Affiliate Disclosure
The short, honest version: some links pay us. None of them shape our recommendations.
The short version
Standing Desk Reference participates in affiliate programs with several merchants and manufacturers. When you click an outbound product link on this site and complete a qualifying purchase, that merchant may pay us a referral commission. This costs you nothing extra — the commission comes out of the merchant’s margin, not your wallet.
Affiliate revenue helps fund the site but doesn’t shape what we recommend. Desks are scored against the same 15-point rubric whether they’re from an affiliated merchant or not.
Merchants we may earn commissions from
This includes (but isn’t necessarily limited to):
- Amazon Associates — commissions on qualifying purchases from amazon.com
- Ergodriven — the company that supports this site; sells the Tempo Desk, Topo Mat, Vertical Handshake Mouse, and Tempo Smart Controller
- Uplift Desk — standing desks and accessories
- Flexispot — standing desks, including the E5, E7, E7 Pro, E8, and others
- Branch Furniture — standing desks, ergonomic chairs
- Autonomous — SmartDesk and accessories
- Secretlab — MAGNUS desks and accessories
- Vari — ProDesk and Vari Electric standing desks
- Ergonofis — Sway, Alive, and Shift desks
- Deskhaus — Apex Pro line
- Desky — Dual, Quad, L-shaped, and other configurations
- Vernal — Core3, Executive, and L-shaped desks
- Beyond the Office Door (btod.com) — desk and accessory reseller
- Herman Miller, Design Within Reach, Office Depot, Dell, Walmart, IKEA, Incase, Rogue Fitness, and other manufacturers and retailers where commercial affiliate relationships exist or may exist in the future
The presence of a merchant in this list doesn’t mean every link to them is monetized; it means at least some are.
What this changes (and doesn’t change) about our recommendations
- Desks are scored against a fixed rubric. The same 15-point composite applies whether the manufacturer has an affiliate program or not. Methodology here.
- We link to non-affiliated products when they’re the right pick. Several products in our recommendations have no affiliate program (e.g., refurbished Herman Miller Aerons from the used market, books-as-monitor-risers, generic peripherals). They appear because they’re the right answer for someone, not because they pay.
- We do not accept payment in exchange for placement. No “sponsored” inclusions in the desk table. No rank-boosting in exchange for higher commission rates. No paid product placements anywhere on the site.
- Ergodriven supports the site but has no editorial control over scores or recommendations. More on that relationship on our About page.
How we technically mark affiliate links
Every outbound link on this site that goes to an affiliated merchant has been tagged with rel="sponsored" in HTML, per Google’s published recommendation for monetized links. This is the mechanism that lets search engines distinguish editorial outbound links (like our links to Wirecutter, PubMed, the NYT, or Cornell’s ergonomics lab) from commercial ones. You can verify the tagging yourself by inspecting any product link with your browser’s dev tools.
Questions or corrections
If you spot a recommendation you suspect is influenced by affiliate revenue rather than merit — or any other concern about how this site is run — we welcome the scrutiny. Contact info is on our About page.