Awl & Stitch Editorial Policy

This page explains how Awl & Stitch researches, writes, and maintains its guides: what sources we use, how picks are made, how often pages are refreshed, how corrections work, and where AI fits in. If a claim on this site ever seems to contradict this policy, tell us — the contact page has the details.

Our research methodology

Every guide starts with research, not with a product in hand. We use four kinds of sources:

• Marketplace listings, captured with dates. AliExpress listing pages — price, variants, order counts, ratings, and shipping options to the US — are captured during research with an access date. That snapshot, not memory, is what the article is built on.
• Manufacturer and seller specifications. Official product pages and published specs (tooth counts, pitch, steel, handle sizes) are attributed to the manufacturer. We don't present published specs as our own measurements.
• Community threads. r/Leathercraft and other buyer communities show what real owners report: durability, irons sticking in leather, burrs out of the box, arrival quality. We attribute this as "reviewers report" or "crafter consensus" and link to the specific thread.
• Regulator and program pages. US Customs and Border Protection and Federal Register pages for import and duty context; AliExpress's own affiliate program pages for monetization facts.

How picks are made

A listing can only appear as a pick if it passes five criteria, checked at research time:

1. Verified US shipping — a real shipping method to the United States with a realistic delivery window, not just a listing that claims to ship worldwide.
2. Seller reputation — the seller's track record and feedback signals.
3. Order and rating signals — order counts and ratings from the listing itself, read skeptically and dated.
4. Variant coverage — the sizes and tooth counts beginners actually need, such as 3.38mm and 3.85mm pitch and common tooth counts.
5. Community corroboration — independent buyer reports that don't contradict what the listing claims.

One rule sits above the criteria: we do not claim to have tested these tools. We don't run a workshop, and we will never fake it. Where hands-on impressions matter, we aggregate what buyers publicly report and link to the source.

Sourcing rule

Every factual claim on this site — a price, a shipping method, a rating, a duty range, a community sentiment — must be traceable to a dated source captured during research. If we can't source it, we don't publish it, or we mark it as unknown. Prices are always rendered as "price at time of writing" with a verification date.

Update and refresh policy

• Monthly price checks on money pages (buying guides and comparisons): "price at time of writing" dates are refreshed and changes are logged.
• Full refresh every 6 months per money page — or immediately if a listing dies, a price moves more than roughly 20%, a competitor clearly out-formats us, or search data shows we're answering the wrong question.
• Every page carries a visible "Last updated" date, and material changes get a short changelog line, such as "Nov 2026: verified US shipping for all picks."

Corrections procedure

Email hello@awlandstitch.com with the page URL and what's wrong. Corrections are verified against sources before anything changes — we don't swap numbers on a single anonymous email. Material corrections are logged in the page's changelog so the fix is visible, not silent. Correction requests get the highest priority in our inbox; see the contact page for response expectations.

AI assistance — honest disclosure

Drafts on Awl & Stitch are AI-assisted and human-reviewed. In practice: research is captured and organized with tooling, drafts are produced with AI assistance, and a human editor reviews every claim against its dated source before publication. The tooling is never allowed to invent testing, prices, ratings, or experience, and we never publish a claim that can't be traced to a source. The author of record for every page is The Awl & Stitch Editorial Team.

What we never do

No fake testing claims, no fake reviews, no paid rankings, no fake urgency or fake discounts, and no undisclosed affiliate relationships. The commercial side is documented in our affiliate disclosure, and the people behind the site in our about page.