Most compounds in the catalogue are listed in two formats: a single vial, and a kit of ten vials. The choice between them is a procurement decision rather than a scientific one, and it comes down to three quantities that can all be worked out before anything is ordered — cost per milligram, the shipping band the cart falls into, and how long the material will sit in a freezer before it is used.
Why the single-vial format exists
A first order from an unfamiliar supplier is an evaluation, and what is being evaluated is mostly not the peptide. It is whether the certificate of analysis arrives for the correct lot, whether the chromatogram is attached, whether the lot number on the certificate matches the vial label, whether the packaging survives transit, and whether questions get answered in figures rather than in reassurance. A single vial buys all of that at the smallest possible commitment.
The trade is simple: a single vial carries the highest cost per milligram in the listing. That premium is the price of the information, and it is usually worth paying once per supplier rather than never. The format comparison guide sets out the same trade in more detail.
The arithmetic, worked through
Using current catalogue prices for BPC-157, which is listed in one single-vial format and three kit formats:
| Format | Catalogue code | Total labelled mass | Price | Cost per mg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 mg × 1 vial | BC10MG-SV | 10 mg | $37 | $3.70 |
| 5 mg × 10 vials | BC5 | 50 mg | $116 | $2.32 |
| 10 mg × 10 vials | BC10 | 100 mg | $131 | $1.31 |
| 20 mg × 10 vials | BC20 | 200 mg | $179 | $0.90 |
Two points about this table. First, the single vial costs roughly two and a half times per milligram what the equivalent kit does, which is a reasonable evaluation fee and a poor way to buy working quantities. Second, the cheapest milligram in the listing is not in the smallest kit but in the largest — the 20 mg kit lands near a quarter of the single-vial rate. Comparing kits only by their headline price points the wrong way round.
These figures divide by labelled mass, not by net peptide mass. A vial labelled 10 mg contains peptide plus water plus counter-ion, so the real cost per milligram of peptide is higher by whatever the peptide content figure on the certificate says. Where two suppliers are close on the labelled-mass arithmetic, peptide content is what separates them.
What shipping does to the sum
Shipping is flat rather than proportional, so it dominates small orders and disappears into large ones. The rules stated on the site are:
- A cart made up entirely of single vials ships for $20.
- Any cart containing a multi-vial kit ships for $60 standard or $80 expedited, and single vials in that same cart ship free alongside the kit.
- From four kits upward the rate drops to $30 standard or $50 expedited.
Run through the same material: a single 10 mg vial ordered on its own is $37 plus $20, so $57 for 10 mg, or $5.70 per milligram delivered. A BC10 kit on standard shipping is $131 plus $60, so $191 for 100 mg, or $1.91 per milligram delivered. Four BC10 kits are $524 plus $30, so $554 for 400 mg, or $1.39 per milligram delivered.
The asymmetry worth noticing runs the other way. A single vial added to an order that already contains a kit ships free, so it costs its $37 and nothing more. A laboratory adding a new compound to an existing kit order pays no shipping penalty at all for evaluating it, which makes an evaluation vial close to free to attach and expensive to order by itself.
How long the material will sit
A ten-vial kit is a commitment to storing nine unopened vials for as long as the work takes. Lyophilised material is the easy case here: as a dry powder it ships at ambient temperature without a cold chain, and held cold and dry in the sealed vial it has a long shelf life, so the practical questions are freezer space, labelling discipline, and keeping vials out of repeated freeze–thaw excursions once any of them have been opened and aliquoted.
That changes the calculation in one direction only. If the work is scoped and the material will be consumed, the kit arithmetic above holds. If the work is exploratory and the material may sit for a year or more, the single vial is doing something the spreadsheet does not show, which is avoiding a committed purchase of a material whose specification may be revised in the meantime. The storage and handling guide covers the conditions in full.
Once a vial is in hand, the reconstitution calculator converts labelled mass and a chosen solvent volume into a concentration. It is arithmetic and nothing more, and it takes labelled mass as given, which is another reason to have the peptide content figure from the certificate to hand.
Requesting the lot certificate before ordering
Documentation is the one part of this that should be settled before money moves, not after. A certificate of analysis is available by request for the lot that would be supplied, covering HPLC purity and mass-spectrometry identity confirmation. Published certificates are collected in the certificate library, which is the fastest way to see what a certificate for a given compound looks like before asking for a specific one.
A request needs only the catalogue code and the format under consideration — BC10MG-SV or BC10, in the worked example above. Asking at that point, rather than after delivery, is what turns a single vial from a small purchase into a genuine evaluation: the documentation is checked first, the material second, and the kit order placed only when both have held up.
Everything on this site is supplied for in-vitro laboratory research use only.