Methodology: how we collect, check and rank prices

This page explains where our prices come from, how we keep them current, and how we decide the order of providers in our tables.

Where prices come from

Every price on this site comes from the provider's own public website. For each offer, we record:

• The price as listed, and whether it is the regular price or a promotion. Promotions are recorded with their code and end date when the provider gives one.
• The page we read it from. We keep this source URL for every price.
• The order page you'll land on.
• The date we last confirmed the price, and whether a person or our automated check confirmed it.
• What the offer includes: which infections, which route and what sample type.

For launch, our team entered every price by hand from the provider's page and recorded the source URL and date.

How we keep prices current

Once a day, an automated check visits each provider's public pricing page and reads the current price for each offer we track. It follows these rules:

• It respects robots.txt. If a provider's robots.txt file asks automated tools not to visit a page, we don't fetch it. We check that price by hand instead.
• It doesn't hammer sites. One visit per page per day, with caching and longer waits after errors.
• Every check is logged. We keep a history of each price over time.

What happens next depends on the result:

• Same price: the verified date moves to today.
• A change of 5% or less: we update the price and the verified date, and log the old price in the history.
• A change of more than 5%: we keep showing the old price with its old verified date, and a person reviews the change before it goes live.
• The page can't be read, for example because the layout changed or the page is blocked: nothing changes on the site, and a person checks the price by hand.

Dates on every price

Every price on this site shows "verified" and a date. That date is the last time a person or our automated check confirmed the price on the provider's page.

If a price hasn't been confirmed for more than 14 days, it also shows a "may have changed" note. We never show a price without a date.

The price at the provider's checkout is the one you pay. If it differs from ours, please tell us through our corrections page.

How the default ranking works

The home page table is sorted by best value for a full panel. For each provider:

1. We take its most comprehensive full panel, meaning the full panel that covers the most infections.
2. We use the lowest current price for that panel, across the routes the provider sells it on.

Providers are then listed from lowest price to highest. If two prices are the same, the panel covering more infections comes first. If that's also a tie, the provider with faster stated results comes first.

You can re-sort and filter the table by test, route, price and speed. Other tables, such as those on individual test pages, are sorted by the lowest current price for that test, and they include panels that contain it.

What ranking does not use

• Commissions. Whether a provider pays us has no effect on the ranking or on whether it appears. Providers without affiliate programs are included. See our affiliate disclosure.
• Reviews or ratings. We don't score providers on quality. We show facts you can check, such as price, what's included, the route and the stated turnaround.

What the table columns mean

• Results time is the provider's own stated turnaround. Providers usually count it from when the lab receives your sample, often in business days. Home kits add shipping time. We don't measure turnaround ourselves.
• Same-day? means the provider says you can order and give your sample on the same day, usually by walking in to a lab. It doesn't mean same-day results.
• HSA/FSA shows whether the provider says it accepts HSA or FSA cards. "Not stated" means we couldn't confirm it.
• What's included lists the infections each test or panel covers, as the provider describes them.

Which providers we include

We include US providers that sell STD tests directly to consumers and publish their prices. We add a clinic only when it publishes a price we can verify. We list free public clinics separately, through CDC's GetTested locator.

Contact

Contact details are being finalized and will be published here before launch.