BuyeReviews compares products and tells you what we found. Price matters. So does what people think of a product after they have actually lived with it, and we weigh that seriously. We just do not think it is the whole picture, so we check something most comparison sites never look at: whether a product is safe to have in your home, honest about what is in it, and reasonable in what it costs the environment.

That is a harder question than a star rating can answer, so we built a standard for it an dwe apply the same one to every product we list. What follows is the short version. The method itself, step by step, is on How We Rate.

What we grade

Each category page starts with a set of graded topics chosen for that specific product type,because what makes an air purifier safe is not what makes a supplement safe. Four of those checks are in every set, whatever the category:

• Health & Safety impact. What the product exposes you to in normal use, at the dose or specification actually present.
• Environmental impact. What it costs to make, to run, and to throw away.
• Claim honesty. Whether what is on the label matches what is in the product.
• Independent verification. Whether anyone outside the company has ever checked.

Around those we add the checks that matter for that category in particular, built from the ways that type of product actually fails or causes harm. The topic set is fixed before we score anything, so every product on a page is measured against the same yardstick, including the ones that arrive later.

How we check

We do not grade from memory, and we do not grade from the marketing copy. Before a product gets a score we confirm what is really in it or on its specification sheet, we check every certification it claims against the register of the body that issues it, and we look for independent testing, recalls, regulatory action and Prop 65 warnings. A logo on a box is not a certification. Every fact that moves a score has a source behind it, and the whole checklist is published on How We Rate.

What we do when the answer is not published

Manufacturers do not disclose everything, and pretending otherwise would be the easy lie.Where a fact is missing we estimate it, mark the estimate on the page so you can tell it apart from a verified figure, and say what the estimate rests on. A product standing on nothing but the maker's own word cannot reach a high score on that point, however confident the claim sounds.

Finding nothing about a brand is not evidence against it, and we do not score it as though it were. When too much of a product's picture is unknown, we say so in plain language at the top of its scores rather than quietly averaging the gap away.

If you know something we got wrong, or something a manufacturer has since published, pleasetell us. Specifications change, certifications lapse, new testing appears, and we would rather hear it from you than leave it wrong on the page.

What we will not list

Some products never reach a page at all, however well they sell: anything under an active recall, anything facing enforcement action over safety or false efficacy claims, anything with a documented hazard in normal use, and anything containing a banned component.

We also flag the cases where the honest answer is that nobody should be buying this kind of product at all. Each category page names who should avoid that product type completely, which medications or conditions it can interfere with, and which households it is a poor fit for. You will find the same warnings on individual product pages, under who a product is not for.

The numbers on our pages, and what each one means

There are two separate things worth knowing about a product, and they answer different questions. A satisfaction score is our read on how it is working out for the people who already own it, built from their ratings and reviews, how well it sells, and what it costs next to the rest of the category. A standards score is what we found when we checked the product ourselves. We grade those separately and show them separately, because a product can be genuinely well liked and still be the wrong thing to put in your lungs, your body or your water supply.

The order products appear in comes from an overall score built from both. That is deliberate. A product that buyers love but nobody has ever verified should not top a page on popularity alone, and a thoroughly documented product that people find frustrating to live with should not either. Because both parts stay on the page, you can see which side a product's ranking is leaning on instead of taking one number on trust. How We Rate sets out exactly what goes into each of the three, and what none of them can tell you.

No thumb on the scale

A score has to survive having the brand name swapped out. If a product would grade differently purely because of who makes it, while the evidence stays identical, the score is wrong and we fix it before the page goes live. We do not sell placement, and no company can pay to change a grade or a position.

How we make money

We earn a commission when you buy through some of the links on this site, at no extra cost to you. It does not affect what we find, what we score, or the order products appear in. If we cannot recommend something, we say so, and we would rather lose the sale than the reason you came here.

If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to reach out to us in the Contact Us page.