Disclosure
This site earns money in ways that are not obvious from reading it. Every one of them is listed here, in the order you are most likely to run into them.
The short version. Some links to products are affiliate links, and we earn a commission if you buy through them at no extra cost to you. Four of the products in our portfolio are ours. Nobody pays us for coverage, and no commission has ever changed a recommendation.
Affiliate links
Some outbound links to hardware, tools and lab equipment are affiliate links. If you click one and buy something, the retailer or manufacturer pays us a commission, typically a small percentage of the sale. You pay exactly the same price either way.The commission comes out of the seller's margin, not out of your pocket, and it is not added to your total.
Affiliate links are marked as such where they appear, and are tagged rel="sponsored" in the markup so search engines and automated tools can identify them too. Assume any link to a product page at a retailer may be one.
What the commission does not buy
- It does not decide what we recommend. Where we have tested something, the verdict comes from the bench. Where we have not, we say so rather than implying otherwise.
- It does not decide what we cover. We write about parts we would actually specify on a project, including ones that pay nothing.
- It does not give anyone approval rights. No retailer, manufacturer or network sees an article before it publishes.
Where the highest-paying option is not the one we would use, we say which is which. If you would rather we earned nothing from your purchase, search for the product directly. It costs us the commission and costs you nothing, and that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Cookies set by those links
Clicking an affiliate link usually sets a cookie on the retailer's site, or attaches a tracking parameter to the URL, so the sale can be credited to us. That happens on their domain and under their privacy policy, not ours. This site itself sets no tracking cookies. See privacy.
Products we own
Four things in the portfolio are ours rather than client work. When this site writes about them, it is recommending its own products, and you should read it that way:
- Cabelio, a wire harness design SaaS.
- Cabelio Systems, a harness and cable assembly manufacturing shop.
- WarpKVM, an IP KVM.
- cad2wireframe, a browser-based CAD converter.
Treat any mention of those four as an advertisement, because that is what it is. We benefit directly if you use them.
Each of those project pages carries the same note at the top. Where a project page has no ownership note, it is client work.
Referrals
We work with an EMC and FCC test lab, and with several contract manufacturers, and we introduce clients to them when it is the right move for the project.
No referral fee arrangement is in place with any of them, and we are paid nothing for those introductions. We recommend them because we have used them. If that changes, this page changes before any article does.
Client work
The project writeups describe paid engineering work done for clients. Those clients paid us to build the thing, not to write about it. Where a client has asked us not to name them, the writeup says so instead of inventing a name.
What we do not do
- We sell no advertising and run no ad network.
- We accept no payment for coverage, placement or a review score.
- We publish no sponsored posts and no guest posts.
- We do not sell your personal information. See privacy.
Questions
If something here reads like an endorsement and you want to know what is behind it, ask: hello@groundplanestudio.com. A straight answer is cheaper for us than a reader who stops trusting the site.
This disclosure is made in line with the FTC's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255). Groundplane Studio is a trade name of Ground Plane Studio, LLC, a California limited liability company.