The disclosure
CoffeeBarSetup.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. We may also earn revenue from display advertising served on this site.
What that means in practice
When you click a product link here and buy something, the retailer pays us a small percentage of the sale. You pay the same price you would have paid anyway. The commission comes out of the retailer's margin, not out of your total, and there is no code to enter and nothing to opt into.
Product links are marked with rel="nofollow sponsored" and open in a new tab.
Every product image, product name and buy button on a card wraps the same link, so there is
no hidden difference between the thing you clicked and the thing you land on.
Why the commission does not decide the recommendation
The honest test of an affiliate site is whether it ever recommends the cheaper thing. This one does, structurally and repeatedly.
- Every gear roundup runs three tiers, and every one names the reader who should not buy the expert tier. A $1,599.95 dual boiler pays us far more than a $299.95 machine, and we still tell people who drink one espresso a day to buy the cheaper one.
- The central argument across the whole site is to spend less on the machine and more on the grinder, which moves money toward the lower-priced half of a setup.
- Several machines we cover, including some prosumer models sold only through specialty dealers, carry a search link and earn us nothing at all. We cover them because leaving them out would make the guidance worse.
- We regularly tell readers that an upgrade will not change what is in the cup. That is the least profitable sentence we can write and it appears on most of these pages.
How products get chosen
We compare published manufacturer specifications, published barista and industry guidance, and verified owner reviews. We do not test gear in person and we never claim to. Where we cannot confirm a specification, the page says Not published rather than carrying a guess.
Products are picked before links are attached, not after. A product does not get recommended because the commission is good, and a product is not left out because it is unavailable through an affiliate program. If the right answer is a piece of gear we cannot earn from, that is the answer that gets published.
Prices
Prices shown on this site were accurate when the page was compiled and change often, sometimes several times a week. Always confirm the current price on the retailer's own page before buying. Where a build list carries a running total, that total is the sum of the listed prices at the time of writing and should be treated as a planning figure rather than a quote.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you think a recommendation looks like it was bought, tell us on the contact page and we will explain the reasoning or change the page. Our full editorial position is on the about page, and the limits of this guidance are set out in the disclaimer.