Affiliate Disclosure
The Hydration Code earns a commission when you buy a product through a link on this site, at no additional cost to you. That's the entire business model — there is no other revenue source, no sponsored placements, and no bottle appears in a review because a brand paid for it.
Which programs
Product links on this site are built to route through the Amazon Associates
Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn
commission fees by linking to Amazon. Every affiliate link — including every "Check price ↗"
button — points at a cloaked /go/ redirect that carries the tracking tag for
whichever program applies, so no raw retailer link ever appears directly on the page.
We're building an audience before applying for the Associates account itself, which is standard practice and, in Amazon's case, a requirement — new applicants need a minimum of original content and traffic before approval, and only get one clean 180-day window to complete a set number of qualifying sales once accepted. Until that account is approved and active, our Amazon links may not yet be earning a commission even though the mechanism described above is fully in place. This page will be updated the moment that changes.
As we expand coverage to specific brands sold directly by their manufacturers, we may also join programs like ShareASale or Impact, or negotiate direct affiliate relationships with individual brands. Those typically pay a meaningfully higher commission rate than Amazon's — which is worth stating plainly, because it's exactly the kind of incentive a disclosure page exists to surface. It does not change which bottles we recommend; the review criteria on Our Method apply regardless of which program, if any, a given link belongs to.
What this does and doesn't affect
- It does not affect the price you pay. Affiliate commissions come out of the retailer's margin, not yours.
- It does not influence which bottles we choose to review, or what we say about them — including the downsides.
- Amazon's own rules prohibit us from displaying an Amazon price unless it's sourced live from their Product Advertising API. Until we have that access, Amazon product pages show "Check price ↗" instead of a dollar figure, by design, not oversight.
Where this disclosure appears
You'll see a short version of this disclosure above the first affiliate link on any page that has one, and in the site footer on every page. This is the full version.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you think a review reads more like an advertisement than an evaluation, reach out through our contact form.