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How we review

Last updated: September 3, 2026

Every review here answers the same questions in the same order, so two products can be compared without re-reading two sales pages.

1. What is it, precisely

Digital or physical. PDF, video course, printed book, supplement, kit. Number of modules or pages where the seller states it. If the seller does not state it, we say that too — vagueness about what you are buying is itself information.

2. What it costs, today

The price actually charged at the order form, not the crossed-out number on the sales page. Plus what appears after you buy: upsells, downsells, order bumps, subscriptions. This is where most of the unpleasant surprises in this category live.

3. What it depends on

Almost every product here has a condition attached, and the sales page tends to bury it. An atmospheric water build depends on humidity. A solar plan depends on latitude and roof. A battery method depends on the chemistry of the battery you already own. If a product only works in certain conditions, that goes near the top of our review, not in a footnote.

4. What the seller promises, and whether it is plausible

We quote the seller's own claim, then check it against publicly available figures for that category. When a build promises several times what commercial equipment achieves, we say so and show the comparison. We do not repeat an output figure as though we had measured it. We have not.

5. The guarantee, and who honours it

Length, conditions, and — the part people miss — which company you would actually be asking. It is almost never the author. It is the retailer, and their policy is the one that governs.

6. Who should skip it

The section that makes this a review rather than an advertisement. Wrong climate, wrong skill level, wrong budget, already covered by something cheaper or free. If we cannot write this section honestly for a product, we do not publish the review.

What disqualifies a product before we start

• Instructions to make your own medicine. Home-made antibiotics, painkillers and infection cures appear more often in this category than people expect. We will not send readers to them, however good the offer.
• Physically implausible output. If the promise is several times what commercial equipment achieves, the product is not reviewed, it is declined.
• Collapse marketing. Products sold primarily on fear of an imminent catastrophe.
• Pirated or repackaged material sold as original work.

What we cannot tell you

We do not build every project we write about, and we say plainly when a review is based on reading the material rather than doing the build. Nobody should mistake a careful reading for a field test, and we are not going to blur that line to sound more authoritative than we are.