How Do I Actually Make Money Reviewing Gear?

Many angry commenters have asked the same question!

I get asked this all the time. It may be my friends, it may be trolls online, or it may be genuine interest from others in the guitar community. So I thought it would be interesting to dive a bit deeper into this question as a quick break in the review action. 2024 has already been a blur of gear reviews, and we’re barely into the fourth month of the year. I need a second to catch my breath here.

Now let me make one thing clear; I do not make enough money to do this as my full time job. No where no enough to pay all my rent and bills. Some people do, they’re called professionals! And they spend a lot more time dialing in tones, editing videos, and presenting an all around more polished product than I do. I admire them for that! And maybe if I took the brave leap they did into doing this full time, I could make better stuff too. But I don’t really want to do that.

Why I’m A Weird Case

If you have ever watched my demos, you’ll notice they are a lot less processed and glossy than most people who are also reviewing new gear from Fender, PRS, and Universal Audio. I don’t mix, master, or really do much to the demos I record. I plug the gear into my amp sim, record it, and put it out into the world. Whether I’m reviewing a brand new USA Fender, or a cheap pedal from Amazon, it’s all pretty lo-fi stuff. The point is, if I can make it sound good without any fancy cameras or mics, then it probably is a good piece of gear.

More importantly though, I am often reviewing the same gear as these professionals who have (and deserve to have), thousands and thousands of YouTube subscribers. I have like 400? That’s partially because I don’t really want to try and a be a YouTuber. I don’t talk in my videos, nor do I want to wax poetically and crack jokes. But just like some of my favorites like Jason Mays, Tia Bailey, Ryan Burke, or Henning Pauly, I also get hit up by the same gear brands to do demos. How does that work?

Well I’m the freaking tech editor of Ultimate Guitar. So I’m kind of a big name, without actually having a big name. Point being no one online probably knows my name or holds me in that high regard, but my articles still reach tens of thousands of eyes, and sometimes my demos do too. And I’m totally cool with that. I don’t have the time, energy, or urge to try and “compete” with those legends. People are constantly commenting on my demos with “recommendations” for how I can do better or be more like other people.

Screw being like other people, the whole point of music is to try and branch out! My demos and reviews are not for everyone, but I’ve clearly found enough people online who enjoy them! So yeah, I’m kind of a weird case in the demo world.

So How Do I Actually Make My Money?

My work for Ultimate Guitar is paid for, so they pay me an agreed upon amount every month to create articles and supporting content like demos. They’ve never told me what to or not to write about, which I’m grateful for. But they don’t source any of the gear for me to review, that’s all on me. So it’s a lot of me emailing and messaging companies pitching myself.

This is why I never accept any money from a gear company for doing a demo/review on Ultimate Guitar. UG is paying me to do it, I just need you to loan me out the product so I can record with it. Now sometimes for my website I will ask for a fee for my labor, because if I’m going to spend my hours after my day job, or my weekend, working than I want a few bucks for my time. Because that’s my most valuable asset, my time. Generally though I don’t even ask for money for my time, I’ll just say let me hold on to the pedal so I can film it whenever I need to, or use it, or sell it later if I so decide. If I do ask for money it’s usually because I’m A) incredibly busy at that time and need motivation to take on the work or B) have expenses associated with this job that require funds such as equipment for filming, a new laptop for editing, or power supplies and rigs for shooting pedal demos. And I don’t think that price has ever exceeded $50-$100. So I’m still pretty freaking cheap compared to most.

So a lot of my income outside the UG monthly pay is passive income. It’s the $20 a month I make in ad revenue from this website. It’s the few bucks here and there I get from you all clicking my affiliate links to Sweetwater, or Reverb, or Amazon. By the way, huge thanks to those of you who use them, it helps me pay for the domain and hosting! It also helps pay for the many giveaways I’ve done, which has included guitars, pedals, and of course expensive shipping prices to get the gear across the country to its new home. For reference, shipping out the RWM Guitar I gave away cost me over $130 out of my own pocket. That’s more than double what I make a month from this website. Sometimes people are nice enough to donate gear for me to giveaway, but most times they sell it to me at a discount, so I’m still digging into my own pockets. Then I have to pay for the occasional ad to support my work and try to get more wonderful people to read the site!

And yeah, selling some of the gear I accumulate also really helps, especially when I was a broke grad student living paycheck to paycheck. One man can really only hoard so many overdrives and fuzzes, so generally after 6-12 months, I try to purge any gear that’s not getting played. It’s important to remember that if I sell something, it’s not an indictment of the gear. But seriously, how many klon klones can I use, even if they’re all good! But I’d really rather a lot of gear go to a loving home where someone will play it, instead of having it sit on a shelf above me, competing with 12 other boost/drive pedals.

So after all those affiliate link clicks, limited ad revenue, pedal sales, and the very rare $50 from a gear company, I do manage to make a few bucks! But it’s not enough to compete with the pros who do this full time, nor is it enough to make me quit my day job. But I’m not complaining one bit! I freaking love this job, but I also believe that transparency is the best way to build trust and maintain a base of readers. So here’s a peak behind the curtain, and please let me know if you want to chat in more detail before I head back to record more demos!