Affiliate Disclosure

The short version

OnlineEngineering.com is supported by its readers. When you buy something through a link on this site, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. That commission is how we pay for the work of testing tools, gathering salary data, and keeping this site running.

Amazon Associates

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. OnlineEngineering.com 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.

Other affiliate programs

Beyond Amazon, we participate in affiliate programs through ShareASale and CJ Affiliate, and in some cases we work with software vendors directly. Products from these programs appear alongside products we earn nothing from. We do not mark the difference in the page copy, because the difference does not affect how we rank things — see below.

How commission does and does not affect what you read

Commission rates vary widely between vendors, and a higher rate never buys a higher position in a comparison, a better rating, or an inclusion we would not otherwise make. Where a tool is the right answer and pays us nothing, we still say so. Where a tool pays well and is the wrong answer, we say that too.

We consider this the only defensible way to run an affiliate site aimed at engineers, who are professionally equipped to notice when a recommendation does not survive scrutiny.

Prices and availability

Prices, discounts, and availability change frequently and are not always reflected immediately on this site. The price shown on the vendor's own page at the moment of purchase is the one that applies. We are not responsible for pricing discrepancies on third-party sites.

Editorial independence

No vendor reviews our content before publication, and no vendor has the ability to remove or amend a published assessment of their product. If a vendor terminates an affiliate relationship over something we published, the content stays up.

Questions

If anything about how we make money is unclear, ask. We would rather answer the question than have you wonder.