Methodology

How we score vendors

Full transparency on every number. Every score on TVR is derived from structured data fields — nothing is subjective or hand-waved. This page explains exactly what goes into each dimension and why we weight them the way we do.

The Vial Score

The Vial Score is a single 0–100 composite that lets you quickly rank vendors. It is a weighted average of three dimensions:

40%
Trust
Community trust tier + Reddit sentiment + responsiveness
35%
Testing
COA availability, method quality, and lab independence
25%
Price
Bulk discounts, free shipping threshold, minimum order

Trust is weighted highest because product safety depends on it — an untested product from a vendor with poor community standing carries real risk regardless of price. Testing is next because COA coverage is the primary objective signal of product quality. Price is weighted lowest because it is less correlated with safety.

Radar chart dimensions (0–5 scale)

Each vendor also has a radar chart showing six dimensions on a 0–5 scale. These give more granular information than the Vial Score alone.

Testing
+COA every batch: +2.0 pts
+COA some batches: +1.0 pts
+COA on request: +0.5 pts
+Both HPLC + mass spec: +1.5 pts
+HPLC or mass spec alone: +1.0 pts
+Third-party or mixed lab: +1.0 pts
+In-house only: +0.5 pts
+Endotoxin testing: +0.25 pts
+Sterility testing: +0.25 pts
Max 5.0 pts. Vendors with every-batch COAs from independent labs using both methods can reach ~5.
Trust
+Verified tier baseline: 5.0 pts
+Trusted tier baseline: 4.0 pts
+Mixed tier baseline: 2.5 pts
+New tier baseline: 1.5 pts
+Untrusted tier baseline: 0.5 pts
+Reddit sentiment: blended 40% into tier score if available
+Responds to feedback: +0.5 pts (capped at 5)
Shipping
+Baseline: 2.0 pts
+≤2 day domestic: +1.5 pts
+≤4 day domestic: +1.0 pts
+≤7 day domestic: +0.5 pts
+Cold chain available: +0.5 pts
+Tracking provided: +0.3 pts
+Discreet packaging: +0.2 pts
+Reship on seizure: +0.5 pts
+Refund on seizure: +0.3 pts
Payment
+Accepts card: +1.5 pts
+Accepts crypto: +1.0 pts
+Accepts PayPal: +0.75 pts
+Accepts bank transfer: +0.75 pts
+Accepts Zelle: +0.5 pts
+Bulk discounts available: +0.5 pts
Card support scores highly because it offers the best consumer protection and is the most accessible.
Range
+Injectable/lyophilised vials: +1.5 pts
+Nasal spray format: +1.0 pts
+Oral format: +1.0 pts
+Pre-filled syringes: +0.75 pts
+Pre-mixed solutions: +0.75 pts
Injectable/lyophilised scores highest as it is the most common research format and allows precise dosing.
Price
+Bulk discounts available: +1.5 pts
+Free shipping ≤$50 threshold: +1.0 pts
+Free shipping ≤$100 threshold: +0.5 pts
+No minimum order value: +1.0 pts
+Minimum order ≤$25: +0.5 pts
+Single-unit sales available: +0.5 pts
+Accepts card (no crypto premium): +0.5 pts

Community trust tiers

Trust tiers are assigned by the TVR team based on aggregated community signals, direct vendor communication, and our own product verification where applicable. They are reviewed and updated regularly.

Verified

TVR has independently confirmed the vendor's identity, tested product quality, and community feedback is overwhelmingly positive over a sustained period. COA coverage is consistent and from credible third-party labs.

Trusted

Strong community track record (typically 2+ years), consistent COA provision, no significant unresolved issues. May lack TVR direct verification.

Mixed

Community feedback is divided. May have historical positives alongside recent issues, inconsistent COA coverage, or unresolved complaints. Use with additional caution.

New

Vendor has limited community history (under ~12 months or low mention count). Insufficient data to form a strong view. Not a negative signal — just unproven.

Untrusted

Meaningful community concern: consistent reports of poor quality, shipping failures, communication problems, or other issues that have not been resolved. Approach with significant caution.

Scam

Evidence of fraudulent behaviour: taking payment without shipping, counterfeit products, deliberate misrepresentation. Avoid.

Data sources

TVR data comes from several sources, each with different reliability characteristics:

Vendor websitesVariable

Scraped periodically for pricing, stock, and product listings. Payment methods and shipping terms are sourced here and manually verified.

Community (Reddit, forums)Aggregated signal

r/Peptides, r/PeptidesUncensored, and other forums provide sentiment signals and community-submitted COA results. Individual posts are not treated as authoritative — patterns across many reports are.

Vendor-published COAsVerify independently

COAs published by vendors on their own websites. These are included in our database but marked with lower confidence than TVR-verified results. Use public.janoshik.com to cross-check Janoshik COAs.

TVR-verified COAsHigh confidence

Test results the TVR team has directly purchased and/or verified against the issuing lab's public database. Marked with the TVR Verified flag.

Community-submitted COAsModerate confidence

User-submitted COA documents that the TVR team has reviewed. Marked accordingly. Coming soon.

COA age policy

We use the test date to flag how current a COA is. Manufacturing processes and supplier chains change — a 2019 test result says nothing about 2025 product.

CurrentTested within 12 months
Aging12–30 months old
StaleOver 30 months old

Shipping: claim vs reality

The Shipping section on every vendor page is split into two halves. The Claimed column is what the vendor states on its own policy pages. The Reality column is what the community reports actually happened. We score them independently and surface the gap, because mismatch is itself the signal.

Claimedis extracted monthly from public policy pages (`/shipping`, `/policies`, `/faq`, `/returns`, `/terms`). A deterministic regex pulls explicit day-ranges ("ships in 5–7 business days") when the wording is unambiguous. A Claude Haiku 4.5 pass with a structured-output schema fills the rest — ships-from country, customs seizure policy, cold chain, refund summary — and is required to return verbatim quotes for any seizure-policy claim. Each row records the source URL, the extraction date, and whether the value came from regex or LLM, so the "verified" chip and "from policy ↗" link in the Claimed column point at exactly where we read the value. When a vendor has no public policy we can locate, the section says so directly rather than render empty fields.

Realityis computed daily from community mentions tagged as shipping experiences (delivery times, customs, damage, tracking). Per-mention parsing is deterministic — "arrived in 9 days", "customs seized", "broken vial" — and aggregates to a median delivery time, a delivery distribution (fast / on-time / slow / very-slow / never-arrived), a customs-seizure rate, and a damage rate. Confidence reflects mention volume, source diversity (Reddit, Trustpilot, forums), and freshness; vendors below the medium-confidence threshold show the data with explicit uncertainty framing.

The headline metric is the gap: community median delivery time minus claimed delivery time. Positive means slower than claimed. We do not penalise vendors for honest claims (a 14-day claim that delivers in 14 days is on time even if the absolute number is slow); the score is about whether reality matches the promise.

Limitations & caveats

TVR is a research and information tool. There are things our scores cannot capture:

  • Batch-to-batch variability. A vendor with good historical COAs may ship a bad batch. Scores reflect the pattern of evidence, not a guarantee.
  • Recency lag. Scores update as data is refreshed, but there can be a lag between real-world events (a vendor going bad, resolving issues) and our data.
  • Geographic variation. A vendor with excellent domestic US shipping may be unreliable for EU customers, and vice versa. Filter by your ship-to country where possible.
  • Scores reflect observable data. A vendor can maintain a high COA score while having poor customer service, or vice versa. Read the full profile, not just the number.
  • This is not medical advice. Nothing on TVR should be construed as advice to use any substance. All products are sold for research purposes only.
Found a data error or want to challenge a trust tier? Contact us or use the feedback links on individual vendor pages. We take accuracy seriously and will update the record with evidence.