What we do
Two things, and only two things:
- We curate free plans. Our flagship guide, the 30 Free Beginner Woodworking Plans directory, is a hand-checked list of genuinely free project plans from experienced plan publishers, tool-brand learning sites, university extension programs, and conservation organizations. We open every link before we publish it and we re-verify the list each edition.
- We give honest recommendations. Our project quiz matches your skill level, project ambitions, and workshop space to a starting point. When a recommendation involves a paid product, we review it plainly — what it is, who it fits, and who should skip it — and we say so when the free option is the better call.
Our curation rules
- Genuinely free means free. No plan in our directory requires payment. If a source offers an optional paid upgrade, the free version must be complete on its own.
- We link, we never copy. Every plan links to the creator's own page. We don't re-host files, scrape content, or reproduce plan drawings — the people who made the plans deserve the visit.
- Nobody pays for inclusion. No plan publisher paid to be in the directory, and we have no affiliate relationship with any of the free-plan sites we list.
- Beginner-appropriate or it's out. Basic tools (a saw and a drill cover most of the list), common construction lumber, weekend-or-less timelines.
How the site makes money
The Bench Verdict is reader-supported. When we recommend a paid product — for example on our quiz results page — some links are affiliate links, which means we earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. Two commitments come with that:
- Every page with affiliate links carries a clear disclosure at the top, before the recommendation.
- The commission never changes the verdict. Where a product has real weaknesses, we list them; where the free option is the better choice for you, we say exactly that — including on the pages where we'd earn a commission if we said otherwise.
We are independent. We are not the vendor of any product we review, and when a vendor makes a marketing claim we can't verify ourselves (like a plan count), we attribute it to the vendor rather than repeating it as fact.
Who we write for
Beginners and early-stage hobbyists, with a soft spot for our Canadian readers — prices in our reviews note the USD/CAD distinction, and our email practices follow Canada's anti-spam law (CASL): express opt-in consent, clear sender identification, and a working unsubscribe in every email. Details in the privacy policy.