How We Research
Exactly what we check, where every figure comes from, what we deliberately do not publish, and how to tell us we got something wrong.
Most Botox directories repeat each other. This page sets out what we do instead, in enough detail that you can check our work.
Where every figure comes from
We use a strict order of preference for sources, and we name the source on the page rather than asking you to take our word for it.
| What we publish | Where it comes from | How it is shown |
|---|---|---|
| Per-unit price | The clinic's own website | Quoted as published, with the date checked |
| Who injects, and their license | The clinic's own website | Named where the clinic names them |
| Rating and review count | That business's Google listing, read directly | Score, count, and the date read |
| Accreditation and trading history | Better Business Bureau records | Letter rating and dates as BBB states them |
| Who may legally inject | State regulations and medical board rules | Rule cited by name or number |
| Clinical background | AAD, MedlinePlus, ASPS and the manufacturer | Linked inline |
How clinics are ranked
Five checks, weighted in this order. Nobody pays to appear, and no position on any list is for sale.
- Verifiable reputation. A rating we read at source on a named platform, not one copied from another directory.
- Injector transparency. Whether the clinic publishes who injects and their license. A named nurse practitioner outranks "our expert team".
- Price transparency. Whether a per-unit rate is published at all, and how completely.
- Track record and accountability. Years trading, plus third-party accountability such as BBB accreditation.
- Brand range. How many of the approved neurotoxins the clinic actually stocks.
A clinic ranked lower has usually published less that we could verify. That is a statement about disclosure, not about the quality of care, and every gap is labelled so you can ask about it directly.
How we compare prices between cities
Each city guide states a verified price band and says how that city compares with the others. This is where those comparisons come from, and where their limits are.
The dataset is 18 US cities and 90 providers. Every rate was read off the provider's own website, never from a survey, an aggregator or an estimate. Where a clinic does not publish a rate we record that it does not, rather than filling the gap with a guess.
The one figure that compares cleanly
How many of the five providers in a city publish a per-unit rate at all. That means exactly the same thing everywhere, so it is the comparison we lead with. It currently runs from one in five in San Antonio to five in five in Chicago and Tampa.
Price transparency is not a proxy for price. Some of the most expensive clinics we found publish openly and some of the cheapest quote only at consultation. What it changes is whether you can compare anything before you walk in.
Why we do not rank cities cheapest to dearest
The bands are not all built the same way, and a numeric league table would look precise while resting on mixed measurement.
- Most cities are flat per-clinic rates, directly comparable.
- Chicago, Denver, Houston, San Antonio and Tampa include tiered pricing, where a clinic charges less per unit above a certain dose. The low end of those bands is a volume rate rather than a walk-in one.
- San Antonio's entire band is one clinic's tier ladder, $10.50 to $12.50, because only one of its five providers publishes at all. That is not a spread between clinics and should not be read as one.
So the city guides compare floors, ceilings and transparency, and say plainly when a band rests on a single clinic. Across the 18 cities the verified floor is $9 in Atlanta, Charlotte and Chicago and the verified ceiling is $18 in Tampa, with a median floor of $10 and a median ceiling of $14.25.
One further limit worth stating. A per-unit rate is not a price until you know how many units you need, and the unit count varies more between people than the rate varies between clinics. Our units guide covers that, and every city guide shows the arithmetic for its own rates.
What we do not do
Being explicit about the limits matters as much as the method.
- We do not visit clinics or pose as patients. Our research is conducted from published sources. If a page ever describes a visit or a call, it will say so specifically.
- We do not publish a rating we cannot trace. Where no verifiable score exists, the page says so rather than borrowing a number.
- We do not estimate prices. If a clinic does not publish one, that is what we print.
- We do not accept payment for placement, and we do not let any commercial relationship affect a ranking. See our affiliate disclosure.
- We do not give medical advice. We are researchers. Every treatment decision belongs between you and a licensed provider.
How current this is
Every clinic card carries the date its details were verified. Prices, staff and ratings change, and a figure checked in August is a snapshot of August, not a live feed. We re-check city guides periodically and update the date when we do. If you find something out of date, the fastest fix is to tell us.
Corrections
We publish specific, checkable claims, which means we can be specifically wrong. If you are a clinic and we have your pricing, your injectors or your brand list wrong, or if you are a reader who spotted something, tell us and we will correct it and re-date the page. Corrections are free, and we do not require anything in return.
Medical review
Research and writing are done by our team. Content covering medical facts is checked against our Medical Review Board of licensed clinicians. Our founder is not a physician, and the site says so on every article, expertise here is in research, verification and provider credentialing, not in clinical practice.