For most of the last decade the size of the peptide market has been argued from proxies — vendor traffic, forum volume, search interest, Discord headcounts. On September 9, 2026, the Financial Times put a bank's number on it. Citigroup surveyed consumers about peptide use, and the reported result was that 28% of respondents had used one of 12 popular peptides, and that respondents indicated they would spend an average of $90 a month. Scaled across the US adult population, that arithmetic approaches $80 billion in theoretical annual sales.
That figure has since travelled a long way from its source. It is worth separating what was actually reported from what the number has been made to mean, because the gap between the two is where most of the confusion about this market now lives — and because the extrapolation, if it is anywhere near right, describes a consumer base far larger than the roughly $100 million in vendor payments Chainalysis has tracked in this channel.
Research-context information only. Compounds discussed below are research peptides and supplements; some are investigational drugs not approved by the FDA. Protocols, doses, and reactions reported come from published research and self-reported community sources. Possession or use of investigational drugs outside an authorized clinical trial may be illegal in your jurisdiction. This article reports what has been documented, not what should be done. Consult a licensed physician for personal medical decisions.
What was actually reported
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Source of the figure | Citigroup consumer survey, reported by the Financial Times, September 9, 2026 |
| Reported usage | 28% of respondents had used one of 12 popular peptides |
| Reported spend | $90 a month, average, as stated by respondents (stated intent, not measured spend) |
| Derived market | Approaching $80 billion annually, scaled to the US adult population |
| Underlying report | Not published by Citi; not linked by the FT or by outlets that repeated it |
| Sample size | Not disclosed |
| Survey date | Not disclosed |
| The 12 peptides | Not disclosed |
| Definition of "used" | Not disclosed |
The disclosure column is the story. An $80 billion number is a headline; a 28% usage rate with no published methodology is a data point that cannot be checked. Both the Financial Times' account and the secondary coverage that followed it reproduced the figures without a link to Citi's underlying research, which means the sample, the questionnaire and the peptide list are all currently unverifiable.
The word "peptide" is doing enormous work
The most consequential omission is the list of 12. "Peptide" is not a market category — it is a chemical description that spans at least five distinct commercial channels:
- Approved pharmaceuticals. Semaglutide and tirzepatide are peptides. They are also multi-billion-dollar prescription drugs with their own reported revenue. If GLP-1 drugs were on the list of 12, a large share of that 28% is measuring a prescription market that is already counted elsewhere.
- Approved specialty drugs. Tesamorelin has an approved indication and a pharmacy price, and separately trades in the research channel.
- Cosmetic topicals. Creams and serums containing GHK-Cu are sold over the counter at every price point. A respondent who used a copper-peptide face serum has, accurately, used a peptide.
- Food supplements. Collagen peptide powder is a grocery-aisle product. It is also, literally, a peptide.
- Research-use-only compounds. BPC-157, TB-500, retatrutide, MOTS-c, epitalon and the rest of the catalogue that this site tracks.
A 28% figure that includes collagen powder and drugstore face serum describes a mass consumer market. A 28% figure restricted to injectable research compounds would be an extraordinary claim, exceeding the CDC's reported adult cigarette-smoking prevalence several times over. Without the list, there is no way to tell which one was measured, and the $80 billion extrapolation inherits that ambiguity whole.
The $90-a-month test
The more checkable figure is the $90. Unlike the usage rate, monthly spend can be tested against live prices, and this is where the survey stops being abstract.
Against the survey's $90 figure, here is the arithmetic. As of publication, the cheapest listings we track for BPC-157 sit near $3 per milligram, and for retatrutide near $4.50 per milligram, before vendor coupons. At those rates $90 buys roughly 30 mg of BPC-157 or roughly 20 mg of retatrutide, before shipping. Multi-compound orders, and kit-size quantities of GLP-1-class compounds, run above that figure.
Prices move weekly and vendor coupons move faster, so the live figure is the one that matters rather than any number written into an article. Current per-milligram pricing across every vendor we track is on the best BPC-157 vendors and best retatrutide vendors pages, and active discount codes are consolidated on our deals page.
The contrast that makes the survey number interesting is the other channel. Leerink has pegged compounded peptides as a $2.2 billion telehealth opportunity, and that route prices on consultation plus prescription rather than per milligram — a structurally different cost basis that we broke down in the $2.2B race to sell you prescription BPC-157. The two routes price on different bases: the prescription route bundles a consultation, a prescription and a pharmacy-dispensed product, while research-channel listings price per milligram of unapproved research material. The institutional thesis rests on whether that difference matters enough to the $90 respondents to move them.
The Peptide Catalog earns a commission on some vendor links below, and bacteriostatic water is sold by a business the site's owner operates. Neither affects the prices shown or the ranking order.
