How we work

Runlow recommends household products people buy over and over: detergent, cleaning supplies, paper goods, pet food, filters, personal care, diapers, vitamins. We research every product we cover. We do not run a lab, and we have not tested most of what we write about.

What we do

We read the ingredient disclosures manufacturers are required to publish, including the ones mandated by California's Cleaning Product Right to Know Act, and explain what each ingredient actually does. A "protease" is an enzyme that breaks down protein stains like blood and grass; we say that instead of calling something "powerful cleaning enzymes."

We check certification claims against the issuing body's own public directory, not the manufacturer's word for it. A product claiming EPA Safer Choice or Leaping Bunny certification has to actually appear in that program's directory before we report it as certified.

We map products to the situations people actually buy for: hard water, septic systems, sensitive skin, pets and babies in the house, HE washing machines, cold washes. Compatibility fields on every product page report what the manufacturer states, not a verdict we've formed ourselves.

We build calculators that answer the question underneath most of these purchases: how much do you need, and how often will you run out. They run in your browser, use no server calls, and collect nothing.

What we don't do

We don't claim to have tested a product unless we bought it ourselves and used it in a household, and a post says so explicitly when that's true. Everywhere else, the most we claim is that we researched, compared, or analyzed a product; not that we tried it, used it, or lived with it.

We don't operate a lab or employ scientists, and nothing on this site implies otherwise.

We don't aggregate buyer reviews. Major retailers' terms prohibit scraping review content, and we don't. You won't find star ratings, review counts, or review text sourced by automation anywhere on Runlow.

We don't make safety claims beyond what a cited source supports. If a certification body or a regulator states something about a product, we report what they state. We don't call a product "safe" or "toxic" in our own voice.

How we make money

Some of the retailer links on Runlow are affiliate links. When you buy through one, we may earn a commission at no added cost to you. Where we have an affiliate relationship with a retailer, the disclosure above every post's headline says so, and Amazon's required Associates language appears wherever an Amazon link does.

Not every retailer link is an affiliate link. Where we don't have an affiliate relationship yet, the link is plain, untagged, and works exactly the same way.

Editorial independence

Commission rates never factor into what we recommend. Picks are chosen on formulation, certification, compatibility, and fit for the situation you're buying for, not on which retailer or brand pays the highest commission. We'd rather point you to the right product at a retailer with no affiliate relationship than the wrong product at one that pays.

Who publishes Runlow

Runlow is published by Unique Digital Things LLC, doing business as Dumbotronix, and is a publication of STUD, which makes a device for reordering household products automatically. Runlow's research and recommendations are independent of what STUD sells; a product doesn't get a better writeup for being easier to reorder through STUD.