Research
Peptide customer obstacles: what 800 Reddit posts tell a new peptide company
ConduitMD read and coded 800 randomly sampled Reddit posts to measure what gets in the way of people who are starting peptides and GLP-1 medication. Three obstacles account for most of it: side effects with nobody to ask, dosing and protocol questions, and results that are not showing. All three are clinical, which is why they matter to anyone building a real peptide company: one that works through licensed providers and a licensed pharmacy, as opposed to selling research-use-only vials.
- 27%
- of posts raise a side-effect or safety question
- 21 to 29%
- raise a dosing or protocol question
- 12%
- say results are not showing
- 0 of 10
- obstacles changed between the two periods
Method
How did we run the study?
We wrote one fixed method before reading a single post, then applied it to two three-month periods. The design addresses the usual weaknesses of social listening: hand-picked posts, search terms that find what they look for, and a single reader's judgment.
1. Collect
Pulled every post in r/Peptides and r/Semaglutide for 3 November 2025 to 3 February 2026 and 8 July to 8 October 2026 from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive: 13,134 posts.
2. Sample
Drew 200 posts at random per subreddit per period, 800 in total, with a fixed random seed.
3. Blind
Shuffled both periods together and hid the dates.
4. Code
Had two AI coders (Claude Sonnet and Claude Haiku) read every post independently and record which of ten obstacles the author raised as their own.
5. Test
Compared the two periods with a two-proportion test on each obstacle.
Both coders' figures are reported throughout. Their agreement (Cohen's kappa) was 0.85 on side effects, 0.78 on results, 0.75 on trust and 0.55 on guidance, where the second coder counted a plain dosing question as an obstacle more often than the first.
Results
What are the biggest obstacles for people starting peptides?
Side effects, dosing guidance and missing results. Roughly two posts in three (64% to 70%) raise at least one obstacle, and these three make up most of them. Trust, price and product quality each appear in about one post in twenty.
| Obstacle | Coder 1 | Coder 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Side effects and safety | 27.4% | 25.0% |
| Dosing and protocol guidance | 21.1% | 29.4% |
| Results not showing | 12.1% | 12.1% |
| Pricing | 5.8% | 4.4% |
| Trust and legitimacy | 5.5% | 5.0% |
| Quality and purity | 4.3% | 3.9% |
| Customer service | 2.3% | 3.8% |
| Shipping | 1.0% | 0.6% |
| Regulatory uncertainty | 0.6% | 0.6% |
| Payment | 0.5% | 0.3% |
| At least one obstacle | 63.8% | 70.4% |
Share of all 800 posts that raise each obstacle. For an operator, the reading is direct: the most frequent obstacles are questions a licensed provider answers, and the least frequent are logistics.
Stability
Are these obstacles stable enough to plan a business around?
Yes. The mix did not move between the two periods, so a company can build its onboarding, protocols and follow-up around these numbers with some confidence.
Customer obstacles held steady across both periods
Share of 400 randomly sampled posts per period.
Source: ConduitMD analysis of r/Peptides and r/Semaglutide.
| Obstacle | Nov 2025 to Feb 2026 | Jul to Oct 2026 | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side effects and safety | 26.5% | 28.2% | 0.58 |
| Dosing and protocol guidance | 23.0% | 19.2% | 0.19 |
| Results not showing | 12.2% | 12.0% | 0.91 |
| Pricing | 5.0% | 6.5% | 0.36 |
| Trust and legitimacy | 6.0% | 5.0% | 0.54 |
| Quality and purity | 3.5% | 5.0% | 0.29 |
| Customer service | 2.0% | 2.5% | 0.63 |
| Shipping | 1.5% | 0.5% | 0.16 |
| Regulatory uncertainty | 1.0% | 0.2% | 0.18 |
| Payment | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.32 |
A p-value under 0.05 would point to a real change, and none of the ten is under 0.05. The second coder's figures give the same result.
By community
Do peptide customers and GLP-1 customers face the same obstacles?
No, and the difference should shape what a program offers. Peptide customers mostly need direction before they start. GLP-1 customers mostly need follow-up after they start.
Peptide customers need direction; GLP-1 customers need follow-up
Share of 400 randomly sampled posts per subreddit, both periods combined.
Source: ConduitMD analysis of Reddit posts, November 2025 to October 2026.
In r/Peptides the leading obstacle is guidance: how much, how often, how to mix, what to combine. In r/Semaglutide it is side effects, followed by stalled results. A peptide catalog needs strong onboarding and written protocols. A weight-loss catalog needs check-ins and dose review.
Grey market against prescription
What changes when a customer has a prescription?
The trust obstacle falls away and the guidance obstacle stays. To see this we ran a second, targeted search for posts where a customer described a problem, and coded 286 of them by where the product came from. This sample shows what the obstacles contain. The random sample above shows how common they are.
A prescription removes the trust obstacle and leaves guidance in place
Share of each group's posts that raise the obstacle. Targeted search, not a random sample.
Source: ConduitMD analysis of 286 Reddit posts describing an obstacle, October 2025 to October 2026.
Half of the grey-market posts are about whether the seller, the lab report or the review is real. One customer traced a network of fake storefronts to a single server. Others describe extra "insurance" and warehouse fees after payment, and certificates of analysis reused across products. One r/Retatrutide user summed up a dead vial in five words: "It behaved like sterile water."
A prescription program starts without most of that. Its customers raise different obstacles: price, slow replies, and changes made to a dose without a conversation. The prescription group is 60 posts, so read its percentages as a direction.
For operators
What does this mean for a company starting a real peptide program?
Five conclusions follow from the numbers.
1. Clinical access is the product
The three most common obstacles are side effects, dosing and results. A customer facing any of them needs a licensed provider, and a program that makes the provider easy to reach is answering the largest share of demand in this data.
2. Onboarding has to carry the dosing instructions
Guidance appears in 28% of grey-market posts and 25% of prescription posts. A prescription alone does not settle it. Clear written directions, units a customer can read off a syringe, and a first-week check-in address the obstacle that a prescription leaves in place.
3. Follow-up is retention
"Results not showing" is 12% of all posts and 17.5% in the GLP-1 community. Those customers are deciding whether to continue. A scheduled dose review gives them a reason to stay.
4. Legitimacy is the advantage over the grey market
Trust falls from 49% of grey-market posts to 18% of prescription posts, and quality from 21% to 8%. A licensed provider and a licensed pharmacy remove the obstacle that defines the research-use-only market.
5. Price and service are yours to get right
Price (27%) and customer service (23%) are among the obstacles prescription customers raise most. Publish the full cost before checkout, answer quickly, and tell a customer before anything about their order changes.
ConduitMD
Where does ConduitMD fit?
ConduitMD is a white-label telehealth platform for peptide programs. It gives a gym, med spa, wellness brand or clinic the clinical side of a peptide company: a licensed medical practice, a prescriber network, a compounding pharmacy connection and the software to run it under your brand and at your prices.
Every order is reviewed by a licensed provider
Your clients get provider messaging for medical questions through the portal.
You own the customer
You set the retail price, bill your clients and handle customer service. The practice handles the medical side only.
Flat fees
$2,000 a month for the platform and $29 per provider visit, with medication and shipping at pharmacy cost. No revenue share.
Fourteen days from signing to a live storefront
The practice, the prescriber network and the pharmacy connection are already in place.
Limits
What are the limits of this data?
The study measures what customers post about on two large subreddits. How often an obstacle occurs across all peptide customers is a separate question this data cannot answer.
- Posts only. Comments were not sampled.
- About half of r/Peptides posts had their body removed by moderators and are excluded. Removed posts are likely to be about vendors and sourcing, so trust and quality are probably under-counted there. The removal rate was similar in both periods (49% and 45%).
- Each post was read to its first 1,200 characters.
- Both coders are AI models. No human coded the sample.
- With 400 posts per period, a shift smaller than about 8 percentage points in a common obstacle would not show.
- The targeted sample of 286 posts used a single coder, and its prescription group is small.
- People who hit an obstacle post more than people who do not.
Building a peptide program around what customers need?
A twenty-minute call. We walk through the clinical side, the flat fees and what fourteen days to live looks like for your business.
Frequently asked
Questions about the study
What is the biggest obstacle for people starting peptides?
Side effects with nobody qualified to ask. In a random sample of 800 Reddit posts from r/Peptides and r/Semaglutide, 27% raised a side-effect or safety question. Dosing and protocol guidance was second at 21% to 29%, depending on the coder.
Do customers of prescription peptide programs face fewer obstacles than grey-market customers?
They face different ones. In our targeted sample, trust appeared in 49% of grey-market posts and 18% of prescription posts. Prescription customers raised price (27%) and customer service (23%) more often.
Are peptide customer obstacles changing over time?
Not between the two periods we measured. November 2025 to February 2026 and July to October 2026 show the same mix, with no statistically significant change in any of the ten obstacles.
What should a new peptide company build first?
Provider access, dosing onboarding and follow-up. Those answer the three most common obstacles in the data: side effects, guidance and results that are not showing.
How is a real peptide company different from a research-use-only seller?
A real peptide company works through licensed providers who review each customer and a licensed pharmacy that fills the prescription. In our data, that route removes most of the trust and quality obstacles that dominate the research-use-only market.
Written by Marcus D. Hansen, CEO of ConduitMD. Marcus has operated telemedicine companies since 2019, including a direct-to-patient peptide practice and a telehealth addiction medicine practice.
Study run 8 October 2026. Reddit posts are paraphrased. Nothing on this page is medical or legal advice. ConduitMD provides software and management services to an independent medical practice and its partners; it does not prescribe or dispense.