The short version
Best Outdoor Saunas is published by Fox2Web UG (haftungsbeschränkt), which shares an owner with Topture. They are separate companies in different countries — Fox2Web UG (haftungsbeschränkt) is German, Topture is a US online sauna retailer — and the connection between them is common ownership. A number of the products we recommend are sold by Topture. We also earn affiliate commissions from other retailers when you buy through our links, at no additional cost to you.
We do not claim to be an independent reviewer of Topture. You should read our recommendations knowing that relationship exists, and weigh them accordingly. This page and the disclosure at the top of every ranking page exist so that you can.
How this site makes money
bestoutdoorsaunas.com publishes free content and earns money when readers buy through links on the site. There are two kinds of commercial link here:
- Links to Topture, a retailer that shares an owner with this site's publisher.
- Affiliate links to other retailers — including Almost Heaven, Sun Home, Redwood Outdoors, Medical Saunas, Sunlighten and HigherDOSE — where we earn a commission on qualifying purchases under standard affiliate programs.
You never pay more because of either. Commissions are paid by the retailer out of its own margin, and prices are the same whether you arrive through our link or type the address yourself.
What we do claim
Given the relationship above, "trust us, we're objective" would not be worth much — and we are not going to ask you to take it. Everything below is checkable against the pages themselves:
- Published criteria. Every ranking page carries a "How We Ranked" box setting out what we weighted and why, and those criteria are applied identically to every product regardless of who sells it.
- Competitors win categories. We rank products Topture does not sell above products it does where the evidence supports it. As of this writing, Almost Heaven — which Topture does not carry and which sells direct — holds Best Value on our 4-person and cedar rankings, and its Shenandoah takes a category on our barrel page.
- Sourced specifications. Prices, dimensions, warranties and materials come from manufacturer and retailer documentation, with a verification date shown on the page. Manufacturer-published figures we cannot independently confirm — EMF ratings, maximum temperatures — are labelled as manufacturer claims rather than presented as our own measurements.
- Stated limitations. Our Topture review sets out the terms we would change, including a restocking fee of at least 25% and a 24-hour freight damage window.
What we don't do
- We do not test saunas in a laboratory, and we don't say we do. Our evaluation is specification analysis, manufacturer documentation, third-party data where it exists, and the experiences owners report.
- We do not accept payment for a ranking position, and no retailer — including Topture — reviews or approves our content before it is published.
- We do not remove negative findings about a product because it is one we link to.
Where disclosures appear
A disclosure page on its own isn't much use if you never visit it. So the material connection is also disclosed at the top of every ranking page, next to the author and verification date, and in the footer of every page on this site. Our Terms of Service covers the same ground in the context of the wider terms.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you think a recommendation on this site doesn't hold up, write to us at info.fox2web@gmail.com. We would rather hear it.