How Bristle Bench gets paid — and what we refuse

Bristle Bench earns money from affiliate links. When you follow a link marked "affiliate" and buy something, the retailer or maker may pay us a commission. The price you pay is set by the seller; our link does not add anything to it that we know of. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

This is marketing, and we want it to be obvious. Every affiliate link on the site carries a small "affiliate" tag right beside it, and every page with such links carries a short notice above the first one.

The programmes we use

We link to three partner programmes. Each one is a placeholder link to the partner's own homepage until this site's own application is approved, and each will use tracking set up for this site alone.

• Amazon Associates. Philips (Sonicare), Oral-B and Waterpik run no affiliate programme of their own that we could find, so every link to one of their brushes goes through Amazon.
• Hismile, through its US partner programme, for the Hismile Electric Toothbrush.
• BURST Oral Care, through its partner programme, for BURST's brushes. BURST does not publish what its programme pays, so we do not state a rate.

The programmes pay different amounts, and we do not arrange the site around the rates. The brush we name first on our main comparison, a manual one, earns nothing.

What we recommend that pays nothing

We regularly recommend options that earn us nothing, because they are the honest answer:

• A soft-bristled manual toothbrush, used for two minutes twice a day with fluoride toothpaste. The ADA and the NHS both say it can do the job.
• String floss or interdental brushes for cleaning between teeth, which the NHS recommends every day.
• A dentist or hygienist, for anything about your own teeth and gums.

What we refuse

We do not accept payment to include a product, rank it higher, or write about it. We do not publish sponsored posts. We do not accept free products in exchange for coverage, and if a maker ever sends one unasked, we will say so on the page it affects.

We do not link to quip. Its programme was listed as open but inactive when we checked, so we mention quip only where it is relevant and link nowhere. We do not print a commission rate that we have only from a third-party directory.

We never let a commission change what a page says about health. Every page carries a note that it is not reviewed by a dentist, and pages that touch on gums, sensitivity or children's teeth send you to a dentist first.

The rules behind this page

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission requires that a financial relationship like ours be disclosed clearly and close to the recommendation, and its Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, in force since 21 October 2024, bans fake reviews and undisclosed insider reviews. We publish no reviews or testimonials from users at all. For UK readers, the advertising codes require marketing to be obviously identifiable as marketing, which is why each link is tagged.

If anything on this site looks like a paid placement to you, tell us at [email protected] and we will explain or fix it.