Our Policies on Reviewing Free Gear

Do you have a piece of outdoor gear you’d like for us to review? Great! We think reviews are a good way to help our readers learn about and find the right gear for their needs.

Before you send us a piece of gear, though, read the following to get a sense of what to expect:

  1. We will be honest. Never do we guarantee a positive review nor hold back from talking about what we don’t like in a product. We exist to help our readers, and as such we will be 100% honest with them and discuss both our likes and dislikes for a piece of gear.
  2. We expect you to let our gear testers keep the gear. It serves as compensation for their field testing. If you would like to get it back, make sure to explicitly mention that in your request.
  3. Expect us to take a while. Our individual reviews are based on hands-on experience with the gear. Getting hands-on experience, of course, takes time. We haven’t ever published a “first impressions” or “unboxing” style review, so don’t expect one. It will likely take multiple months from the time we receive the gear to the time we publish our review.
  4. We will happily correct our review if we got anything wrong. If we got any of the facts wrong about your product or company, let us know so we can correct it in our review. Going back to point #1, though, this doesn’t mean that we will remove something about what we didn’t like just because you ask.
  5. We follow the FTC’s material connection disclosure guidelines. We always disclose when we have received a piece of gear in exchange for a review, and — unlike most sites — we do so at the top of the page, not at the bottom.
  6. We follow Google’s nofollow guidelines for gifted products. Per Google’s guidelines, if you have provided us with free gear, we will nofollow all links in the review to your site and any other site promoting your product or company.
  7. We reserve the right to not review your product. If you choose to send us free gear, we make no claim whatsoever to cover your product, positively or negatively, in writing, video or audio.

Pretty standard stuff, but we want you to be fully aware of all this before sending us gear. Speaking of which, to talk to us about reviewing one of your products just get in touch with us here and we’ll respond promptly to your request.