Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, MakerManifest is free to use. If you're using the service and have links to affiliate programs like Amazon, Etsy, etc., but don't have your own affiliate link set up, ours gets used in its place — that's how we keep the lights on. A cheap subscription tier is likely coming in the future for users who want additional features.

MakerManifest is invite-only during early access. Ask an existing member for an invite link, or join the waitlist on the home page.

CAPTCHA verification (powered by Cloudflare Turnstile) helps protect the site from automated bots and abuse. It typically takes just one click and no puzzles.

No. Your email is never shown publicly. Only your username, display name, bio, and the social links you choose to add are visible on your public profile.

Yes — you can add products from any website. MakerManifest will scrape the title and image automatically. Affiliate tag auto-application works for Amazon out of the box; for other stores you can set up a custom affiliate rule in Settings or paste your affiliate URL directly.

Some sites block automated scraping. When that happens, you can upload your own product image directly from your computer using the Upload button in the item editor. You can also paste a custom image URL if you have one.

After fetching a product you can edit the title and description before adding it to your list. You can also choose which scraped image to use, paste a custom image URL, or upload your own photo.

Yes — create as many lists as you need. Each gets its own page, short link, and view counter.

Drag and drop items using the grip handle on the left side of each row in the editor.

Yes — open the gear list editor and click Fetch All Images near the top. MakerManifest will re-scrape every item's product page and update images automatically. A status message shows progress and confirms when it's done.

Open the gear list in your dashboard and click the pencil icon on the item to edit it inline. To change the product URL entirely, delete the item and re-add the new URL.

Yes — paste a YouTube video URL into the YouTube Video URL field when editing your gear list. The video will appear embedded at the top of your public list page.

In the gear list editor, scroll down to the YouTube Description Export panel. You can set a prefix (e.g. '🛠️ Full gear list:'), choose an item format using {title}, {url}, and {shorturl} placeholders, and add a suffix. The panel generates ready-to-paste text for your video description. Hit 'Save as Default' to reuse your format across all lists.

Go to Dashboard → Settings → Affiliate Links and add your store tag (e.g. your Amazon Associates ID). MakerManifest automatically appends your tag to every matching product URL in every gear list — you set it once and it applies everywhere.

Yes. The tag is applied at click time when a visitor follows a link, so updating your tag in Settings will take effect on all existing lists immediately.

Yes — Settings → Affiliate Links has built-in presets for common networks: Howl (Anker, Target, Best Buy, and 17 more stores via bulk setup), eBay EPN, Etsy via AWIN, VigLink/Sovrn, and SkimLinks. VigLink and SkimLinks work as a catch-all — they apply to any store that doesn't have its own specific rule. You can also add any custom affiliate rule manually using query-param or URL wrapper format.

In Settings → Affiliate Links, select the 'Link Wrapper' type, click the 'Etsy (AWIN)' preset, and enter your AWIN Affiliate ID. You can paste either a plain Etsy listing URL or a full AWIN deep link — MakerManifest will automatically extract the Etsy URL from AWIN wrappers and re-apply your own affiliate ID when visitors click. Your Etsy (AWIN) rule covers etsy.com links; for other AWIN merchants you can add additional rules using 'AWIN (generic)' with the correct merchant ID (awinmid).

A catch-all rule (VigLink, SkimLinks) applies to any product URL that doesn't already have a specific store rule. It's useful when you monetize through an aggregator network — set it up once and it covers stores you haven't explicitly configured.

mkr.ms is MakerManifest's short link domain. Every gear list and item gets a short link like mkr.ms/aB3xYz that redirects to the full page. These are compact enough to include in YouTube descriptions and social bios.

Yes — when creating a short link via Dashboard → Shorten URL, you can enter a custom code (letters, numbers, and hyphens, 2–50 characters) instead of an auto-generated one.

Yes — Dashboard → Shorten URL lets you create a short link for any http or https URL. Each shortened link tracks its own click count.

If the destination URL matches one of your affiliate rules (e.g. an Amazon link and you have your Associates tag set up), your tag is applied automatically when a visitor clicks through. For links not attached to any affiliate program, our affiliate tag gets used in its place — that's one of the ways MakerManifest keeps the service running for free.

Your dashboard shows view counts for each gear list and click counts per item. Short links also track their own click counts independently.

Clicks and views are recorded immediately, but the dashboard may reflect a small delay due to caching.

The fastest way is to send a direct message to @TheNewJankyWorkshop from Dashboard → Messages. You can also use the Contact page (/contact) — no account needed, just include your email so we can follow up.

Use the Contact page (/contact) to send a suggestion or feature request. You don't need an account — just include your email so we can follow up. Registered users can submit without providing an email.

Yes — logged-in users can send direct messages to any other user from Dashboard → Messages. Messages are not real-time, but you'll receive a toast notification when a new message arrives while you're logged in.

Yes. While you're logged in, MakerManifest checks for new messages every 30 seconds and whenever you switch back to the browser tab. A slide-in notification appears when something new arrives.