Method
How we judge — before we recommend.
Every protocol discloses how hard we looked, who signed off, and how we make money. Methodology comes before the recommendation, on purpose: you should be able to check our work before you trust the call.
Three tiers of rigor.
Every call is tagged with the depth of evidence behind it — so a quick desk read never wears the same authority as a firsthand test.
Desk rigor
A structured read of existing evidence and labels against our checklist. Fast, consistent, and the floor for anything we publish.
Evidence synthesis
Pooling the trials ourselves — weighting by quality, dose, and effect size — to reach a call the headline abstract won't give you.
Firsthand test
A rare "hero" test — third-party assays, teardown of a product, or a measured protocol we ran ourselves. Reserved for high-stakes calls.
Two things, plainly. No stars, no hype.
Every call answers two questions: is the evidence actually there, and what should you do about it. No five-star averages, no "clinically proven" — just where it stands and whether to keep it.
Is the evidence there?
- Substantiated Strong, replicated, at the stated dose.
- Mixed Real but conditional — dose, timing, subgroup.
- Unsubstantiated The claim outruns the evidence.
- Can't-tell Undisclosed dosing — nothing to judge.
What to do about it
- ✓Keep Worth taking — buy it.
- ⇄Twin A cheaper equivalent does the same job.
- ✕Skip Doesn't earn its place — cut it.
- ○Nothing The fix is a behavior, not a purchase.
Sourced, dated, and on the record.
The Stack-kit desk
Every call names and links its sources and carries the date it was last checked — so you can audit the work yourself, today, instead of taking our word for it. Anything that can interact with a prescription gets a second set of eyes before it goes live.
A named editorial guarantor of record is the next step — not a credential we'll claim before it's true.
Reader-funded, and built so a "no" still pays.
The whole business is affiliate commission on the products we'd buy ourselves — at the price you'd pay direct. Integrity is welded into how that works.
We don't sell supplements
We have nothing of our own on the shelf, so there's no product we're quietly steering you toward. We point at the best third-party option and earn a small commission if you buy through us.
Skip-it routes to buy-this
A negative call isn't a dead end — it routes you to the cheaper twin or the thing that actually works, which we also link. Telling you to cut something costs us nothing, which is why we can.
No markup, ever
Our links are the same price as going direct. The commission comes from the retailer, not from you, and it never changes the dose or the call.
If a brand slips, we change the call
When a brand's third-party testing changes, we revise the recommendation the same day and email everyone who bought it. Every call has a date for a reason.