Method

How we verify every price

This site makes one claim: that the monthly figure beside a seller’s name is what a month actually costs. Everything below is how that figure is produced, and what it is not.

A month is 30.4375 days

30.4375 days — 365.25 divided by twelve — is the average calendar month, the constant behind every true monthly figure here. Sellers often bill every four weeks, every eleven days, or per twelve-week course. A four-week charge lands thirteen times a year, not twelve: $299 every four weeks is $325 a month, not $299. We never copy a seller’s own “/mo” — we divide the billed amount by the days it covers, times 30.4375.

Advertised against what it actually costs

  • Advertised as
  • Actually costs
  • the gap
Curex$199$405+$205.82Curex: advertised $199.00, actually $404.82Shapely$166$353+$187.07Shapely: advertised $166.00, actually $353.07Sprout Health$199$379+$180.38Sprout Health: advertised $199.00, actually $379.38Vaylen$149$325+$176.03Vaylen: advertised $149.00, actually $325.03Joey Med$275$434+$158.73Joey Med: advertised $275.00, actually $433.73Green Cap Health$129$279+$150.00Green Cap Health: advertised $129.00, actually $279.00Zealthy$216$359+$143.16Zealthy: advertised $216.00, actually $359.16Vita Bella$159$292+$133.20Vita Bella: advertised $159.00, actually $292.20$0$50$100$150$200$250$300$350$400$450$500cost per calendar month
100 sellers put a monthly price on their own page that their own billing does not produce. Curex advertises $199.00 a month and bills $404.82 $205.82 more every month, or $2,469.84 over a year. Across all 100, the understatement comes to $16,012.68 a year. Every gap runs the same way: the advertised figure is always the smaller one. The chart shows the 8 largest; the rest are in the index.

Advertised is the seller's own per-month figure. True is that same charge divided by the days it covers, times 30.4375 — the average calendar month. A seller appears only where the two differ by more than 1%.

Advertised monthly price against true monthly cost. The 8 largest gaps of 100 sellers where the two differ.
SellerAdvertisedTrue monthlyGap per monthGap per year
Curex$199.00$404.82$205.82$2,469.84
Shapely$166.00$353.07$187.07$2,244.84
Sprout Health$199.00$379.38$180.38$2,164.56
Vaylen$149.00$325.03$176.03$2,112.36
Joey Med$275.00$433.73$158.73$1,904.76
Green Cap Health$129.00$279.00$150.00$1,800.00
Zealthy$216.00$359.16$143.16$1,717.92
Vita Bella$159.00$292.20$133.20$1,598.40

Two more ways a monthly price lies, each the largest example in the index:

  1. The dose. VitaStir starts at $158 and climbs to $651 at the top of its ladder — a true starting price, not what maintenance costs.
  2. The fee beside the medication. Vita Bella prices the medication honestly, then adds $131 a month in fees, so the real month is $292. We got this one wrong ourselves, recently — the fee sat in our notes, not the figure.

The four evidence tiers

402 sellers are tracked here: 168 with a computed true monthly price, 100 advertising less than they charge.

  1. Verified: someone opened the seller’s checkout, read the charge, and logged the source and date. Ages out after 90 days, back to Listed. 166 today.
  2. Listed: the seller states the price publicly; we have not walked the checkout — most rows sit here. Moves to Verified once we do. 203 today.
  3. Reported: sourced from research or a third party, not the seller’s page. If checking finds the seller does not actually publish a price, the figure drops — no arithmetic on an unsourced number. Only the source moves this tier, never time. 21 today.
  4. No public price: the price sits behind an intake form; we show a blank rather than estimate — a finding about the seller, not our gap. Moves to Listed once a price appears. 12 today.

Every count above is recomputed at each publish, never typed by hand. Prices move, so Verified is never permanent — it claims no more certainty than earned.

The whole index is downloadable

Every figure here — billing cycle, evidence tier, state list — publishes as JSON and CSV, quotable with attribution and a source link. Found an error? We would rather know than not.

What this is not

  • Not a guess. A seller’s note sometimes gives two conflicting cycles — an annual total beside a four-week charge, say. We do not guess: the row keeps the seller’s own figure, nothing computed. A missing number costs a reader nothing; a confident wrong one costs the decision.
  • Not a flattering comparison. Nor do we compare a prepaid bundle rate against month-to-month and call the difference a gap — different products, and the comparison would flatter us, not the reader.
  • Not medical advice. No listing here is a recommendation to start any medication. Price is one input among several; cheapest is not automatically right.