How We Review

Curatsy exists to help you make better buying decisions. Every recommendation on this site is drawn from data, compared against the alternatives in its category, plus presented honestly. That includes being plain about what we do not do. Here is exactly how it works.

How We Pick Products

We start with data. Our database of more than 684,000 Amazon bestsellers gives us a bird's-eye view of what's selling, what's rated highest, and what's trending across every category. Instead of guessing which products deserve your attention, we let the numbers narrow the field.

We use a quality score that balances star rating with review volume. A product with a 4.9-star average from 12 reviews tells a very different story than one with 4.6 stars from 15,000 reviews. Our scoring system accounts for both, surfacing products that are genuinely loved by a large number of real buyers.

From there, our editorial team works the shortlist by hand. We compare published specifications, check how each product is ranked in its Amazon category, look at how the rating holds up as review volume grows, plus weigh value for money against the alternatives. Only then does a product earn a spot in one of our guides.

Do We Test Products?

We want to be straightforward about this, because plenty of sites are not. Curatsy is a data-led publication, not a testing lab. We do not buy these products, we do not use them in our own homes, and no recommendation here comes from someone handling the item. Anyone telling you otherwise about a catalogue this size is not being honest with you.

What we do instead is work the numbers. We hold star ratings, review volume, Amazon category rank plus current and historical pricing across that database of more than 684,000 products, and we check prices against the Amazon Creators API before an article publishes. What we do not do is systematic review analysis. Where a guide mentions what buyers tend to say about a product, treat it as general context rather than a measured finding, which is why you will never see us claim that some precise percentage of reviewers said any particular thing. When we say "best for beginners" or "best under $50", it is a conclusion drawn from those figures read against published specifications.

How We Handle Affiliate Links

We earn commissions through Amazon Associates when you buy through our links. This is how we keep the site running plus maintain our database. When you click a "Buy on Amazon" button on Curatsy and make a purchase, we receive a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you.

But commissions never influence our recommendations. We have recommended products that earn us nothing and warned against products that would earn us a lot. If a product isn't good enough to recommend to a friend, it doesn't make it onto our site. Period.

Every article that contains affiliate links is clearly labeled. You will always know when a link earns us a commission. For the full details, see our affiliate disclosure.

How We Verify Prices

Every article shows when prices were last checked. Prices change frequently on Amazon (sometimes multiple times a day), so we verify regularly and update our articles to reflect the latest numbers. When you see a "Prices verified on" date at the top of an article, that is the last time we confirmed every price listed.

If you notice a price that looks wrong, please let us know. We would rather update an article immediately than have you see outdated information.

Our Rating System

We use a quality score that combines Amazon's star rating with the number of reviews. The formula weighs both factors because neither tells the full story on its own. A 4.8-star product with 50 reviews isn't necessarily better than a 4.5-star product with 10,000 reviews. Volume matters. Consistency matters. Our score captures both.

This is the same score that powers our programmatic "Best Of" pages, our product search results, and the recommendations in our interactive tools. When you see products ranked on Curatsy, the ordering is driven by this score unless we state a different sorting method (like price or review count).

For editorial reviews (our "Is It Worth It?" articles), we go beyond the score. We assign a verdict: Buy, Skip, Wait for Sale, or Consider. To be clear about what sits behind that verdict: it is not lab testing, because we do not test products. It reflects our judgement based on the data we do hold, which is star ratings, review volume, category rank, plus current and historical pricing, read alongside published specifications.

How We Keep Content Fresh

Product content goes stale fast. A "best headphones" list from six months ago might be missing a significant new release or showing a price that has doubled. We take freshness seriously.

We update articles when prices change significantly, when better products enter the market, or when we receive reader feedback that shifts our assessment. Every article displays its "Last Updated" date prominently. If an article hasn't been updated recently, we flag it for review.

Our 684,000 product database is refreshed regularly to capture new bestsellers, updated rankings, and pricing shifts. This means even our programmatic pages (the auto-generated category and budget pages) reflect current market data, not a stale snapshot.