Affiliate disclosure

The formal statement

The Gift Perch is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

How the links work

1. Buy links on this site point at a redirect on our own domain, which then sends you to the retailer.
2. The redirect adds our Amazon Associates tracking tag. That tag is how Amazon knows the visit came from here.
3. If you buy something within Amazon's cookie window, Amazon pays us a percentage of the sale.
4. The price you pay is exactly the same as it would be if you had gone to Amazon directly.
5. Amazon's affiliate cookie also means we may earn on other items in the same basket, not only the product we linked. This is standard for the program and worth knowing.

Our Amazon Associates tracking ID is `thegiftperch-20`. Every earning link on this site carries `rel="sponsored nofollow noopener"`, in line with Google's link-spam policy, and every buy button is marked `#ad`.

What commission does not do

• It does not decide rankings. Books carry the best commission rate available in this niche and appear where they deserve to. Bird seed carries among the worst and we actively recommend against buying it as a gift.
• It does not stop us recommending free things. The Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab is free, we earn nothing from it, and it is the first recommendation on several pages.
• It does not stop us telling you to spend less. Our page on gifts over $250 mostly argues for buying two cheaper things instead, and our page on camera feeders points out that a $25 window feeder gives a closer view.
• It does not buy a place on a list. No position on any page here is for sale, and none has ever been sold.

What we have not accepted

As of today: no free products, no sponsored placements, no paid inclusion, and no gifted review units. We are stating that plainly while it is true, and if it ever stops being true this page will say so and the affected pages will be labeled.

Retailers other than Amazon

Amazon is the only affiliate program this site is currently part of. Where we link to a manufacturer or another retailer — because Amazon does not sell something, or because a primary source is worth reading — that link is plain and untracked and earns us nothing, and the page says so at the link.

We will not wire tracking for a program we have not joined, and we will not present a link as a recommendation because of what it pays.

Prices

• Every price shown comes from a live retailer data layer and carries a visible verification date.
• Where no live price exists, the button reads "check price" and shows no number. We would rather show nothing than a figure we cannot stand behind.
• Prices change constantly. The retailer's price at checkout is the price, and it is the only one that counts.
• Structured data on this site carries an offer only when a live price exists — never a hardcoded one.

What we are not

We are a publication, not a retailer. We do not sell, stock, ship, warranty or service anything on this site, and we cannot help with an order, a return or a fault — that is between you and the retailer or the manufacturer.

We are also not affiliated with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society, or any manufacturer named on this site. We cite them as sources. Nothing here should be read as an endorsement by them.

And the part that matters most

We do not test the products we write about, and we say so on every page. What we do instead — compile published specifications, read the manuals, do the cost arithmetic, cite Cornell and Audubon for anything ornithological, and price everything live — is written out in full on how we pick.