Advertising & Affiliate Disclosure

btuwise is free to read and is paid for by advertising and commissions. This page explains exactly where the money comes from, what it does and does not influence, and how you can tell a paid link from an ordinary one.

The short version

btuwise is reader-supported. Some links on this site are affiliate or referral links: if you click one and buy a product, request contractor quotes or apply for financing, we may earn a commission — at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. We also show display advertising.

Commissions pay for the research and the calculators. They do not buy a place in our rankings, and no manufacturer, contractor network or lender reviews our content before it is published.

Why this page exists

US law requires it, and it is the right way to run a comparison site. The Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) require that any material connection between a publisher and a seller — a connection a reader would not reasonably expect, such as a commission — be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) additionally prohibits presenting rankings as independent evaluations when commercial relationships determine them.

Beyond compliance, a comparison site is worth reading only if you know how it is paid. So the rest of this page is the full picture rather than a single boilerplate sentence.

The three ways btuwise earns

1. Retail affiliate commissions

When a guide recommends a specific unit, the "check price" link is usually an affiliate link to a retailer. If you buy after clicking, the retailer pays us a percentage of the sale. Your price is identical to what you would pay going there directly — the commission comes out of the retailer's margin, not out of your pocket.

The main program here is the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate program that lets sites earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Amazon requires participants to state: "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases." Mini-split equipment sits in the roughly $700–$2,200 range, and commission rates in this category are a low single-digit percentage of the sale.

2. Contractor and lender referrals

On the cost, installation and financing pages, some buttons hand you off to a partner that matches you with local HVAC installers or with lenders — for example contractor marketplaces such as Modernize, Networx, Angi or HomeAdvisor, and home-improvement financing marketplaces. These partners typically pay per matched request rather than per sale, which means a referral can be worth more to us than a product commission.

That is worth stating plainly, because it is the point where our incentive and your interest could most easily diverge. Two commitments follow from it: we never present a referral as something you must do to get the information, and every cost and sizing figure on the site stays free and open, with no quote wall in front of it.

btuwise does not verify the licensing, insurance, bonding or workmanship of contractors in these networks, nor the rates or terms of lenders. Check a contractor's license with your state or local board, confirm insurance directly, and read a lender's disclosures before signing. Any contract you enter is between you and that company.

3. Display advertising

Pages carry display advertising, currently through Google AdSense. Those ads are selected and served by the ad network, not chosen by us, and their presence says nothing about the content around them. What data advertising partners process, and how you can limit personalized advertising, is covered in the Privacy Policy.

Some of these programs are active and others are still being set up. Where no commission arrangement is in place for a given link, it is simply an ordinary link.

How to spot a paid link

Affiliate and referral buttons carry an "Ad" label in the box they sit in, so you can see the commercial relationship at the moment you decide whether to click.
Every page that contains one says so — through this disclosure, linked from the footer of every page on the site.
Links to sources are not paid. References to manufacturer specification sheets, ENERGY STAR, the EPA, the Department of Energy, ACCA standards and similar sources earn us nothing and exist to let you check our work.

What commissions do not buy

This is the part that matters most, so it is specific rather than reassuring:

No paid placements in rankings. A manufacturer cannot buy a "best" spot, a higher position in a comparison table, or a mention. Our picks come from published criteria — capacity range, SEER2 and HSPF2 efficiency, rated performance at low temperature, whether a system is genuinely homeowner-installable, warranty terms and installed price.
No approval rights. No manufacturer, retailer, contractor network or lender sees our content before publication or has any right to change it.
No sponsored articles disguised as guides. btuwise does not publish paid posts, paid guest articles or paid links inside editorial text.
Weaknesses stay in. Where a commission-earning product has a real disadvantage — a short warranty, poor cold-weather output, a thin service network — the guide says so. Recommendations that hide the downside are worth nothing to a reader who is about to spend several thousand dollars, and worth nothing to us afterwards.
The DIY option is presented even when it earns less. Pre-charged quick-connect systems can save $1,000–$3,000 in labor. Recommending one costs us the contractor referral, and it is still the right answer for the right reader.

How pages are researched, calculated, reviewed and updated is set out in the Editorial Policy.

Where our interest and yours can diverge

An honest disclosure names the pressure points rather than only the safeguards:

Bigger systems can carry bigger commissions. Our sizing calculator therefore rounds to the smallest standard size that covers the calculated load, and every sizing page explains why an oversized mini-split performs worse — it short-cycles, controls humidity poorly and wears faster.
A referral pays whether or not you were ready for one. So quote buttons sit after the information, never in front of it.
Retailers with affiliate programs are easier to monetize than those without. Where a strong product is sold mainly through channels that pay us nothing, it still belongs in the comparison, and we name it.

This is information, not advice

btuwise publishes general consumer information and planning estimates. It does not provide engineering, HVAC contracting, electrical or financial advice, and Honeygoat GmbH is not a contractor, installer, lender or licensed financial adviser. Sizing results are not an ACCA Manual J load calculation, cost figures are not a quote, and financing figures are not a loan offer. Confirm the final decisions with licensed professionals — see the Terms of Use for the detail.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, or you want to know whether a specific link earns us a commission, just ask: info@btuwise.com. We will tell you.

btuwise.com is published by Honeygoat GmbH, Kägenstrasse 21, 4153 Reinach, Switzerland — see the Legal Notice.

Editorial Policy — how the guides are made and checked
Terms of Use — the terms on which the site may be used
Privacy Policy — what data is processed, and your rights
Legal Notice — who operates the site
About btuwise — who is behind it