracks a qualifying visit and purchase under its own rules, normally with a cookie or comparable attribution technology set on its own domain once you leave this site. Rates differ by programme, by product category and sometimes by month.

Not every product carries a commission. A review may link to a retailer with no affiliate relationship, to several sellers, or to the manufacturer with no commercial arrangement at all. A product with no affiliate programme is reviewed on the same terms as one that pays well, and an absent link is never a hidden verdict.

Amazon, ClickBank, Awin and Gurumedia are independent third parties. They do not commission, approve, review or own the editorial content on this site, and their trademarks belong to them. Participation in a programme can end, and a merchant can change its price, stock or terms after a review is published.

You should never have to guess. Every affiliate link on this site carries all four of these:

  • A written notice immediately beside the purchase button, in the same block: “Affiliate link: we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.”
  • A banner at the top of every review page that may contain one.
  • The sponsored and nofollow attributes in the link markup, which is the machine-readable equivalent for search engines.
  • A link to this page from the footer of every page on the site.

Citations, research papers, government resources and links to regulators are not affiliate links and never earn anything. Where a review cites the FDA, the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements or a published trial, that link exists because the claim needs a source.

What commission does not buy

Editorial work starts with the Supplement Facts panel and the evidence. Commercial availability is checked afterwards, once the assessment already exists. A commission cannot buy a review, a place on a shortlist, a higher score, a softer verdict or the right to read a draft before publication.

Brands may correct a factual error and may send supporting documents. They cannot negotiate a conclusion, and a disagreement with an editorial judgement is not the same thing as a factual error. No payment is accepted for a positive assessment. If sponsored material is ever published, it will be labelled as advertising, and it will be kept out of independent rankings rather than quietly folded into them.

Where two sellers are genuinely comparable, practical factors such as availability, shipping region or price may decide which link is shown. That choice affects where you buy, not what the review concluded.

Reader reviews are not bought

Community submissions are unpaid and uncompensated. No one is given money, free product, a discount or any other incentive in exchange for a rating or a comment, and none is offered in exchange for removing one. Ratings are not edited, reweighted or filtered to protect a commercial relationship, and a negative review is not suppressed because the product happens to pay a commission.

Federal rules on consumer reviews prohibit fake or incentivised reviews presented as independent, undisclosed reviews written by insiders, and the suppression of genuine negative reviews. Those rules are the floor here, not the target. If an employee, contractor or anyone with a stake in the site ever submits a review, it will say so on its face.

Evidence comes before revenue

A commission never lowers the standard of proof. Claims about what a supplement does are held to the same requirement regardless of whether the product pays: relevant, competent and reliable scientific evidence, using the form and dose that is actually on the label, tested in people who resemble the reader. Where the evidence is thin, the review says so — including on products that earn well.

This matters more in supplements than in most categories. Dietary supplements are not approved by the FDA for safety or effectiveness before sale, so a confident marketing claim carries no regulatory guarantee behind it. See the medical disclaimer for what that means for your own decisions.

Prices, formulations, pack sizes and seller terms change without notice, and a label can be reformulated after a review is written. Always check the current Supplement Facts panel, price and returns policy on the seller’s own page before buying. A price quoted in a review reflects the date it was checked, not a promise about today.

If a commercial link looks unmarked, ambiguous or out of date, report it through the contact page with the page address and the link in question. It will be checked and fixed. Disclosure is only worth anything if it is visible at the moment you are deciding, which is the whole reason it sits next to the button instead of down here.