About Tool Bench Data

Last updated: August 16, 2026

Tool Bench Data is a specification-first reference for cordless power tools. We do not run a workshop, we do not have a dynamometer, and we do not test the products we write about. What we do is read manufacturer specification sheets closely, convert everything into consistent units, and set tools side by side so the differences are visible rather than implied.

1. What this site is

Cordless tool marketing is unusually good at producing numbers that look comparable and are not. Torque figures measured under different joint conditions, runtimes quoted under laboratory loads, “up to” speeds that apply only in the highest gear with no load on the chuck. The information is technically published and technically accurate, and it still leaves a buyer unable to rank two tools sensibly.

Our contribution is normalization. Where one brand publishes torque in inch-pounds and another in newton-meters, we record both. Where one quotes no-load speed as a single number and another gives a range per gear, we record the ranges. Where a runtime claim exists, we record the pack capacity and load condition it was measured at — a runtime without those attached is not a specification at all.

2. What we deliberately do not do

• We do not test. No cutting trials, no torque bench, no runtime timing. Every performance figure on this site originates with the manufacturer or a published standard, and is labelled accordingly.
• We do not publish star ratings, review counts, or summaries of what reviewers collectively think. That data belongs to the retailers who collected it, and averaged sentiment hides the tradeoffs that matter when choosing between two genuinely different tools.
• We do not publish exact prices. Cordless pricing and kit bundling change constantly. We work in tiers and ranges, which stay accurate longer and are more useful when comparing a bare tool against a kit against a battery-only purchase.
• We do not present ourselves as tradespeople. Where practical judgement is needed, we explain the mechanical reasoning rather than appealing to experience we have not documented.

3. The analysis we care most about

The signature piece of work on this site is the true multi-year cost of battery-platform lock-in. Buying a cordless tool is not a single transaction; it is entry into an ecosystem that will sell you replacement packs, spare chargers and bare tools that fit nothing else for as long as you keep using it.

That cost is fully knowable in advance. It depends on the number of tools you expect to own, the amp-hour ratings those tools realistically need, the cycle life of the cells, and the price tier of the brand’s packs. We work it through openly, and it regularly reverses the ranking that a comparison of headline tool specifications would produce. Our battery platforms hub is where that analysis lives.

4. How pages are built and maintained

Every category page starts from the same base: the manufacturer’s own specification documentation, cross-checked against the product listing where the two disagree. Discrepancies between a brand’s spec sheet and its retail listing are common, and where we find one we say so rather than silently picking the more flattering figure.

Specifications change when a manufacturer revises a product without changing its model number, which happens more often than the industry likes to admit. Pages carry a visible last-updated date so you can judge how current the figures are. The full process, including how we handle unverifiable claims, is documented on our review methodology page.

5. How the site is funded

Tool Bench Data earns commission on qualifying purchases made through retailer links, including as an Amazon Associate. That arrangement pays for the research time; it does not buy placement, and no manufacturer has editorial input into what appears here. Our disclosure page sets out the commercial relationships in full.

The practical safeguard is that our conclusions are built from published specifications you can check yourself. If we characterised a tool inaccurately, the manufacturer’s own documentation would contradict us.

6. Corrections

Specification errors are the kind of mistake we most want to hear about. If a figure on this site does not match the manufacturer’s current documentation, tell us which page, which figure and where the correct number is published, and we will fix it and update the page date. Use the contact page.