How we make money
mom.pet is free to read and makes money the way most independent buying guides do — affiliate commissions and referral fees. Here is exactly where every dollar comes from, and the promise that keeps it from ever deciding a pick.
Affiliate commissions on supplies
When a guide links to a retailer and you buy something, that retailer may pay us a small commission. We currently work with Chewy (through the Impact affiliate network), Amazon Associates, and direct affiliate programs run by individual brands. Rates are set by the retailer, not by us, and typically run in the low single digits of the sale price — Amazon’s standard pet-category rate is 3%, direct brand programs run roughly 10–15%. None of this changes what you pay at checkout.
https://www.chewy.com/f/dog-harness_c1004?ref=mompet&utm_source=impact&utm_campaign=guide
Insurance and services referral fees
On insurance and services pages, we link out to carriers and platforms rather than sell or quote anything ourselves — mom.pet is not a licensed insurance agent, broker, or producer. If you get a quote or book through one of those links, the carrier or platform may pay us a flat referral fee or a small percentage, depending on their program. This is currently the largest revenue category per visitor, because insurance and services referrals typically pay more per conversion than a single supply purchase.
https://www.harborpet.com/plans?ref=mompet&utm_source=mompet&utm_medium=referral
What we don’t (yet) do
No display advertising, no paid placements, no sponsored guides, and no membership or paywall. If that changes — for example, a premium newsletter tier — we’ll disclose it here and update the date at the top of this page before it launches.
The no-pay-to-play promise
- A brand can pay for an affiliate link to exist — that is standard retail affiliate infrastructure — but no brand can pay to be included in a guide, to move up a ranking, or to avoid being listed in our "what we rejected" section.
- Our vet reviewers are paid a flat fee for review time by mom.pet, not by the brands whose products appear in the guides they review. They hold no equity, sponsorship, or ambassador relationship with any brand we cover.
- Commission rate is never a scoring input. A product that pays us 15% and a product that pays us 3% are scored on the same five published criteria — see our methodology page. We have published a lower-commission pick over a higher-commission one in the same guide when the evidence supported it.
- Editorial and sales are the same one-person operation right now, on purpose — there is no separate ad-sales team with an incentive to lean on editorial. As the team grows, that separation becomes a written policy, not an assumption.
What we deliberately don't do
- No exit-intent or scroll-triggered popups. If you leave a page without subscribing, we let you leave.
- No "sponsored" or "presented by" rankings mixed into objective guides. A paid placement, if we ever ran one, would be visually distinct and labeled as an ad, not a pick.
- No user-review farms or incentivized reviews. We don’t run a reviews product at all in this version of the site — see our methodology page for why.
- No AI-generated guides published at scale without named human accountability. AI may assist drafting; it does not replace the research or the byline.
For how a product actually earns a spot in a guide — independent of any of the above — see how we decide what to recommend. For who reviews health claims and on what terms, see our vet panel page. For the person who signs off on all of it, see about mom.pet.