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How this site makes money
You are reading about a purchase people make once, under pressure, while grieving. You are entitled to know exactly what our financial interest is before you take our word for anything.
Last updated 4 September 2026.
Some pages contain affiliate links. If you follow one and buy something, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We do not sell headstones, we take no payment from monument dealers, and we never pass your details to anyone.
What we will not do
These are commitments, not aspirations, and they are the reason this site exists.
- We will not sell your details. There is no lead form on this site. We could not sell your information if we wanted to, because we never collect it.
- We will not take payment from monument dealers for a recommendation, a listing or a referral.
- We will not let commission change what we recommend. Where the free option is better than the paid one, we say so — and on this site that is often. The VA headstone is free. The DD-214 is free. The Presidential Memorial Certificate is free. We say so plainly on every page where it applies, and we make nothing from any of them.
- We will not run advertising in the middle of a page that someone is reading because somebody died. If display advertising is added, it will be restrained and it will not interrupt.
Where the money actually comes from
| Affiliate commission | Cleaning products, memorial items and genealogy subscriptions. Marked as such on the pages where they appear. |
|---|---|
| Display advertising | Not currently running. If it starts, this page will say so. |
| Everything else | Nothing. No sponsored posts, no paid placements, no dealer fees, no lead sales. |
The specific conflicts, named
Rather than a general disclaimer, here is where our interest and your interest could diverge, and what we do about it.
Cleaning products. We describe the VA's own cleaning protocol, which names specific products. We may earn commission if you buy one through a link here. The protocol is the VA's, not ours — we did not choose those products and we would describe them identically if we earned nothing. We also say plainly that for ordinary soiling, water and a soft brush are often enough, which earns us nothing at all.
Genealogy subscriptions. Some research services pay commission. We list the free options first — the VA's Nationwide Gravesite Locator and FamilySearch — because for most people they are where the answer is, and neither pays us anything.
Headstone retailers. Buying online is sometimes cheaper and sometimes not. We say explicitly that freight on a heavy stone can erase the saving, because it can, and because a family that finds that out after ordering has been badly served.
Amazon
Where we participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com, that participation is disclosed on the page in question. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
How we write
- Facts come from primary sources: VA and National Cemetery Administration publications, the Code of Federal Regulations, National Archives procedures, and published industry pricing. We name the source in the text where it matters.
- Where a figure changes over time — a burial allowance, a reimbursement cap — we say so and tell you to confirm it with the VA rather than trusting a number on a website.
- We are not the VA, not affiliated with it, and cannot decide a claim. Only the VA can.
- When we get something wrong, we fix it. If you spot an error, write to corrections@stoneandmarker.com and it will be corrected.
Why we are telling you all this
Because the death care industry has a long history of selling to people who are in no state to evaluate what they are being sold, and a site that says "independent" without showing its books is asking for trust it hasn't earned.
If anything on this site reads like it was written to make a sale rather than to answer a question, tell us. That is the standard we are trying to hold.