About LastPurchase
A research site for people who would rather buy one thing that lasts a decade than ten things that last a year.
Why this exists
The internet is full of “best of” lists where the winner is whoever paid the most. AI Overviews and content farms have made it worse, not better. A search for “best down jacket” returns ten near-identical pages all recommending the same five products with no real testing behind any of them.
We started LastPurchase because we got tired of buying things twice. The first jacket fails. You learn the brand. You spend more on the replacement. Multiply that across boots, packs, pans, tools, and you’ve spent thousands on the same category trying to find the one that actually lasts.
The thesis is simple: a product’s real cost is what you pay divided by how many years you use it. A $400 jacket worn for 10 years is cheaper than an $80 jacket replaced every two. We call this cost-per-year and we put it on every product page.
How we score
Every product gets a score out of 100 across three dimensions. The score is the sum of the parts — no “overall vibe” weighting, no editorial fudge factor.
Every claim has a source. Every dimension has a confidence grade (high / medium / low) so you can tell the difference between “we found ten field reports over three years” and “we’re extrapolating from the spec sheet.” Full method: methodology page.
How it’s funded
LastPurchase makes money through affiliate commissions: when you click through to a retailer and buy something, we get a small cut. The price you pay is the same.
We do not accept sponsored placements, paid reviews, or “brand partnerships” that affect a score. We don’t reorder lists to favor the highest-commission merchant. If a brand offers us 8% and another offers 3% on the same product, the link the user actually clicks is whichever has the better warranty and return policy — not whichever pays more.
The site is run by one person on a sub-$300/month cost base. That cost discipline is why we can stay independent: there are no investors to please, no team salaries to pay, and the break-even bar is low enough that we can take the long way to get there.
Full disclosure on commissions and affiliate relationships: affiliate disclosure page.
The rules we hold ourselves to
- •No fabricated facts. Every score and every claim is backed by a source we can point to. No making things sound better than they are.
- •Conservative scoring. Most products land between 55 and 80. Anything above 88 requires exceptional evidence. We’d rather under-rate a winner than over-rate a dud.
- •Known concerns are visible. Every product page has a “Known concerns” section. We don’t bury the negatives at the bottom of the article.
- •No marketing language. If a product description sounds like it came from a press release, we rewrite it.
- •Prices stay fresh. Merchant prices refresh regularly. If a price is stale, that’s a bug.
What’s next
We’re going deep on outdoor apparel first — down jackets, rain shells, packs, pants — before expanding into kitchen, tools, and leather. Depth in one category beats breadth across ten when the goal is real durability research.
If you have a product you wish we’d cover, use the Suggest a Product link in the navbar.
Get in touch
Tips, corrections, or arguments with our scores are all welcome at hello@lastpurchase.io.