The peptide website buying guide.
Four ways to get a research-peptide store built, what each really costs, and the red flags that cost sellers their payment processing. Written by Martin Thomas, who runs pep.app and a peptide brand of his own, with bias in plain sight and every number checkable.
Strip the branding and there are four paths.
Freelancer marketplaces
Under $1,000
A themed WooCommerce install, delivered fast. Nobody on the hook afterward, no payments help, no compliance architecture. Fine for a mockup; risky as a business.
Do it yourself
Your evenings
WordPress, WooCommerce, and a dozen plugins you now personally maintain. Cheapest entry and full ownership, if you're honest about the second job it creates.
Specialist agency
$1,900 to $60,000
A studio that has built peptide stores before ships yours in 6-14 weeks. You own the code, and the operating burden, which is why care plans run $1,000-2,500/mo.
Managed platform
$699 to $1,499/mo
The store runs on the provider's infrastructure: build, hosting, compliance updates, and (on the best ones) the payments path included. You trade code ownership for an operated system.
Cost ranges reflect providers' published pricing as checked in August 2026; the full comparison with every provider named and priced lives on getpep.app.
Five questions that sort every provider in five minutes.
Feature lists in this market all look alike. Answers to these don't.
1. Who owns the merchant account?
If payments are "your problem to sort separately," the hardest part of peptide commerce just came back to you. Ask who gets you underwritten, and what happens when a processor drops you.
2. Is compliance built in, or bolted on?
Age verification, research-use-only language, restricted-state blocking, and per-batch lab certificates should be native features someone maintains, not a stack of plugins with your name on the maintenance.
3. Is there a revenue share hiding anywhere?
Overage percentages, payment markups, and "success fees" are revenue shares wearing costumes. Flat means flat; read the pricing page closely.
4. What proof can you verify?
Named client stores you can visit beat screenshots, which beat testimonials with first names, which beat nothing. This industry runs on unverifiable claims, so don't accept them from the people selling you the fix.
5. What happens after launch?
An agency hands you keys; a platform operates the store. Neither is wrong, but one assumes you wanted a second job in ecommerce operations. Decide which you're buying on purpose.
The red flags that end with a frozen merchant account.
The anonymity pitch
Offshore hosting, hidden domain ownership, and privacy-coin-first checkouts are sold as protection. Merchant underwriting is a verification of identity. Infrastructure built to be unfindable fails the one review that decides whether you can accept cards.
Undated, unsourced pricing
"Affordable" is copy. A real comparison names the number, links the source, and tells you when it was checked.
Rankings without disclosure
Most "best peptide platform" articles are published by a company in the ranking, usually in first place. Bias is fine; hidden bias is the tell.
No wrong-fit answer
Every provider is wrong for somebody. If they can't name who shouldn't hire them, they're closing, not advising.
The deep-dive, the pricing table, and the platform live on getpep.app.
Every provider named and priced, the 24-month math, and the section on when pep.app is the wrong choice.