How we verify prices

Stage one: machine monitoring

Every provider has registered pricing URLs. On the monitoring schedule below, each one is fetched and its price strings, plan terms, membership and shipping language, dose wording and billing terms are extracted and fingerprinted against the previous capture. A change flags the provider for review. Nothing a monitor extracts is ever published on its own — that is the rule this database is built on, whether the fetch was automated or an editor's.

Stage two: human confirmation

Every price in the current release entered through this gate: an editor opened the provider's page and confirmed what changed, what price is actually purchasable, what term and billing frequency apply, and whether mandatory fees moved. Only an approved change enters the database, and it enters as a new dated observation — the old one stays in the price history.

What each observation stores

Source URL, observed-at and verified-at timestamps, verification method, page title, a content hash, an internal screenshot reference and the reviewing editor. Publicly, each row shows the source, the date and the grade — enough for anyone to re-verify without republishing a provider's page.

Schedule

The 20 lowest-priced providers per medication are re-checked at least every 7 days; every other provider at least every 30 days; any reported change within 2 business days. A provider first listed from third-party reports (grade D) is checked first-party within 7 days of listing, and its rows say so until then. Today, 72% of published prices were verified within the last 7 days; the figure in the header recomputes on every build.

If a number is wrong

Anyone — including the provider — can file a correction with a source URL. Confirmed corrections ship in the next build and are logged permanently on the corrections log.