Wirecutter (website)

Wirecutter
Type of site
Product reviews
FoundedSeptember 2011
OwnerThe New York Times Company
FounderBrian Lam
EditorBen Frumin (as of 2020)[1]
URLwww.nytimes.com/wirecutter
Commercialyes

Wirecutter (formerly known as The Wirecutter) is an American product review website owned by the New York Times Company. It was founded by Brian Lam in 2011 and acquired by The New York Times Company in 2016 for about $30 million.[2][3][4][5]

Approach and business model

Wirecutter is mostly a list of amazing gadgets. [...] The point is to make it easier for you to buy some great gear quickly and get on with your life.

The choices I've made here took days of research and years of experience, interviews, data from the best editorial and user sources around. Most gadgets I choose here aren't the top of the line models that are loaded up with junk features or overpriced; most of the ones we've picked are of the "good enough" or "great enough" variety, because this is generally where our needs and the right prices smash into each other.

These are the same gadgets I'd recommend to my friends and family, and these are the same gadgets I'd choose for myself.

— Brian Lam, Hello! (Oct 2, 2011)[6]

The site focuses on writing detailed guides to various categories of consumer products, recommending only one or two best items per category. It earns most of its revenue from affiliate marketing by including links to its recommendations.[7] To prevent bias, the staff who write the reviews are not informed about what commissions, if any, the site receives for different products.[8] Due to affiliate revenue, the site is less reliant than other blogs and news sites on advertising revenue, although the Wirecutter site has displayed banner ads in the past.[9]

History

Brian Lam founded the site in 2011 after leaving the editor-in-chief position at Gizmodo.[10][11][12] It was originally part of The Awl.[11][13] In the five years from its launch in 2011 to 2016, the company generated $150 million in revenue from affiliate programs with its merchant partners.[14][15] A sibling site, The Sweethome, launched in 2013 and focused on home goods while The Wirecutter focused on electronics and tools.[16] After forming an editorial partnership with The New York Times in 2015,[17] The Wirecutter was acquired by the Times in October 2016 for a reported $30 million.[2] The Wirecutter and Sweethome were combined into a single site in 2017, a year after the Times acquisition.[8][18]

Lam announced he had hired Jacqui Cheng as editor-in-chief for The Wirecutter in December 2013.[19] After the Times acquisition, David Perpich was appointed to President and General Manager of The Wirecutter in March 2017.[20] When Cheng stepped down in September 2018, the staff had grown from under 10 to over 100 employees.[21][22] Ben Frumin succeeded Cheng in December 2018.[23] The Wirecutter Union was formed in 2019 with approximately 65 employees, affiliated with NewsGuild-CWA of New York.[24][25] By 2020, Wirecutter had approximately 150 employees, with the majority working remotely away from the headquarters in Long Island City.[26]

In August 2021, The New York Times implemented a metered paywall, no longer relying solely on affiliate marketing commissions for revenue.[27] Later that year, Wirecutter staff went on strike. Wirecutter's reporting structure under Perpich was largely independent of the rest of the Times, and the two pay scales were significantly different.[28] The Wirecutter Union reached a three-year agreement with The New York Times Company in December, with immediate wage increases averaging US$5,000 per employee.[25]

In August 2024, The Wirecutter Show, a podcast for Wirecutter, was launched by The New York Times.[29]

Wirecutter has partnered with other websites, including Engadget, to publish company-sponsored guest posts sponsored by the company.[30] In 2015, Amazon tested a partnership with Wirecutter using a similar sponsored-post format on its site for recommendations.[31][32] While Wirecutter does perform its own testing of products, they also reference other reviews by sites like Ravingtechnology, Topyten, Consumer Reports, Reviewed, CNET, and America's Test Kitchen.

Reception

Wirecutter has been described as a competitor to Consumer Reports, from which it differs by its explicit recommendations of top picks, a younger readership (with average age between 41 and 53 as of 2018), and its acceptance of vendor-supplied test units.[21] Similar recommendation websites that compete with Wirecutter include Best Products (Hearst Communications, 2015), The Strategist (New York, 2016), BuzzFeed Reviews (BuzzFeed, 2018), and The Inventory (G/O Media, 2018).[33]

References

  1. ^ "Wirecutter Masthead". Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World. Retrieved February 25, 2020.
  2. ^ a b "Why the New York Times Is Buying This Gadget Review Site". Fortune. October 24, 2016. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  3. ^ "Why The New York Times is buying The Wirecutter for $30 million". Poynter. October 24, 2016. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  4. ^ Kludt, Tom. "New York Times buying The Wirecutter, and a new revenue stream". CNNMoney. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  5. ^ "The New York Times, Searching for Digital Revenue, Acquires E-Commerce Shop The Wirecutter". Recode. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  6. ^ Lam, Brian (October 2, 2011). "Hello!". The Wirecutter. The New York Times. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  7. ^ Carr, David (December 16, 2012). "Buffeted by the Web, but Now Riding It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  8. ^ a b "New York Times Rebrands Wirecutter as Product Review Sales Grow". Bloomberg.com. September 13, 2017. Retrieved November 5, 2017.
  9. ^ "Meet the Man Who Rejected Advertising and Still Runs a Profitable Media Site". Observer. April 11, 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  10. ^ Kafka, Peter (October 24, 2016). "The New York Times is buying The Wirecutter for more than $30 million". Vox. Retrieved December 11, 2025.
  11. ^ a b Sterne, Peter (October 24, 2016). "New York Times to buy product recommendations site The Wirecutter". POLITICO Media. Retrieved December 11, 2025.
  12. ^ Johnson, Eric (June 23, 2016). "The Wirecutter founder Brian Lam: Steve Jobs 'literally caught me with my pants down'". Vox. Retrieved December 17, 2025.
  13. ^ "Please Welcome The Wirecutter". The Awl. October 3, 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  14. ^ Kludt, Tom. "New York Times buying The Wirecutter, and a new revenue stream". CNNMoney. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  15. ^ Tweney, Dylan (September 27, 2011). "Former Gizmodo editor launches new tech site, Wirecutter | VentureBeat". venturebeat.com. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  16. ^ Pinola, Melanie (May 28, 2013). "The Sweethome Lists the Best Products in Every Category for Your Home". Lifehacker. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  17. ^ Owens, Simon (March 21, 2018). "Inside The New York Times's post-acquisition strategy for Wirecutter". Medium. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  18. ^ Neuts, Dana E. (October 16, 2017). "New York Times Co. Combines Wirecutter and Sweethome into Single Site". Subscription Insider. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  19. ^ Lam, Brian (December 19, 2013). "Meet the new editor-in-chief, Jacqui Cheng". Wirecutter. The New York Times. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  20. ^ Ember, Sydney (January 18, 2017). "Times Company Appoints David Perpich to Oversee The Wirecutter". The New York Times. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  21. ^ a b Ho, Karen K. (June 18, 2018). "Testing out a new future for Consumer Reports". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  22. ^ "A Note From David Perpich: Jacqui Cheng is Departing Wirecutter" (Press release). The New York Times Company. July 30, 2018. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  23. ^ "Ben Frumin Named Editor in Chief of Wirecutter" (Press release). The New York Times Company. December 6, 2018. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  24. ^ Wallender, Andrew (April 2, 2019). "New York Times' Wirecutter Staff Unionizes". Bloomberg Law. Retrieved December 21, 2021.
  25. ^ a b Robertson, Katie (December 14, 2021). "Wirecutter Union reaches a deal with The New York Times Company". The New York Times. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  26. ^ Klein, Julia M. (December 8, 2020). "The NYT's quiet strategist". Duke Magazine. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  27. ^ "The New York Times Company Launches Digital Subscriptions for Wirecutter" (Press release). The New York Times Company. August 31, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  28. ^ Sicha, Choire (November 24, 2021). "Here's the Best Strike for Most People". Intelligencer. New York (magazine). Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  29. ^ "The New York Times Launches First Podcast From Wirecutter". Yahoo Tech. August 14, 2024. Retrieved December 11, 2025.
  30. ^ "Introducing Engadget's newest contributor: The Wirecutter!". Engadget. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  31. ^ "Amazon tests third-party editorial content, starting with travel gear reviews from The Wirecutter". GeekWire. April 27, 2015. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  32. ^ Dove, Jackie (April 28, 2015). "Amazon.com Features The Wirecutter as an 'Experiment'". The Next Web. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  33. ^ Brooke, Eliza (December 11, 2018). "The rise of the recommendation site". Vox. Retrieved December 20, 2021.

Further reading

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