Methodology
What is the Peptul Score?
A score out of 100 for how much we could independently check about a vendor. It is a measure of transparency, not of product quality, and it is never a recommendation to buy.
What it measures
Most of what a peptide vendor tells you about itself cannot be checked from the outside. The Peptul Score is our answer to a narrower question we can actually answer: how much of what this vendor says is backed by something we were able to open, read and trace ourselves.
Five checks, each scored out of 100. Every one of them is about evidence a vendor has published, so a vendor that documents its work openly scores well and one that asks you to take its word for it does not.
What it is not
We do not run assays and we do not test products. A high Peptul Score does not mean a vendor’s peptides are pure, safe or correctly dosed, and a low one does not mean they are not. It means we could, or could not, confirm what the vendor published. Treat it as one input among several, alongside reviews, reported issues and the vendor’s own testing documents.
The five checks
Shown in this order on every vendor page and in the app.
Independent testing
Whether a vendor publishes third-party lab results, and whether we could open one and trace it back to a named laboratory.
Scores well
Reports we opened ourselves, from a laboratory we could identify and confirm.
Scores poorly
Testing described on the site with no document, no laboratory named, or nothing we could open.
Review integrity
How much of a vendor’s public review record reads as independent. Review sets that lean heavily on repeated wording carry less weight here.
Scores well
A review record that holds up as written by separate customers.
Scores poorly
A review record where much of the text repeats, so less of it can be relied on.
Business transparency
Whether a vendor is reachable and says who they are: contact details and a business address published in the open.
Scores well
Contact details and an address anyone can find on the site.
Scores poorly
No way to reach the business without an order or an account.
Operator independence
Whether a vendor’s contact details and testing documents are their own, rather than shared with another storefront.
Scores well
Nothing shared with another shop.
Scores poorly
Contact details or testing documents that also appear under a different storefront.
Pricing transparency
Whether prices are itemised and readable without signing up, so a buyer can compare before committing.
Scores well
Prices published openly, per product and per size.
Scores poorly
Prices behind a login, a quote request or a message.
How the number is worked out
The Peptul Score is the average of the checks we completed. Nothing is weighted. Weighting would mean us claiming that, say, lab testing counts twice as much as being reachable, and that is a judgement we cannot evidence and you could not check. Equal weight is the only version we can defend.
A worked example
A vendor we completed four checks on, scoring 100, 90, 80 and 60, has a Peptul Score of 83. The fifth check is left out of the average rather than counted as zero, and the card says “4 of 5 checks completed” so a strong score can never hide thin evidence.
Why some vendors have no score
Below 3 completed checks we publish no Peptul Score at all - no number, no bars, nothing. One confirmed lab report does not make a vendor a 100, and a headline figure is the part a reader remembers. We would rather say nothing than publish a number built on one piece of evidence.
The same applies inside the card. A check we have not completed is drawn as an empty bar labelled “Not checked”, never as a zero. A zero would say we looked and found nothing, and that is a different claim from not having looked yet.
Being straight about the coverage: 11 of our 203 active consumer vendors currently carry any completed check. Each one is researched by hand, so the directory is far ahead of the scoring, and most vendors you look up will not have a Peptul Score yet.
What cannot change a score
Money. Vendors cannot buy a Peptul Score, raise one, or have a check removed. Paying vendors are labelled Partner and appear first in our default ordering, and that is the entire extent of it - it moves the order and changes nothing else. A vendor who claims their listing gets to correct their own business details; their score, their testing record and anything we have reported about them stay exactly as they are.
The one thing that does move a score is evidence. A vendor who publishes lab reports we can open, puts contact details on their site, or lists prices in the open will score better the next time we look. That is the whole point of measuring it this way.
Every score carries the month we last assessed it, and behind each check we keep a record of the specific evidence it was based on - the report we opened, the laboratory it came from, what we could and could not confirm. If you are a vendor and think a check is wrong, get in touch and we will look again.
Browse the vendor directory
Every vendor we list, with scores where we have them, verified COAs, reviews and reported issues.
Think a score is wrong?
Tell us what we got wrong and what the evidence is. We read every submission.
For educational and research purposes only. Not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any research compound.