Independent · No manufacturer sponsorshipReviews updated weekly
About Ergoprise
Ergoprise started in 2019 as a Google Doc - a list of chairs Lena had personally tested with her physical therapy patients. Seven years later it's a small editorial team, two test labs, a database of 240 products, and a single rule: we tell the truth about what works.
Independently funded · No manufacturer sponsorship
Our manifesto
The rules we wrote down in 2019 and haven't broken since. Each one has cost us money. We keep them anyway.
We don't accept review units we can't return. We don't have a 'press' tier. We pay for chairs the way you pay for chairs - and if a brand revokes our access for a critical review, we publish that too.
The right chair for one person is the wrong chair for another. We never crown a single 'best' without telling you who it's best for. Our top pick has been the same chair for three years - and we still recommend a $369 chair to half our readers.
Every product we cover gets a 'what we'd change' section. There is no perfect chair. There is no perfect desk. Pretending otherwise is how affiliate sites lose your trust, and once it's gone we don't get it back.
We earn a commission on some links - typically 4-8% of the sale price. It funds the lab, the testers, and the hosting bill. It does not influence rankings. We've confirmed this with our editor's-pick chair changing categories four times since 2021.
“DPT · CEAS-II · 14 yr clinical practice. Started Ergoprise from a hospital break room in 2019.”
“M.Eng Industrial · ex-Steelcase R&D. Runs the pressure-mapping rig and writes the chair geometry sections.”
“Ten years at The Strategist. Edits everything before it ships and writes the buying guides.”
“Builds the calculators. Maintains the chair-fit database. Once measured 800 chairs in a single year and recommends therapy.”
Every product we recommend has been used by at least three testers, in real conditions, for at least three weeks. Most chairs spend six months under a tester before we publish a review. We re-test annually and pull recommendations the day a manufacturer changes a material we depend on.
We also publish what we don't know. If a chair behaves differently for a 6’4” tester and we only have a 5’8” sample, we say so. Our methodology page is updated quarterly and is open-source on GitHub.
Methodology
We do the same seven things to every product we publish a recommendation on. No exceptions, no shortcuts, no pre-press loaners.
We buy the product retail. No PR loaners. Receipts filed; serial numbers logged.
Every adjustment, every angle, every weight. Recorded against the manufacturer's spec sheet.
Three testers minimum, 200 hours minimum. Heights and disciplines documented up front.
Pressure mapping, posture analysis, durability cycling on the rig.
Against the current category leader, head-to-head, same day.
Only when we'd recommend it to our parents - and only after a second editor signs off.
Annually, plus whenever a material spec changes. Reviews are dated; old picks are retired in public.