How the Cerience Grade is calculated
Every store gets one Cerience Grade from A to F. It’s a weighted average of trust factors, and serious red flags cap it.
The six grades
- A: Excellent85–100
- B: Great70–84
- C: Good55–69
- D: Fair40–54
- E: Weak25–39
- F: Avoid0–24
Lab & COA integrity
45% of the grade
Third-party verified COAs (e.g. Janoshik), HPLC purity, accredited labs.
- Third-party COA verified
- Independent lab (e.g. Janoshik) verifies the Certificate of Analysis. The single strongest trust signal.
- Weight: 20%
- HPLC purity
- Average tested purity %. 99%+ is excellent.
- Weight: 12%
- COA available
- Any Certificate of Analysis is provided to customers.
- Weight: 7%
- Accredited lab partner
- Testing performed by an accredited (e.g. ISO 17025) lab.
- Weight: 6%
Operational trust
25% of the grade
Domain age, shipping speed, reship policy, batch traceability, payment safety.
- Domain age
- Older domains are more established. 2+ years scores full.
- Weight: 8%
- Shipping speed
- Average delivery time. ≤3 days excellent, ≥21 days poor.
- Weight: 6%
- Reship / guarantee policy
- Vendor reships seized or lost packages.
- Weight: 4%
- Batch traceability
- Products carry batch numbers traceable to COAs.
- Weight: 4%
- Payment methods
- Card/escrow safer than crypto-only.
- Weight: 3%
Reputation
30% of the grade
Community sentiment, user reviews, and our editorial verdict.
- Community reputation
- Sentiment on Reddit and peptide forums, assessed by our editors.
- Weight: 15%
- User reviews
- Average approved user rating on Cerience.
- Weight: 10%
- Editorial verdict
- Our own hands-on editorial assessment.
- Weight: 5%
Red flags that cap the grade
Some problems are serious enough to cap the score, however well a store does elsewhere. If several apply, the lowest cap wins.
| Red flag | Effect on the score |
|---|---|
| FDA raid, seizure reports or a fake COA | Capped at 15 |
| Regulatory warning | Capped at 35 |
| No COA available | Capped at 40 |
| Domain under 6 months old | Capped at 50 |
| Crypto-only payments | −10 points |
Why a Cerience Grade can’t be bought
Money never buys, raises, protects or restores a Cerience Grade or a ranking. Verifying your store lets us confirm trust signals we otherwise can’t credit — but the path to a full grade is always free. Supply verifiable data and your grade reflects it, whether you pay us or not.
Featured placements are paid and clearly labelled. They never change a store’s Cerience Grade or its position in the independent rankings.
Why missing data lowers a grade
When a store is unclaimed, or its ownership, COA and shipping can’t be checked, those unknowns lower its transparency signals. That isn’t a penalty for not paying: claims we can’t verify are genuinely less trustworthy. Claiming is free, and supplying verifiable data fixes it.
Methodology v2 (2026). Our editorial team reviews the weights and may adjust them per market. This page shows the current global default weights.