How we review, and what we will not pretend
Written by Jamie Miller, Founder & EditorLast checked
We have not physically tested any treadmill on this site. We own none, we have measured none, and every photograph you see came from the manufacturer or the retailer. Most review sites in this market write as though they have. We would rather tell you where each number actually came from and let you decide how much it is worth.
Every specification carries its source
A motor rating, a deck length, a noise figure and a maximum user weight are not equally knowable. Some are printed in a manual. Some appear only in a retailer listing that may have been copied from a competitor. Some are contested between sources. Some nobody publishes at all.
So no figure on this site is a bare number. Each one carries a mark saying how well it is known, where it came from, and when we last checked it.
What each grade actually requires
A — tested in person
We physically used the machine and measured the thing being claimed. Nothing on this site carries an A today. This grade cannot be applied by any automated process: it requires a person to attach a test record naming who tested it, when, and by what method. Our build refuses to compile if anything tries to set it without one. That is a deliberate mechanical barrier, not a policy we are trusting ourselves to keep.
B — independently verified
Two or more sources that do not copy each other agree. A manual and an independent publication agreeing counts. Three retailers repeating the same marketing line does not, because retailer listings are routinely copied from the brand's own copy.
C — owner feedback
Drawn from aggregated owner reviews, and always with the number of reviews stated. Ten owners calling a machine noisy is worth reading. One is not, and we will tell you which you are looking at. Owner reports are good evidence for how something behaves over months and poor evidence for a measurement.
D — manufacturer stated
Taken from the brand or the retailer and not verified by anyone. Most specifications on this site are grade D, and that is an honest description of the state of published information about home treadmills rather than a failing of ours. Motor power in particular is worth treating with suspicion at this grade: peak horsepower and continuous horsepower are different numbers and brands are not consistent about which they print.
E — not established
We looked and could not find a trustworthy answer, so we do not give one. An empty cell marked E is more useful to you than a confident number we cannot stand behind, and this is the grade that most distinguishes this site from its competitors.
What we will never do
- Claim to have tested, measured, assembled, unboxed or owned anything we have not.
- Present a decibel, kilogram or centimetre figure as measured by us.
- Imply a photograph is ours.
- Publish a star rating or a score out of ten, which compress all of the above into a single number and hide exactly the differences this page exists to show.
- Describe a conversation with a manufacturer that did not happen.
The first two are enforced in the build. A scan runs over every published page looking for first-person testing claims, and the build fails rather than publishing one. It was written after we found 30 pages on the previous version of this site making exactly those claims, including one sentence reused word for word across six different products.
Prices and availability
Prices change constantly and a stale price is worse than none. Every price we show carries the date we last checked it, and if that date is more than a fortnight old the page stops showing a number and tells you to check with the retailer instead. We would rather send you away empty-handed than confidently wrong.
How we make money, and what it does not buy
Some links to retailers earn us a commission if you buy. No brand pays for coverage, a grade, a position in a list or a change to anything on this site, and no brand sees a page before it is published. If every affiliate relationship ended tomorrow, the specifications, the grades and the comparisons on this site would be unchanged. Full detail on theaffiliate disclosure page.
When we are wrong
We will be. Specifications get copied wrong, brands change a model without changing its name, and our own judgements will sometimes be poor. If you own one of these machines and something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it and change the date on the page. Corrections are not quiet here.