The shape of a peptide program’s economics
Patients who stay are the whole model. Here is the arithmetic of a peptide program, and why the first order tells you almost nothing.
A peptide program is a repeat business wearing a clinical coat. A patient who reorders for months is worth many times one who orders once. That shape, rather than the first sale, is where the economics live.
The three inputs
- Panel: how many of the patients you already see are candidates.
- Conversion: how many of them actually start.
- Retention: how many are still on the program in month six.
Retention is the one clinics under-weigh. It is also the one most affected by ordinary operational things: whether a refill is easy, whether a message gets answered, whether the site the patient orders from looks like the clinic they trust.
Run your own numbers.The calculator takes your panel, your average price and your share, and shows the shape over twelve months. They are modelled figures, not a promise.
What eats the margin
- Staff time spent on things software should do: chasing forms, retyping addresses, answering "where is my order".
- Cases that sit in a queue nobody owns.
- A checkout that loses people between the signature and the payment.
None of those show up in a price list, and all of them show up in the month-six number.
