Red flags checklist for GLP-1 offers

A red flag is not a verdict. It is a reason to ask one more question before you pay. This list is the set of things that, across the twelve programs we evaluated, most often separated a page you could act on from a page you could not. Four are hard stops. The rest are questions with a right answer.

Hard stops

These four are not questions. If you see one, close the tab.

1. No prescription required. Semaglutide and tirzepatide are prescription drugs in every form, brand or compounded. An offer to ship without a prescriber's involvement is not a pharmacy transaction, whatever the site calls itself.
2. "Research use only", "not for human consumption", or "for laboratory use" anywhere near a product you are meant to inject. The FDA has said that products sold under research-use labelling are outside the compounding exemptions and that it has found unapproved GLP-1 products marketed this way. Nothing sold on those terms is being made for you as a patient.
3. "Generic Ozempic", "generic Wegovy", "FDA-approved semaglutide" for a compounded product. There is no generic semaglutide or tirzepatide on the US market. Compounded versions are not FDA approved and are not interchangeable with the brand product. The FDA's September 2025 warning letters to Hims and Hers, linked from the Hims and Hers evaluation, were about exactly this kind of claim.
4. A compounded product with no named pharmacy and no way to get the name before paying. You cannot verify a licence you cannot look up. Every compounded product is made by a pharmacy or outsourcing facility with a name and a state licence; a program that will not give it to you before taking your money is asking for trust it has not earned.

Product flags

5. Salt forms. Semaglutide sodium, semaglutide acetate, tirzepatide sodium. The FDA has stated that it is not aware of any basis for compounding with these salt forms and that they differ from the active ingredient in the approved products. A program that lists one as its active ingredient, or will not say which form it uses, gets the question in writing.
6. A dose that does not match any label step. Brand products titrate on fixed steps. A compounded program that starts you above the lowest step, or advertises a custom dose without saying who chose it and why, needs a prescriber's name on that choice.
7. Vials with no concentration on the page. A compounded vial is described by strength per millilitre and volume. If the product page sells "a month of tirzepatide" without either number, you cannot check the dose you will draw up. The dose unit converter on the calculator site needs both numbers, which is the point.
8. Multi-dose vials with no beyond-use date discussion. Compounded sterile preparations have short beyond-use dates set by USP 797. A program selling a three-month supply in one vial should explain how that squares with the date on the label.

Money flags

9. A price with no "what it includes". Membership, medication, visits, labs, shipping. If the page shows one number and does not say which of those it covers, month two will cost more than month one.
10. "Starting at" with no range. A starting price is a floor. Ask for the price at the dose most people reach by month four.
11. A promotional first month with no renewal price next to it. The rubric's pricing criterion scores a 3 only when the renewal price sits beside the promotion, because that is the number you will pay for the rest of the year.
12. Multi-month prepayment with no stated refund for unshipped medication. Prepaying six months is a loan to the company. Before making it, read what happens if a clinician stops the medication in month two. Some programs refund unshipped portions less a fee; some refund nothing; some do not say. The refund windows guide walks through the patterns.
13. Cancellation by phone only, with no hours. The rubric marks this down for a reason. If the only way out is a call centre with unpublished hours, the subscription is designed to renew.

Clinical flags

14. No statement of who prescribes. "Our medical team" is not a clinician type. The page should say physician, nurse practitioner or physician assistant, and it should say which medical group employs them so you can check a licence. The prescriber licence guide shows how.
15. No route to a live conversation. Asynchronous prescribing is lawful. A program where you can never speak to the prescriber, at any price, is a program that has decided you will never need to.
16. Testimonials with weight numbers and no disclosure. The FTC's endorsement guides require that a testimonial claiming a result the typical customer will not get be accompanied by a clear statement of what the typical result is. A wall of "lost 60 lb" quotes with no such statement tells you the marketing was written before the compliance review.
17. Weight-loss guarantees. No prescriber can guarantee an outcome. Read the conditions. The guarantees we found in evaluations were narrow, dated, and excluded the medication cost.

Sourcing and quality flags

18. "Third-party tested" with nothing behind it. Tested for what, by whom, on which lot? A program that says third-party tested and cannot show you a certificate of analysis for the lot you receive is making a claim you cannot check. The COA guide says what to ask for.
19. "FDA-registered facility" as a quality claim. Registration is a listing, not an approval or an inspection result. Outsourcing facilities (503B) register with FDA; 503A pharmacies are licensed by states. Neither registration nor licensure means a product was approved.
20. A 503B facility with a recent warning letter that the program does not mention. FDA publishes every warning letter. Before paying a program that names its outsourcing facility, search the facility's name in the FDA warning letter database linked below. The Hims and Hers evaluation shows what that looks like in practice.

What to do with a flag

Write to the company, in one message, with the flags you found and the question each one raises. The questions to ask before paying guide has the wording. A program that answers in writing has cleared the flag. A program that answers with a phone call, a link to the same page, or silence has told you what you needed to know.

Then check what they told you. Pharmacy licence on the state board site (the sibling site lists all fifty at Compounding Explained). Prescriber licence on the state medical board. Outsourcing facility on the FDA's registered outsourcing facilities list, and the warning letter database. Fifteen minutes, and none of it requires trusting anyone.