Affiliate disclosure
We believe you can't trust a recommendation unless you understand how the recommender gets paid. So here it is, in full - how MathBikes makes money, and the rules we hold ourselves to so the math always comes first.
How MathBikes is funded
We keep the tools free by earning from three clearly-labelled sources: affiliate commissions when you buy through a link, occasional sponsored placements, and dealer lead-generation. We never charge you, and we never put our calculators or tested data behind a paywall.
What an affiliate link is
Some outbound links to retailers are affiliate links. If you click one and go on to buy, the retailer pays us a small commission. This is standard across the industry and is how most independent review sites stay free.
It never changes your price
An affiliate commission is paid by the retailer out of their margin - it is never added to your price. You pay exactly the same whether you use our link or go direct. There is no cost to you, ever.
Sponsored placements are always labelled
Occasionally a brand pays to feature a bike. Wherever that happens - in a calculator result, the quiz, the database or the deals page - it carries a clear "Sponsored" tag. If it isn't labelled, nobody paid for it.
Editorial independence
Money never buys a better score. Our tested-range figures, calculator outputs and quiz rankings are produced by the same open formulas for every bike, sponsored or not. A sponsor can buy visibility; they cannot buy a number.
How we choose what to recommend
Recommendations in calculator results and the quiz are generated algorithmically from the spec and your inputs - use-case fit, real-world range, climb ability, weight and price-fit - not from who pays us the most. The sponsored slot, where it exists, is separate and labelled.
Honest deals
Deals reference real price drops on bikes in our database. We don't invent fake "was" prices to manufacture a discount, and we'd rather show fewer genuine deals than pad the list.
Your trust is the asset
This site only works if you believe the numbers. The day a recommendation is for sale is the day MathBikes is worthless - so it never will be. If you ever feel a placement isn't clearly disclosed, tell us at info@mathbikes.com and we'll fix it.