Methodology
How We Investigate Supplements
What Plainscale actually does before publishing a review, and what we deliberately don't do.
What we check for every review
- Label and marketing claims. We read the official product page, label images, and linked policy pages word for word.
- Cross-page consistency. When a brand has multiple marketing pages, we check whether the ingredient list, pricing, and checkout destination stay consistent across them. Inconsistency is a real, checkable finding, not a stylistic quirk.
- Disease-claim compliance. Dietary supplements cannot legally claim to diagnose, treat, cure, manage, or prevent a diagnosed disease. We check marketing copy against that line specifically.
- Ingredient disclosure. We note exactly which ingredients are named, whether doses are published, and how much is folded into an undisclosed blend.
- Guarantee terms. We read the actual refund policy, including any minimum-use conditions or restocking fees, not just the marketing headline.
- Publicly available feedback. We look at what real buyers report and do not publish invented or composited testimonials.
What we do not do
- We do not run a formal, controlled multi-week clinical trial ourselves.
- We do not invent statistics or user quotes we cannot trace back to a real source.
- We do not accept payment from a brand in exchange for a favorable score, and no brand gets to see or edit a review before it publishes.
Our scoring criteria
Every review scores the same six weighted categories:
- Ease of use — how simple the actual daily routine is
- Guarantee clarity — how plainly refund terms are stated, including any conditions
- Ingredient naming — whether active ingredients, and ideally doses, are named on the label
- Manufacturing standards — disclosed facility certifications
- Value for money — price per serving relative to comparable products
- Label & marketing transparency — dosage disclosure, cross-page consistency, and whether marketing claims hold up to a direct check
Why we disclose affiliate links
Plainscale earns revenue when readers click through to an official store and buy. This does not change how we score a product. Full detail is in our advertising disclosure.