Checkthevendor.com is free to read. To keep it that way, we make money in two clearly-marked ways: affiliate links and labelled sponsored placements. This page explains exactly how that works, and the firewall we keep between our revenue and our grades.
The short version: money never buys a grade or a ranking. The same rubric applies to every vendor, paying or not. Sponsored content is always labelled and never enters our merit ranking. Affiliate links are always marked. If you only read one line on this page, read that one.
How we make money
We are an independent grading and comparison site. We do not sell peptides. We rate the vendors who do, so you can compare them.
Our revenue comes from two sources, and only these two.
Affiliate links. When we link to a vendor, that link may be an affiliate link. If you click it and go on to buy from that vendor, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The price you pay is the same whether you use our link or type the vendor’s address directly.
Sponsored placements. A vendor can pay for a clearly-labelled placement on the site, such as a promoted slot or a sponsored notice. This is advertising. It buys visibility in a labelled ad space. It does not buy anything else.
The firewall: money never touches a grade
This is the rule that everything else depends on, so we state it plainly.
- Payment never buys a grade, and it never improves one. A vendor cannot pay to raise its score, change its letter, or move up the ranking.
- The same published rubric applies to everyone. Paying and non-paying vendors are scored against identical criteria and weights, with the same integrity gate and the same evidence standards.
- Sponsored content is always labelled, and it is kept out of the merit ranking. A sponsored slot is an ad. It sits in a visibly marked ad space and does not appear as, or mix into, our ranked grades.
- We grade vendors who have never paid us, and vendors who have. Their grades read the same way and are built the same way.
If a vendor offers us money in exchange for a better grade, a higher ranking, or the removal of a finding, we decline, and the offer has no effect on what we publish.
How grades are actually decided
So you can see there is no room for money in the process, here is what does decide a grade.
A grade is our editorial opinion, grounded in disclosed, dated facts. Every vendor is scored 0-100 against a published rubric across eight weighted criteria:
- Third-Party Lab Testing & COA Verification — 25%
- Measured Purity & Contaminant Profile — 18%
- Transparency & Disclosure — 12%
- Reputation & Customer Service — 12%
- Pricing & Value — 10%
- Shipping, Packaging & Fulfilment — 8%
- Payment Options & Checkout Trust — 8%
- Website & Operational Trust Signals — 7%
Each criterion is scored 0-100 against its published rubric, multiplied by its weight, and summed into a 0-100 composite that maps to a letter grade:
A+ 97-100 · A 93-96 · A- 90-92 · B+ 87-89 · B 83-86 · B- 80-82 · C+ 77-79 · C 73-76 · C- 70-72 · D+ 67-69 · D 63-66 · D- 60-62 · F below 60.
A binding integrity gate sits above the maths: a vendor with no independent third-party COA cannot score above a D, and a vendor we find to have published fabricated or reused COAs, or fake reviews, is capped at F and flagged. Where we report a finding like this, we state the verifiable observation and the evidence behind it, and let you draw your own conclusion.
Sponsorship status is not one of these criteria. It carries no weight. It is not an input.
Every score is tagged measured (a verifiable fact, such as a lab result) or editorial (a labelled opinion), with the evidence linked. We also publish a confidence label for each grade: High, Medium, or Limited/provisional, depending on how much independent testing and community data sits behind it. You can check the basis of any grade for yourself. None of those evidence sources is “the vendor paid us”.
How to tell what you are looking at
We want you to be able to identify our commercial relationships at a glance.
- Affiliate links are disclosed. Where we earn a commission on a link, we mark it so you know before you click.
- Sponsored placements carry a clear “Sponsored” or “Ad” label and are visually separated from editorial content and from the merit ranking.
- Grades and rankings are editorial. They are our opinion, grounded in disclosed, dated facts, and they are produced under the firewall described above, regardless of any commercial relationship.
If you ever cannot tell whether something is a paid placement or independent editorial, that is a problem we want to fix. Tell us and we will correct the labelling.
Why this disclosure exists
We publish this so you can trust what you read here, and to meet the disclosure expectations that apply to sites like ours.
In line with US FTC guidance on endorsements and affiliate relationships, and with EU and UK rules on identifying advertising and commercial communications, we disclose our affiliate links and we label our sponsored content clearly and up front. Our aim is that no reasonable reader is misled about whether we have a financial interest in a link or placement.
These disclosure practices are part of our methodology, not a layer on top of it. They are reviewed whenever we update our methodology.
Note: This page describes our commercial and disclosure practices and references advertising-disclosure expectations in several jurisdictions. It is not legal advice. A qualified lawyer in our operating jurisdiction should review and localise it before publication.
What this page does not do
We rate vendor quality only. Nothing on this site, including any sponsored placement or affiliate link, speaks to the safety, efficacy, legality, or suitability of any peptide for any use, and nothing here is medical, dosing, or health advice. An affiliate link or a sponsored slot is not a recommendation that you buy or use anything. It is a commercial placement, disclosed as such.
Questions, or think we got it wrong
If a disclosure looks unclear, or you believe a commercial relationship has influenced something we published, we want to hear about it.
Vendors have a free right of reply and access to our corrections process, whether or not they pay us. Anyone can flag a labelling or disclosure concern.
Contact us at hello@checkthevendor.com and we will respond, review, and correct the record where correction is due.