Our Watchdog Methodology: How This Site Tests Every Platform We Cover
Published September 2026 · Last updated September 2026 · Methodology document
Every platform we review, every checklist we publish, and every investigation we conduct follows the same methodology. This page documents that methodology so you can evaluate our work the same way we evaluate the platforms we cover — with transparency, specificity, and access to the underlying criteria.
This page contains zero affiliate links. It exists for accountability, not revenue.
Our Principles
We are not neutral. We advocate for patient safety and consumer protection. When a platform fails to meet basic standards of transparency, clinical rigor, or regulatory compliance, we say so. When a platform exceeds those standards, we say that too. We don't pretend that all platforms are equivalent or that the truth is always "somewhere in the middle."
We are not a provider. We don't prescribe medication, sell medication, or operate a telehealth platform. Our role is investigation and education. We earn revenue through affiliate partnerships with platforms that pass our vetting standards (more on this below), but we don't create content to sell those platforms — we create content to inform patients, and we link to vetted options where contextually appropriate.
We verify before we publish. Claims in our articles are sourced to publicly verifiable databases, published regulatory documents, company websites reviewed on specific dates, or our own direct testing. We don't rely on press releases, marketing materials, or competitor claims without independent verification.
We update and correct. Published articles are reviewed quarterly. When a platform's status changes (new FDA warning letter, changed pricing, updated policies), we update the relevant articles. When we get something wrong, we correct it and note the correction. Past versions of significantly revised articles are available on request.
How We Evaluate Platforms
Step 1: Public Information Audit
We review the platform's website, looking for the items in our 20-Point Safe-Platform Checklist. This includes prescriber identification, pharmacy naming, compounding disclosures, pricing transparency, cancellation policies, and regulatory status. This step uses only publicly available information — what any consumer could find by visiting the site.
Step 2: Regulatory Database Cross-Check
We search public databases for the platform and its associated pharmacy: state medical board license verification for named prescribers, state board of pharmacy license verification for named pharmacies, FDA outsourcing facility registration (for 503B pharmacies), NABP status, PCAB accreditation, LegitScript certification, and FDA warning letter and Form 483 inspection databases. See our Pharmacy Verification guide for the specific tools we use.
Step 3: Disclosure Assessment
We evaluate the quality and accuracy of the platform's compounding disclosures, using the grading system described in our Compounding Disclosure Test. Platforms that accurately and prominently disclose their compounding status, pharmacy partnerships, and FDA regulatory position earn higher marks. Platforms that omit or obscure this information earn lower marks.
Step 4: Pricing Verification
We verify published pricing against what a consumer would actually encounter during signup. This means navigating the intake process (without completing a purchase) and documenting: the actual medication cost, any membership or subscription fees, shipping charges, consultation fees, and the total first-month and ongoing monthly cost. We look for pricing that differs from what's advertised on the homepage, hidden fees that appear only during checkout, and introductory pricing that jumps significantly after the first month without prominent disclosure. All pricing in our articles is date-stamped and sourced to a specific verification pass.
Step 5: Review and Complaint Analysis
We review the platform's reputation across multiple sources: Trustpilot, BBB (Better Business Bureau), ConsumerAffairs, Reddit (r/semaglutide, r/tirzepatide, r/GLP1_Medications), and state attorney general complaint databases where publicly available. We look for patterns — a single bad review is noise, but consistent complaints about billing, shipping, or customer service are signals. We also check for evidence of astroturfing (fabricated positive reviews), which is itself a red flag.
Step 6: Synthesis and Rating
We synthesize the findings from Steps 1–5 into an overall assessment. Platforms are not assigned numerical scores because the weight of each factor depends on the patient's priorities (a patient who values price above all else evaluates differently from a patient who values clinical oversight above all else). Instead, we describe what the platform does well, what it does poorly, and what the outstanding questions are — so you can make the decision based on your own priorities.
What We Don't Do
We don't test the medication. We don't purchase medication from platforms and send it to independent labs for potency or sterility testing. This would be the most informative test possible, but it's prohibitively expensive at scale and raises legal questions about purchasing prescription medication for journalistic purposes. If an organization with the resources and legal standing to conduct such testing publishes results (as the Yale research team did in their 2026 study), we report on those findings.
We don't conduct undercover consultations. We don't sign up for platforms under false pretenses, complete medical intake forms, or obtain prescriptions for the purpose of evaluation. Our assessment is based on publicly available information and the experience that a consumer would have up to the point of purchase. This is a limitation — a platform's intake quality is important but can only be assessed from the outside by analyzing patient reports and published research (like the Yale secret shopper study).
We don't contact platforms for comment before publishing. Our evaluations are based on publicly verifiable information. A platform's response to a request for comment is PR, not evidence. If a platform disputes our findings, it can correct the underlying issue (update its disclosures, obtain accreditation, address billing practices) and we'll update our assessment accordingly.
Our Affiliate Relationship Disclosure
Full transparency on how we earn revenue:
This site earns revenue through affiliate partnerships with telehealth platforms. When a reader clicks an affiliate link and signs up for a platform, we may receive a commission. These commissions are our primary revenue source.
How this affects our editorial: We only maintain affiliate partnerships with platforms that pass our own vetting standards (Steps 1–5 above). If a platform fails our evaluation, we do not maintain an affiliate relationship with it, even if it offers high commissions. If a current affiliate partner receives an FDA warning letter or fails a re-evaluation, we pause the partnership until the issue is resolved.
What affiliate status does not buy: Affiliate partners do not receive advance notice of our articles, editorial review or approval of our content, preferential placement in rankings, suppression of negative findings, or guaranteed inclusion in any specific article. Our editorial decisions are made independently of affiliate relationships.
What you should know: The presence of affiliate links means we have a financial incentive to recommend the platforms we link to. We manage this conflict by applying the same evaluation standards to partners and non-partners alike, and by disclosing the financial relationship on every page that contains affiliate links. Articles that contain zero affiliate links (like this one) are marked accordingly.
Specific disclosure: As of September 2026, our affiliate partners include Embody, Gala, Wellorithm, Oak, Found, Sesame Care, GobyMeds, and others. The full list of current partners is available on request. Commission rates vary by partner but do not influence editorial decisions. We do not disclose specific commission amounts because they are confidential commercial terms, but the range is typical for the telehealth affiliate industry.
How to Hold Us Accountable
If you find an error in any of our published content — a factual mistake, an outdated price, a regulatory status that has changed, or a platform assessment you believe is unfair — contact us at the email address on our Contact page. We review every substantive correction request and update content where warranted. We take accuracy seriously because it's the only thing that distinguishes us from the platforms we evaluate.
If you believe our affiliate relationships are compromising our editorial independence — if a review seems suspiciously favorable or a competitor seems unfairly maligned — tell us. We'd rather hear the criticism and address it than maintain a bias we're blind to. Our value to readers depends entirely on our credibility, and credibility is the asset we protect most aggressively.