Price comparison and publication methodology

What does a comparison cover?

A comparison unit is one medication in one delivery format. Injection, oral, nasal, compounded, brand-name, and service-only products are not silently merged. Coverage is limited to programs with public evidence that the site has reviewed; it is not a census of every US telehealth company.

How prices are collected

Price and program facts come from public provider pages, provider help centers, terms, pricing pages, and program landing pages. Each published price is an offer record with a sourceUrl and a verifiedAt day. If the offer has no source URL, the provider’s pricing page is used. If the offer has no check date, the provider’s review date is used. The comparison table links the price to that URL and prints the check date. When a provider does not publish a price before intake, the record says “not published”; no number is estimated or stored as zero. A figure with no billing period is not converted into a monthly price.

A bounded price monitor can fetch a few provider pages and save a receipt. It does not write prices, check dates, or publication status. Recurring runs of that monitor were deferred on 7 October 2026. A check date changes only when the registry is updated after the provider page is read.

A visit button is limited to programs whose visit link can earn a commission. Affinity Direct and GobyMeds are comparison rows that use the provider’s own page and show no visit button. Ageless, Audien Hearing, and Wellorithm are listed the same way while their tracking links are paused. The price spreadsheet and the Telehealth Price Index are built from the same checked rows.

Price normalization

Introductory price, continuing monthly price, upfront charge, prepaid-effective monthly price, and commitment length are stored separately. Medication inclusion is also separate. This prevents a discounted first month or a large prepayment from masquerading as a cheaper continuing month-to-month program.

A price published only as “starting at” is not a monthly price. It is not stored as the continuing monthly price and it is not used as one. A prepaid total divided by the number of months is a prepaid-effective rate. It stays labeled that way, next to the amount paid up front and the commitment length, and it is not relabeled as the continuing month.

What “lowest price” means

The lowest price is the lowest continuing monthly price that includes the medication, among rows that are still fresh. That is the figure a lowest or cheapest claim uses on the home index, a program page, the cheapest GLP-1 page, the price index, and the price spreadsheet.

An introductory price and a prepaid-effective price are labeled separately. They are not the lowest price. A “starting at” price is never treated as monthly. A row that does not say the medication is included is not the lowest price either. A four-week renewal, a one-month sale, and an upfront charge stay in their own fields. A charge billed every 28 days stays labeled as a four-week charge. A 365-day annualized equivalent may place that row, and that average is not called a monthly bill.

A row that is no longer fresh still appears, with the date it was actually checked. It is left out of lowest and cheapest rankings, it is not placed first by a price sort, and it is not used in a title that claims a lowest or cheapest price. “Lowest” means lowest among the fresh rows tracked on that page. It does not mean cheapest everywhere.

The Telehealth Price Index republishes those continuing prices as a dated monthly report. The same figures are compared on the compounded semaglutide page and the cheapest GLP-1 page.

Freshness

The top 20 plans are rechecked every week. Every other published plan is rechecked at least every 30 days. A row is stale for ranking when its verification date is more than 30 days old. It still displays, and the date on the row stays the date the page was read.

Rows already more than 30 days old at 00:00 Eastern Time on 19 October 2026 stay eligible for lowest and cheapest rankings only if they are rechecked before 00:00 Eastern Time on 21 October 2026. After that deadline, and from then on, any row older than 30 days is left out of those rankings, out of the first position in a price sort, and out of title claims. The displayed check date does not move unless the provider’s page was opened again.

When does a provider get listed?

A provider profile with a visit button needs a commission-tracked affiliate visit link, source-backed program facts, and no unresolved publication hold. Affinity Direct, GobyMeds, Ageless, Audien Hearing, and Wellorithm can appear as comparison rows with no visit button and no Affiliate link label. A paused program is not given a button that points at a plain brand URL. New provider records receive additional checks for official identity, medical or administrative roles, operating terms, evidence consistency, and outbound destination safety.

Coupons, reviews, provider-versus-provider comparisons, and branded treatment guides each have independent evidence gates. They are explicit editorial records, never an automatically generated cross-product of names.

Reviews and editorial evidence

Reviews require original analysis, multiple public sources, and—under the current provider gate—at least two independent source classes. Safety articles distinguish a regulator notice, a company announcement, and clinical literature rather than treating them as interchangeable evidence.

Search-volume estimates may prioritize research but never prove clinical value, provider quality, or user demand. Modeled volume is labeled as modeled and stays separate from first-party traffic or conversion data. The editorial standards for the byline, compounded-medication labels, and corrections are on the corrections log.

Updates and corrections

Provider terms can change without notice. Material corrections are rechecked against public sources and receive a new verification date. A route can leave the sitemap or become unavailable when its evidence no longer satisfies the publication gate.

Corrections that have already been made are listed, with the date, the page, and what changed, on the corrections log.

Limitations and commercial disclosure

Telehealth Ledger does not assess medical suitability or prescribe care. State access, eligibility, pharmacy, inventory, dose, and checkout totals can change after a clinical intake. Readers must verify current terms directly with the provider.

Some outbound links generate affiliate commission. Commercial relationships do not control table order, recorded facts, route eligibility, or editorial conclusions. Read the complete disclosures and the AI source guidance.