Methodology · Effective 2026‑08‑14

How a number earns a stamp

Every figure on this site carries one of four statuses, and the rules for moving between them are written down here — including the rules our commercial partners must live under.

Verification protocol

Each monthly cycle, a researcher walks the public checkout path of every priced program up to the payment step, records the all‑in total at both the starting dose and a 10–15 mg maintenance dose, and archives timestamped screenshots of the pricing page and checkout summary. A second researcher independently repeats any record that changed. A price becomes verified only after this process; until then it is operator (supplied by the company), reported (from a dated third‑party published check, with the source URL in the dataset), or pending. When third‑party sources disagree — as they currently do on Mochi's membership fee — we publish the conflict rather than the flattering number, and resolving flagged conflicts is the first task of the next cycle. Operator‑supplied figures are re‑checked against the provider's live pages before each release, and any operator figure we cannot reproduce at checkout is corrected publicly.

Beyond price: what else we verify

For each provider we confirm, where possible: the dispensing pharmacy's name and state license, its 503A or 503B status, whether a licensed clinician performs a genuine evaluation with the patient‑specific documentation 2026 law requires, the active form of the drug (base versus salt), state coverage, and cancellation terms as written in the actual terms of service. A provider that will not name its pharmacy is marked disqualified from recommendations regardless of price. Claims we cannot verify are labeled as claims — "per the provider" — never restated as fact.

How rankings are produced

Rankings and category calls ("lowest 12‑month total," "best insurance pathway") are computed from the fields in the public dataset — anyone can reproduce them from the JSON. Commercial partners get no input into methodology, no preview of rankings, and no ability to suppress a record; their only structural difference is a disclosure label and a stricter one: partner figures are marked operator‑supplied until independently verified, which is a lower evidentiary tier than a third‑party‑reported competitor figure. Where a category leader's figure is unverified, the category call says so in the same sentence.

Evidence labeling for formats and dosing

Programs built on formats or doses without published human evidence — sublingual/ODT peptides, permanently sub‑therapeutic "microdoses" — carry an evidence note wherever their price appears, including for partners. We do not exclude them, because people are buying them and deserve priced, honest coverage; we do not launder them, because a price stamp is not an efficacy claim.

Corrections policy

Standalone policy and public log: /corrections/.

Report an error to [email protected] with a link or screenshot. Within 48 hours we either correct the record — with the change noted in the change log — or publish why we believe the original figure stands. Corrections are never silent: the change log is append‑only, and materially wrong published claims get an inline correction note on the page itself. Providers may dispute their own records through the same channel and are held to the same evidence standard as everyone else: a live URL or a reproducible checkout total.

Sources policy

Clinical claims cite peer‑reviewed literature (the SURMOUNT program and successors) and FDA materials — approved labeling, shortage determinations, compounding guidance, and MedWatch. Regulatory-status claims are re‑reviewed each cycle because 2026's enforcement landscape moves monthly. Pricing sources are ranked: our own checkout verification, then the provider's live pages, then dated third‑party checks — and every dataset record names which one it used. We link primary sources rather than paraphrasing other comparison sites' conclusions, and we flag comparison content published by providers about themselves, including when the provider is our partner.

Update cadence

Full dataset re‑verification monthly; regulatory sections reviewed monthly; breaking changes (a lawsuit, a shutdown, a price move we can confirm) within one week of confirmation, with the change log entry dated. Every page shows its dataset version.