Best NAD+ Source: $5.20 per 100 mg, Scoring 81 of 100
Best NAD+ source, scored on a weighting published before the result: endotoxin and testing scope ahead of price, then the $5.20 per 100 mg it returns.
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: Educational research guidelines only. Lyophilized peptides are investigational chemical compounds and are NOT approved for human consumption, diagnosis, or therapy. Consult a licensed physician before any research application.
Best NAD+ source pages usually run the scoring backwards: pick a winner, then describe the criteria that produce it. This one publishes the weighting first, in points, and only then applies it. If you disagree with the weights you can rebuild the table yourself and get a different answer, which is the whole reason for showing them.
The weighting is opinionated in one specific way. Testing scope carries 40 of the 100 points, and 15 of those 40 sit on a single line: whether the batch certificate reports a bacterial endotoxins result. That is a heavy weight for one assay, and it is deliberate. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide is a coenzyme bought by the gram, and the documented failure in this market has not been identity or potency. FDA reported adverse event reports following use of NAD+ injectable drugs, including severe chills, shaking, vomiting and fatigue with some cases requiring medical treatment, consistent with excessive levels of endotoxins.
Price transparency takes 25, dispatch and stock 20, labelling discipline 15. Searches for best nad+ vendor, best source for nad+ and best place to buy nad+ are all asking for the same thing: a defensible way to compare, rather than somebody else's conclusion.
Lowest cost per milligram we track
NAD+ — Ascension Peptides
Independently assayed research material. With the code the 1,000 mg vial works out at $5.20 per 100 mg.
Quoted per 100 mg because NAD+ is dosed in hundreds of milligrams, not the single milligrams a peptide vial holds. Buying 3, 5 or 10 takes 3%, 5% or 10% off the list price. Free shipping starts at $250.
- Two third-party assays per batch
- Free carriage over $250
- Same-day dispatch before 2pm CST
Laboratory research material only, not for human consumption. Affiliate links: we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Figures checked August 20, 2026.
Best NAD+ source: the weighting, stated before the result
One hundred points across four categories. Every line is something a supplier either publishes or does not, so the scoring can be run from a public web page without contacting anybody.
| Category | Line | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Testing scope | Bacterial endotoxins result on the batch certificate | 15 |
| Identity confirmed by mass spectrometry | 8 | |
| Purity by HPLC, with a chromatogram | 8 | |
| Measured quantity per vial, not just the label figure | 5 | |
| Named independent laboratory, tied to a lot code | 4 | |
| Price transparency | Cost per 100 mg computable without contacting the seller | 9 |
| Quantity in milligrams on both listing and label | 8 | |
| Discount and quantity-tier terms published in full | 8 | |
| Dispatch and stock | A stated same-day dispatch cut-off | 8 |
| Domestic shipping origin | 7 | |
| Tracking, plus refund terms naming non-delivery, breakage and wrong item | 5 | |
| Labelling discipline | Research-use-only wording, stated plainly | 6 |
| No human benefit claims anywhere on the listing | 5 | |
| Storage terms for both dry and reconstituted states | 4 |
Note what is absent. There are no points for reviews, star ratings, years in business or the appearance of the website, because none of those is checkable and all of them are cheap to manufacture.
Why testing scope takes 40 points, and endotoxin takes 15 of them
A certificate answers two different kinds of question, and buyers in this market almost always weight the wrong one heavily. Identity and purity answer what the material is. Endotoxin answers what else is in it.
For a peptide bought in 5 mg quantities, weighting identity highest is defensible, because a mislabelled sequence is the realistic failure. For NAD+ it is not, because the realistic failure has been documented and it is a grade failure. FDA's compounding notice, content current as of 30 October 2024, states that the agency was aware of compounders using food-grade nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide sold by repackagers to make intravenous products, and that ingredients identified as food grade are not suitable for compounding sterile drugs without appropriate processing, because of the high risk of contamination with microbes and endotoxins. The adverse events it went on to describe are the reason for the 15 points.
The technical case for separating the tests is short. Endotoxins are lipopolysaccharide fragments shed by Gram-negative bacteria, and they persist after the organism that produced them is dead. Sterility and pyrogenicity are therefore independent properties, and a chromatogram showing 99% or better purity is silent on both. The bacterial endotoxins test, usually run as an LAL assay, is what produces a number, and FDA maintains a questions-and-answers guidance describing the methods.
The uncomfortable consequence of weighting it at 15 is that no supplier in the research channel we have looked at scores those points. That is not a reason to lower the weight. A criterion that everybody fails is still telling you something true about the channel, and it is the single largest available improvement any supplier in it could make.
Price transparency at 25, which is not the same as price
No points are awarded for being cheap. Points are awarded for publishing enough to let you work out what cheap would mean, which is a different property and a rarer one.
The reason is specific to gram-scale material. A peptide listing quoting a 10 mg vial gives you a denominator whether it means to or not. A gram-scale listing can quote a vial price and never tell you the milligrams, and a surprising number do. Without a denominator there is no cost per 100 mg, and without that there is no comparison to make, only vial prices sitting next to each other meaning nothing.
Three points of arithmetic, for the listing scored below. At list, $104.00 over 1,000 mg is $10.40 per 100 mg. With the code PEPTIDEDECK, $52.00 over 1,000 mg is $5.20 per 100 mg. Against the measured quantity on the certificate, $52.00 over 784.32 mg is $6.63 per 100 mg. Three different honest numbers, each of which requires the seller to have published something.
The tier terms score separately because they are published and computable: three vials at $302.64, five at $494.00 and ten at $936.00, taking 3%, 5% and 10% off list, which is $10.09, $9.88 and $9.36 per 100 mg. Whether a tier and the code can be applied together is not documented anywhere we can point to, and the scoring below takes a deduction for that. Our NAD+ coupon page works the code arithmetic through in full.
Scoring Ascension Peptides, line by line
The same weighting applied to the supplier this page links to. Evidence in the middle column so you can check it or disagree with it.
| Line | Evidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Endotoxin result | The certificate published for lot 25-01260229 reports purity, identity and quantity only | 0 / 15 |
| Identity by MS | Identity confirmed by mass spectrometry on the HPLC-UV-MS run | 8 / 8 |
| Purity by HPLC | 99.66% with a UV chromatogram and a peak list | 8 / 8 |
| Measured quantity | 784.32 mg per vial by quantitative HPLC-UV | 5 / 5 |
| Named lab, lot-tied | MZ Biolabs lot 25-01260229 dated 26 January 2026; Kovera Labs batch 25-05260628 dated 14 June 2026 | 4 / 4 |
| Cost per 100 mg computable | Price and quantity both published; the division needs nothing else | 9 / 9 |
| Quantity in mg | 1,000 mg on the listing | 8 / 8 |
| Discount and tier terms | Tiers and code published; whether they combine is not | 6 / 8 |
| Dispatch cut-off | Same business day before 2pm CST, Monday to Saturday | 8 / 8 |
| Domestic origin | US dispatch, free carriage over $250 | 7 / 7 |
| Tracking and refund terms | Tracking emailed on dispatch. We did not verify refund terms against the three failure modes | 3 / 5 |
| Research-use wording | Research use only, not approved for human or veterinary use | 6 / 6 |
| No benefit claims | Description is written in research terms; the vendor states it will not discuss reconstitution or dosage | 5 / 5 |
| Storage terms | Minus 20 degrees Celsius dry and dark, 4 degrees reconstituted, 28 days, no repeated freeze and thaw | 4 / 4 |
Total: 81 out of 100. Testing scope 25 of 40, price transparency 23 of 25, dispatch and stock 18 of 20, labelling discipline 15 of 15.
Two of the three deductions are deductions for absent evidence rather than for a demonstrated failure, and the difference matters. The refund line is scored 3 of 5 because we did not verify it, not because it was found wanting. The tier line loses 2 because an undocumented interaction is an undocumented interaction, whichever way it turns out at checkout.
What the score does not cover, and what would change it
The 15 point gap is the interesting part of the result, and it is a channel-wide gap rather than a supplier-specific one. Publishing an LAL figure against a lot would move this score from 81 to 96 and would be, as far as we can tell, the largest single differentiator available to any research-chemical supplier of this compound.
Three limits on what a score like this can mean:
- It scores published evidence, not material. A certificate covers a batch on a date. Filling, capping, storage and transit happen afterwards, and no certificate observes them.
- A high score is not a clearance. Research-use material remains research-use material at 81 points and at 96. The weighting compares suppliers to each other, and nothing in it makes a research vial suitable for a person.
- It does not score the other channels. Clinics and compounding pharmacies cannot be scored on this rubric because most of these lines do not exist for them, which is itself informative. Our where to buy NAD+ page compares the channels directly, and NAD+ where to buy runs the shorter supplier checklist this rubric is built from.
On the regulatory footing, since it comes up in every vendor comparison: NAD sits in Category 1 of FDA's list of bulk drug substances nominated for use in compounding under section 503A, updated 14 May 2026. Category 1 means the agency does not intend to take action against a compounder using the substance provided the conditions in its guidance are met, while it continues to evaluate. That is non-enforcement pending evaluation rather than approval, and the list is explicitly provisional. It scores no points here because it applies identically to every supplier.
If you are comparing this against research peptides on the same storefront, best retatrutide source applies a comparable method to a compound priced per milligram rather than per gram.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes one NAD+ source better than another?expand_more
Published, checkable evidence, weighted toward the failure that actually occurs. This page allocates 40 of 100 points to testing scope, 15 of those to a bacterial endotoxins result on the batch certificate, then 25 to price transparency, 20 to dispatch and stock, and 15 to labelling discipline. Reviews, ratings and site design score nothing, because none of them is checkable.
Why does endotoxin outweigh purity in the scoring?expand_more
Because purity and endotoxin answer different questions and only one of them has produced documented harm for this compound. FDA's compounding notice describes food-grade NAD+ sold by repackagers being used to make intravenous products, and adverse event reports of severe chills, shaking, vomiting and fatigue consistent with excessive endotoxin levels. Endotoxins persist after the bacteria that shed them are dead, so a 99% purity figure is silent on the question.
What did Ascension Peptides score, and where did it lose points?expand_more
81 out of 100. The full 15 points for an endotoxin result were lost, since the certificate published for lot 25-01260229 reports purity, mass spectrometry identity and a measured quantity of 784.32 mg per vial but no endotoxin figure. Two further points went on the undocumented interaction between the code and the quantity tiers, and two on refund terms we did not verify.
Is the cheapest NAD+ source the best one?expand_more
Not under this weighting, which awards no points for being cheap and 25 for publishing enough that cheap can be calculated. That distinction matters at gram scale, where a listing can quote a vial price without ever stating the milligrams. On the listing scored here the arithmetic runs $10.40 per 100 mg at list, $5.20 with the code, and $6.63 measured against the assayed quantity.
Can a clinic or a compounding pharmacy be scored on the same rubric?expand_more
Not usefully. Most of the lines do not exist for them: no lot code you receive, no batch certificate in your hands, and typically no quantity from which a cost per 100 mg could be derived. That is a real finding rather than a scoring problem, and it is why the channel comparison is handled separately from the supplier rubric.
References & Citations
- [1]
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA reminds compounders to use ingredients suitable for sterile compounding. Content current as of 10/30/2024.View source →
- [2]
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Pyrogen and Endotoxins Testing: Questions and Answers, guidance for industry.View source →
- [3]
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Bulk Drug Substances Nominated for Use in Compounding Under Section 503A, category lists, updated May 14, 2026.View source →
- [4]
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Interim Policy on Compounding Using Bulk Drug Substances Under Section 503A of the FD&C Act, guidance for industry.View source →