How this site makes money

As an Amazon Associate, Iron Mako Media earns from qualifying purchases.

Shade & Signal is reader-supported. When you click a product button or an inline product link and buy something, we may earn a commission from the retailer. It does not change the price you pay. That commission is how the site is funded; there is no advertising, no sponsored content and no paid placement.

How the links work

Every product link on this site points to our own address first — /go/ followed by the product's name — and then redirects you to the retailer with our tracking tag added. We do it that way so every outbound link can be audited from one place, so a link can be updated if a product moves without rewriting a page, and so the retailer's tracking works as intended. Earning links are marked #ad with a link to this page wherever they appear, and carry the rel="sponsored" attribute search engines ask for.

Prices

Prices on this site come from Amazon's own product data, are stamped with the date they were checked, and are removed automatically if that check is more than 48 hours old — so a number you see is either current or gone, never stale. When a price is missing the button reads “Check price on Amazon” and opens the live listing instead. Where a page mentions a launch price, it is dated and sourced context (“launched at $379 in September 2025”), not a claim about today's price.

Which links earn, and which don't

Every buy link on this site earns, because a link that cannot earn is not published. Active affiliate programs at the time of writing: Amazon (Amazon Associates). Some products we cover are not sold on Amazon at all — the Meta Ray-Ban Display, the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, Ray-Ban Meta Audio, the Blayzer and Scriber Optics frames, the Meta Starfire, the Even Realities G2, Nuance Audio, the captioning and teleprompter pairs and the iVUE Denali. Those have no buy button at all: we still cover them, and their makers' pages are cited as the source of their specs, but we will not send you to a retailer we have no relationship with and call it a recommendation. If we join one of those programs, it will be named here (Meta Store, Ray-Ban, Oakley, Even Realities, Nuance Audio, XRAI Glass, AirCaps, Vuzix, Halliday, iVUE).

What the commission never changes

• The ranking. Picks are chosen before links are built, and if a product we cannot earn on is the right pick, it is still the pick — see the editorial policy.
• The price you pay.
• What we say about a product. Every brand on this site is covered on the same published rubric.

How the site stays independent

Rankings are set before any link is built, and the site runs on affiliate commission alone — no sponsored placements, no paid reviews, no free or discounted products from any brand here. Prices come from the retailer's own live data, and the only products linked are the glasses themselves and the accessories that go with them.

Questions

contact@shadeandsignal.com, or the contact form.