Editorial Policy & Methodology

How We're Funded

The Peptide Catalog runs on affiliate revenue. When a reader clicks a vendor link on our site and makes a purchase, the vendor pays us a commission. That commission funds the writing, the research, and the infrastructure that keeps this site running.

Every affiliate link on this site is tagged rel="nofollow sponsored noreferrer" in line with Google's guidelines for paid links. This is not optional and we do not make exceptions.

What we do not do:

• We do not accept payment for editorial coverage or article placement.
• We do not run sponsored content disguised as editorial. If something is paid, it is labelled.
• We do not let paid placement override our independent scoring, COA verification, or per-mg pricing data. See “Premium Vendor Placements” below for the one exception — paid rank position on a small set of pages — and how we disclose it.

How We Rank Vendors

Every vendor on this site is scored by the same formula. The implementation lives in src/lib/vendor-scoring.ts in the codebase, and that file is the source of truth.

• Price (40%) — real per-mg cost, refreshed by an automated scraper. Lower price scores higher.
• COA verification (30%) — vendors that publish third-party Certificates of Analysis from independent labs score higher. Vendors with no COAs are not eligible to be listed.
• Reputation (30%) — shipping reliability, refund behaviour, customer feedback, and time in market. We weight vendors with consistent, multi-year delivery records higher than new entrants.

We enforce a floor of 8.0/10. If a vendor cannot clear that bar across all three dimensions, they do not appear on the site at all — regardless of commission rate. We only list vendors we would buy from ourselves.

Commission rate does not influence rank. If a vendor offers a 50% commission and another vendor offers a 5% commission, both are scored by the same formula. The only exception is a small number of explicitly disclosed premium placements — flat-fee paid rank positions on a defined list of pages, labelled with a PREMIUM badge and a top-of-page disclosure. Everywhere else, score and stock status drive position.

We also operate a manual recommended flag in our admin tooling. A vendor flagged as recommended has cleared an additional internal review — test orders placed, shipping confirmed, COAs cross-checked, support contacted. It is a higher trust tier on top of the score, not a substitute for it.

How We Cite Research

Every PubMed citation on this site is verified against PubMed before publication. We never cite a PMID from memory. Wrong PMIDs destroy credibility and we treat that as an absolute rule.

We cap articles at eight references. The goal is to cite the strongest evidence, not the most evidence. A long reference list of weak studies is worse than a short list of strong ones.

Each article carries a “Last reviewed” date. That date is real. When we update an article based on new research or a corrected dose, we bump the date. We do not refresh the date for cosmetic edits.

How We Grade Evidence

We grade two parallel forms of evidence on every peptide. Both use the same four-tier vocabulary — Strong, Moderate, Weak, Preliminary — but they measure different things.

Clinical Evidence

Reflects peer-reviewed human RCT depth — the gold standard for medicine.

• Strong — multiple human RCTs with consistent findings.
• Moderate — limited human studies or strong animal evidence.
• Weak — single study, small sample, or theoretical.
• Preliminary — in vitro, animal-only, or anecdotal.

Community Evidence

Reflects practitioner protocols and multi-year user reports — not RCT data, but real-world signal that matters when clinical trials are absent.

• Strong — decades of off-label clinical use; consistent reports across thousands of users and practitioners.
• Moderate — 5-10+ years of established use; reliable community reports; growing practitioner adoption.
• Weak — limited adoption; sporadic reports; inconsistent outcomes.
• Preliminary — few users; mostly experimental.

A peptide can have weak clinical evidence and strong community evidence simultaneously. Both readings are valid and complementary. We surface both so the reader gets the full picture, not just the RCT picture.

What You Won't See Here

• No brand names. We use generic chemical names only — semaglutide, tirzepatide, liraglutide — not trademarked product names. Our content is about the compound, not the packaging.
• No miracle-cure language.No “guaranteed results,” no “breakthrough,” no “cure.” If the evidence is uncertain, we say so.
• No paid placements disguised as editorial. If a vendor placement is paid, it is labelled with a PREMIUM badge and a top-of-page disclosure (see Premium Vendor Placements). We do not run sponsored articles dressed up as independent reviews.
• No vendors we wouldn't personally buy from. The 8.0 score floor exists for this reason.
• No medical advice. Peptides discussed on this site are covered for educational and research purposes. Readers should consult a licensed clinician before making personal medical decisions.

Corrections & Feedback

If you spot an error, a stale dose, an outdated study, or a misattributed citation, tell us. We update articles when readers flag mistakes with citations, and we credit substantive corrections in the article's update notes.

Email: [email protected]

Every material update — new research, corrected dose, revised ranking — triggers a “Last reviewed” date bump on the affected article.

Our Editorial Team

Articles on this site are currently published under The Peptide Catalog Team — a small group of writers and researchers who work on the site day to day.

As the team grows, we will name individual contributors and medical reviewers directly on the articles they touch. Naming a reviewer means that person actually reviewed the content; we will not list reviewers who have not done the work.