How we compare

Different categories deserve different weightings, so we publish one methodology per category rather than a single score applied everywhere. Where the available evidence does not support a number, we say so and use a qualitative assessment instead.

No page on this site gives dosing, titration or administration guidance. We compare how suppliers operate, what they publish and what they charge. Prescribing decisions belong to the licensed provider.

What these terms mean

Five words in this market decide what you are actually looking at, and they are used loosely almost everywhere else. These are the meanings we use, consistently, on every page.

503A: A pharmacy compounding patient-specific prescriptions under section 503A of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. It fills against a prescription for a named patient and is regulated by its state board of pharmacy.
503B: An outsourcing facility registered under section 503B, which may compound in batches without a patient-specific prescription and is regulated directly by the FDA under CGMP.
direct supply partner: A supplier a clinic contracts with directly, where one party is accountable for an order from placement to delivery.
multi-pharmacy marketplace: A platform that routes a prescription to one of several pharmacies. The platform owns the software and the relationship; the filling pharmacy can vary by order.
white label fulfilment: Fulfilment shipped under the clinic’s own branding, where the patient sees the clinic rather than the supplier.

How we assess platforms and pharmacies that supply compounded medications to clinics

v1.0 · updated August 2026

We score sourcing platforms on seven operational criteria a clinic can verify: how ordering works, what is published about price, who is accountable for an order, how many states are covered, what is said about turnaround, how scripts and credentials are handled, and how long onboarding takes. Most of what we score comes from what a platform publishes. Where a platform does not publish a fact, we also accept a statement made directly to us by that platform, recorded with the date and the person who confirmed it, and we score it at the same weight as a published page. Every platform in this index is offered that opportunity on the same terms, and each score shows which of the two it rests on so you can judge it yourself. A criterion neither published nor confirmed to us is recorded as unknown and excluded from the weighted average rather than scored low, so silence is not punished. We do not assess clinical quality, formulation quality or patient outcomes.

Ordering workflow: 20%; What we assess: Whether there is a dedicated secure portal, whether a reorder takes clicks rather than a fax, and whether one login covers the work.
How we assess it: We read the platform own product and support pages and record what the ordering process is stated to be.
Pricing transparency: 20%; What we assess: Whether retail tiers are published, and whether volume or per-clinic pricing is explained rather than quoted only on request.
How we assess it: We record published price lists and stated tiers. A demo gate or a quote form is recorded as such, not scored as a price.
Direct accountability: 20%; What we assess: Whether a named person owns the account and one party is answerable from order to delivery.
How we assess it: We record what the platform states about account ownership and escalation. A marketplace routing to varying pharmacies is recorded as one layer removed. How a platform refers to its staff publicly is not assessed: what matters is that one identified person owns the account, not that strangers can identify them beforehand.
Multi-state coverage: 10%; What we assess: How many US states licensed providers can be served in.
How we assess it: We record the published state count or list. Unstated coverage is recorded as unknown, never inferred from a map graphic.
Turnaround reliability: 10%; What we assess: Whether a fulfilment time is published and what is said about contact when an order is delayed.
How we assess it: We record published turnaround commitments, and commitments a platform confirms to us directly where it publishes none. Most of this market publishes neither, and that is recorded rather than penalised.
Security and compliance posture: 10%; What we assess: How scripts are handled, whether provider credentials are checked, and whether access is provider-only.
How we assess it: We record published statements about credential checks, access control and certification, with the date read.
Onboarding speed: 10%; What we assess: How quickly a verified provider can place a first order, and whether a call or a membership fee stands in the way.
How we assess it: We record the published onboarding process. A mandatory demo call before pricing is recorded as a gate.

What this assessment does not tell you

A score resting on a statement made to us cannot be checked by a reader the way a published page can. We mark every score with which of the two it rests on, and we do not treat our own inability to be checked as the reader problem it is.
We invite every platform in this index to confirm facts they have not published. A platform that does not reply is not penalised for it, but neither can we score what nobody has stated, so an unresponsive platform will carry more unknowns.
We score what a platform publishes or confirms, not what it delivers. A platform that discloses little scores lower on transparency, which is a statement about its disclosure and not about its service.
We do not assess clinical quality, formulation quality, or patient outcomes. Those are the prescribing provider judgement and are outside what a public page can evidence.
Scores are a snapshot of published information on the date shown. A platform can change its pages the day after we read them.
Two platforms in this market carry no score at all: one did not respond on any attempt, and one has not launched. They are listed with the reason rather than a number, because scoring them would mean inventing evidence.
A criterion a platform does not address is excluded from its weighted average rather than scored zero, so a platform is not punished for silence. That does mean two overall scores can rest on different numbers of criteria.

Maintained by Chelsea Cooper.

How we assess pharmacy, med spa and clinic providers

v1.0 · updated August 2026

We compare providers only on factors that can be checked against a public record: licensing and credentials, the states or regions they are verified to serve, how a consultation actually works, what they publish about price, and the policies they make available. We do not assess clinical quality or outcomes, and we do not rank providers numerically.

Credentials and licensing: 30%; What we assess: Whether the provider publishes licensing details and clinician credentials that can be checked against a public registry.
How we assess it: We look up the stated licence or registration in the relevant public register and record the date checked.
Verified availability: 25%; What we assess: Which states or regions the provider is verified to serve.
How we assess it: We record published service areas with the date checked. Unstated coverage is recorded as unknown, never inferred.
How care is delivered: 20%; What we assess: Telehealth or in-person, who conducts the consultation, and what follow-up is included.
How we assess it: We record the published patient process.
Price transparency: 15%; What we assess: Whether prices are published, and what they include.
How we assess it: We record published prices with the date checked. Where a provider does not publish prices, we say so.
Published policies: 10%; What we assess: Refund, cancellation, privacy and complaints policies.
How we assess it: We record whether each policy is published and publicly reachable.

What this assessment does not tell you

We do not assess clinical quality, treatment outcomes or safety. Nothing here is a clinical comparison.
We do not recommend treatments, and nothing on this site is medical advice.
Verified availability reflects what the provider published on the date shown, and can change without notice.
A provider absent from a comparison has not been judged unsuitable; it may simply not publish enough checkable information.

We publish qualitative assessments for this category rather than numeric scores, because the available evidence does not support ranking to a decimal place.