How we research
Quick answer
Every figure here comes from published material properties, manufacturer specifications or physical relationships, and each page is labelled as resting on either a standard or a convention. Products come from live retailer data rather than being typed in by hand, and nothing on this site is based on cooking with the equipment in person.
Where the numbers come from
One data file holds every material property, published specification and standard this site uses. The calculators read from it and the 345 reference tables are generated from it, which means the two cannot drift apart. A change to a published figure updates every page that depends on it at the next build.
Thermal conductivity, density and specific heat are published material properties. Oven ceilings are the figures manufacturers publish for each class of part, which is why they carry a note saying that your own pan's documentation always wins. Rockwell hardness figures for knife steels are published by the makers who use those alloys.
Standard against convention
Every page carries a label. A standard does not vary by opinion: aluminium conducts at about 237 W/m-K, induction couples only to ferromagnetic metal, the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared. A convention is a widely used kitchen rule of thumb: about 25 square inches of pan surface per seared portion, four quarts of pasta water per pound, a board four inches longer than the blade.
Conventions are genuinely useful and they are not specifications, and blurring the two is how a site ends up asserting a precise-sounding figure that nobody actually published. Where this site uses one, it says so and shows the figure it used so you can substitute your own.
How products are sourced
Product records come from live retailer data at build time. 316 records are currently in use, and only factual fields are stored: identifier, title, brand, price, image, and any diameter, capacity or piece count that the listing itself states. Nothing is typed in by hand and no affiliate URL is stored, because the tracking identifier lives in exactly one configuration file and links are assembled when the page renders.
Sourcing rejects more than it keeps. A listing with no real price or no image is rejected rather than shown with a gap. A listing priced far outside the sane band for its category is rejected, because that almost always means the result is not the product the query meant. Countertop appliances are rejected outright as out of scope. Near-duplicate listings of the same product at different prices are collapsed to the cheaper one.
What we deliberately do not do
We do not claim to have cooked with the equipment. We do not invent a price, an identifier or an image. We do not assert a specific capability about your specific pan, because we cannot see it, which is why the oven ceiling tool tells you which part is limiting rather than telling you your pan is safe. And we do not put a month in evergreen copy, because a page that names one is stale the moment it passes.
We also stay inside a scope. This site covers pots, pans, knives, bakeware, cutting boards and cookware materials. Countertop appliances are a different buying question and are not covered here.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong, it should be fixed at the source rather than patched on one page, which is the reason for the single data file. Corrections are welcome through the contact page, and a specific citation is far more useful than a general disagreement.
Common questions
Do you cook with the equipment you recommend?
No, and no page here claims otherwise. Recommendations are researched from published manufacturer specifications, material properties and owner reports, compared against each other. Any site claiming to have cooked with forty cookware sets is telling you a story, and the honest alternative is to be specific about what the research actually is.
What do standard and convention mean here?
A standard is a published material property, a manufacturer specification or a physical relationship: copper conducts at about 401 W/m-K, All-Clad publishes 600F for D3. A convention is a widely used kitchen rule of thumb: roughly 25 square inches of pan surface per seared portion. Both are useful, and knowing which one you are relying on tells you what is safe to bend.
What happens when a figure is not known?
The page says so and the calculator returns no answer rather than estimating. The induction checker refuses to answer for a coated pan until the magnet test has been done, because the material genuinely cannot settle it. A disclaimer makes general information safe to publish; it does not make a wrong number right.
How are the product prices and details sourced?
From live retailer data at build time, stored as factual fields only: identifier, title, brand, price, image, and any diameter, capacity or piece count the listing itself states. No price or product is ever typed in by hand, and any listing without a real price or image is rejected rather than shown with a gap.
How do you make money?
Through affiliate links. If you buy something after following one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That is disclosed once in the footer of every page and explained in full on the affiliate disclosure page. It does not change which products get recommended, and several pages here recommend the cheapest option outright.