Disclosure
Affiliate disclosure
How this site makes money, stated plainly, and why it does not change what we recommend.
The short version
Cue & Paddle is reader-funded. When you buy something through a link on this site, we may earn a commission from the retailer, at no extra cost to you. It never affects which products we pick or how we rank them.
What an affiliate link is
When we recommend a product, the buy button links to a retailer — in our case, Amazon. That link carries a tag identifying us as the referrer. If you buy something after clicking it, the retailer pays us a small percentage of the sale.
You pay exactly the same price you would have paid otherwise. The commission comes out of the retailer’s margin, not out of your pocket.
Every one of those links is marked with #ad where it appears, carries the standard sponsored nofollow attributes so search engines understand what it is, and passes through a redirect on this site so that a merchant can be updated later without rewriting every page.
Amazon Associates
Cue & Paddle 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 is currently the only retailer we have an affiliate relationship with. If that changes we will update this page.
Why the commission does not change our picks
This is the part that matters, so here is the reasoning rather than just a promise.
- Our relationship is with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Amazon pays a commission rate by product category, not by brand. We have no financial reason to prefer one pool table over another.
- Nobody pays for placement. No manufacturer or retailer has paid, sponsored or influenced a ranking on this site, and no advertiser has seen a guide before it published.
- We do not accept free products in exchange for coverage.
- Our picks are ordered by fit for a defined buyer — the room, the budget, the people playing. On several pages the top pick is the cheaper option, and on some pages we recommend not buying anything in the category at all.
- Every pick names who it is wrong for. That line exists specifically to stop us recommending something to a reader it does not suit, which is the thing commission pressure would otherwise encourage.
Our full selection process, including a plain statement of what we do not do, is on how we pick.
About prices on this site
Where we can verify a live price from the retailer, we show it with the date it was checked. Where we cannot, the button reads “Check price on Amazon” and no number appears.
We will not publish a price we cannot stand behind. Prices and availability are set by the retailer and change without notice, so the figure on the retailer’s page at the time of purchase is the one that applies.
Where we discuss what things cost in general — our cost guides, for example — we describe the market in bands with the date of the research attached, rather than quoting figures that will be wrong within months.
What we do not have
For completeness, because absence is worth disclosing too: we run no display advertising, no sponsored posts, no paid newsletters and no affiliate relationships beyond Amazon. We collect no payment from readers.
Questions
If anything on this page is unclear, or if you think a recommendation on this site looks commercially influenced, please tell us. Email contact@cueandpaddle.com or use the contact form.
Cue & Paddle is published by Magoo Media Group.
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