The short version
Protocol One earns affiliate commission on some links to vendors and telehealth providers covered on the site. When you click one of those links and buy, the vendor pays us a percentage. You pay the same price either way; the commission comes out of the vendor's margin, not your wallet.
We disclose this in three places. Once on every page footer ("We earn commission on some links"). Once on each vendor card next to the link itself ("Affiliate relationships are disclosed per FTC rules"). And once here, in long form.
What we earn commission on
Vendor and telehealth links marked Step 1: Open a free account on dosing pages are tracked affiliate links. Currently active partners as of May 2026:
- Apollo Peptide Sciences via Refersion - research peptides (BPC-157, TB-500, Epitalon, MOTs-c, CJC-1295, Ipamorelin, Thymosin Alpha-1).
- Katalys network brands - compounded GLP-1 telehealth (Eden, Mochi, SkinnyRx) and retatrutide route. Brand-specific tracking links go live progressively as approvals complete.
Additional partnerships are under evaluation and will appear on this page when they go live. Anything not listed here is a non-affiliate reference (informational, no commission).
How the funnel works
Most affiliate networks credit the partner who sends the first click. That's why our vendor cards lead with Step 1: Open a free account rather than a coupon code. The first click locks attribution to us for a tracking window (typically 180 days), which is how the math works. Whether or not you apply the coupon at checkout, the credit is the same.
This is also how we plan to keep the lights on without going behind a paywall. Editorial stays free; commerce subsidizes it.
Editorial independence
Three rules that govern how we write about vendors:
- The editorial take comes before the partnership. If a vendor is the right fit for a use case, we say so. If a competitor with no partnership is the better fit, we say that too. The "Watch" line on every vendor card exists for exactly that reason - it's the place we put the caveat.
- We do not write to a vendor brief. Nobody pays us to feature them. Vendors do not see drafts. Vendors do not get approval over copy. The partnerships are commercial relationships on the link side, not the editorial side.
- We will drop a partner if the product changes. Compounded GLP-1 supply, peptide quality control, telehealth shipping reliability - all of it shifts month to month. If a partner ships a worse product than they did at launch, the vendor card comes off the site.
What we do not do
- We do not run paid search arbitrage against branded keywords.
- We do not use incentivized clicks, coupon-aggregator placements, or bait pop-ups.
- We do not buy or rent email lists to push affiliate offers.
- We do not accept paid placements for "best of" rankings, tier lists, or editorial verdicts.
- We do not collect personal health information through affiliate clicks. Tracking is anonymous, click-level, and limited to attribution.
Legal entity and contact
Protocol One is an independent editorial publication based in Nashville, Tennessee. The byline on each issue is "The Editor" - a single editor operating Protocol One independently. Not a clinic, not a vendor, not a sponsored newsletter.
Questions about a specific affiliate relationship or this disclosure: hello@readprotocolone.com.
FTC compliance
This disclosure follows the FTC's Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255). Every page on Protocol One that contains an affiliate link carries a footer-level disclosure and a section-level disclosure adjacent to the link itself. If you spot a page that does not, email us and we'll fix it.