SS31 is not hard to buy. It is hard to buy well. There are dozens of sellers, the prices are all over the place, and from the outside one white powder in a glass vial looks exactly like another. We have been on both sides of this, as buyers before we were sellers, and most of what follows is stuff we learned by getting it wrong first.
This guide is written for someone placing a real order: a lab manager, a purchasing officer, a reseller, or a researcher who has been handed the job because nobody else wanted it. Seven checks. None of them takes long.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
First, a note on the name SS31
You will see it written SS31, SS-31, SS 31 and occasionally ss31 in lower case. It is all the same compound. The hyphenated form is the one used in the original papers. The version without the hyphen took over online because people type it that way into search boxes and order forms. Elamipretide and MTP-131 are also the same molecule under official and company names.
Why does this matter for buying? Because a supplier who lists SS31 and elamipretide as two different products at two different prices either does not know what they are selling or hopes you do not. Either way, move on.
Check 1: Decide what the SS31 is for before you look at prices
This sounds obvious and almost nobody does it. People open a price list, see that the top grade is three times the cost of the bottom one, and pick the middle out of instinct.
Start from the experiment instead. Ask what happens if there is one percent of something else in the vial. For a pilot study where you are only trying to find out whether your cells respond at all, the answer is usually nothing. For a dose-response curve that will end up as a figure in a paper, the answer may be quite a lot. For analytical work where SS31 itself is the reference standard, impurities are the whole problem.
Write down the answer in one sentence. Then look at the price list. You will choose differently.
Check 2: Match the SS31 grade to the job
We carry four grades. Here is how we would steer a colleague.
Standard Grade
Standard Grade is stated at 98 percent purity or better, verified by HPLC. Use it for method development, for training new staff, for checking that a protocol works before you commit expensive material. It is also a sensible choice for teaching labs. Sizes run from 5 mg to 50 mg.
High Purity Grade
High Purity Grade is the workhorse. If you run cell culture experiments week in, week out, this is probably where you will land. It costs a little more than Standard and gives you a tighter specification. Same size range.
Ultra-Pure Research Grade
Ultra-Pure Research Grade is 99.5 percent or better, with identity confirmed by mass spectrometry as well as purity by HPLC, and third-party lot testing available if you ask. This is for work that will be scrutinised. If a reviewer or an auditor is going to want to see what was in the vial, buy this and keep the COA with your records. The 50 mg vial is the most economical way into this grade.
Bulk Research Grade
Bulk Research Grade is 99 percent or better and comes in 100 mg, 250 mg and 500 mg vials. It exists for groups that would otherwise be opening ten small vials a week. Per milligram it is the cheapest way to buy SS31 from us by a wide margin.
A mistake we see often: buying Ultra-Pure for everything because it feels safer. It is not safer, it is just dearer. Put the money where it changes the result.
Check 3: Work out how much SS31 you really need
People under-order, then re-order from a different lot, then spend a week wondering why the second half of the study looks different from the first. Lot-to-lot variation in a well made peptide is small, but it is never zero, and it is one more variable you did not need.
A rough way to size an order:
- Work out the amount per experiment from your protocol.
- Multiply by the number of experiments, including repeats.
- Add a third for the runs that fail, because some will.
- Round up to a quantity that comes from a single lot.
Then ask the supplier to fill the whole order from one lot. We do that by default where stock allows, and we tell you if we cannot.
Vial size matters as well. Fifty 5 mg vials and five 50 mg vials contain the same amount of SS31, but they behave very differently in a working lab. Small vials mean each one is opened once and used up, which is kinder to the peptide. Large vials are cheaper per milligram and a nuisance unless you split them into portions on day one. Choose based on how your bench actually works, not on the unit price alone.
Check 4: Read the Certificate of Analysis properly
The COA is the only evidence you have that the vial contains what the label says. Treat it like evidence.
A real COA for SS31 should show these things.
- A lot or batch number that matches the number on your vials.
- The date of analysis.
- Purity by HPLC, as a percentage, ideally with the chromatogram.
- Identity by mass spectrometry, showing a mass consistent with 639.8 g/mol.
- Appearance, which should be a white to off-white powder.
- Storage conditions.
Now the things that should make you suspicious. A COA with no lot number. A COA dated two years ago for material you are told is fresh. A purity figure with no method next to it. A mass spec result that is missing entirely. And the classic: the same PDF sent to every customer no matter which lot they receive.
If you have never read a chromatogram, it is less scary than it looks. One tall peak is your compound. Small peaks either side are impurities. The purity figure is the area of the tall peak divided by the area of everything. We go through an example step by step in our article on SS31 peptide purity testing.
Check 5: Ask what the stated weight means
This one catches experienced buyers. When a vial says 10 mg, does that mean 10 mg of SS31, or 10 mg of powder?
They are not the same. A freeze-dried peptide is never pure peptide. It carries counter-ions left over from purification, usually acetate or trifluoroacetate, and a little residual water. In a small, highly charged peptide like this one, those extras can make up a meaningful share of the powder weight. The actual peptide content might be 75 to 90 percent of what the balance reads.
Neither way of labelling is dishonest as long as the supplier tells you which they use. But if you are calculating molar concentrations, you need to know. Ask. A supplier who understands the question is a supplier who understands their product. If you want the chemistry behind it, our piece on elamipretide peptide chemistry covers salt forms in more detail.
Check 6: Look at how the supplier handles the boring parts
Purity gets all the attention. Logistics is where orders actually go wrong.
Packaging. Vials should arrive sealed, with crimped caps, labelled with compound name and lot number. Loose labels and handwritten lot numbers are a bad sign.
Shipping. Freeze-dried SS31 tolerates a few days at ambient temperature without trouble, so cold packs are a nice touch but not a requirement. What matters more is that the parcel is tracked and that somebody answers when you ask where it is.
Communication. Send a question before you order and see how long the reply takes and whether it answers what you asked. That is a preview of what happens when something goes wrong.
Paperwork. If your institution needs an invoice in a particular format, a quote on letterhead or a document for customs, raise it at the start. We deal with these requests all the time through the contact page, and it is far easier to sort out before the order ships than after.
Check 7: Be honest about what a low price means
Making a clean tetrapeptide is not expensive compared with a long, modified one. That is why SS31 costs less per milligram than something like retatrutide. But there is still a floor. Synthesis, purification, two kinds of analysis, freeze-drying, vialling and shipping all cost money.
When a price sits far below everyone else, something has been left out. Usually it is the analysis. Sometimes it is the purification. Occasionally the vial simply contains less than the label says. You will not find out which from the product page.
We are not the cheapest and we do not try to be. Our prices are listed openly on the SS-31 peptide page, from $39 for a 5 mg Standard Grade vial upward, so you can compare without having to ask for a quote first.
How wholesale SS31 orders work with us
Our minimum order is 50 units. There is no maximum. A unit is one vial, and you can ask for any quantity above the minimum.
Here is the whole process.
- Pick a grade and size on the product page and press Order. The enquiry form opens with your choice already filled in.
- Enter the number of units, your delivery address and the payment method you prefer.
- We email back with availability, the total and payment details. Usually the same day.
- You pay by Apple Pay, Zelle, Chime, Cash App, USDT or Bitcoin.
- The order ships with the Certificate of Analysis for its lot.
If you want to split an order across grades or sizes, put that in the message box. Mixed orders are fine. If you need the COA before you commit, ask for it in the same message and we will send it with the quote.
Resellers sometimes ask about repeat supply. Yes, we can set up a standing arrangement, and yes, we can hold a lot for you if you tell us roughly what you expect to need. Write to us and we will work it out.
What about the other peptides
A lot of SS31 orders arrive with something else attached. The most common additions are BPC-157 and TB-500, which tend to be ordered together by groups working on repair models. GHK-Cu goes to cosmetic science and skin biology labs. Retatrutide is the newest and the one with the fastest growing demand.
All of them count toward the 50 unit minimum, so a mixed order of, say, thirty vials of one compound and twenty of another is fine. The same testing and paperwork apply across the board.
Mistakes we see again and again
A short list, because we would rather you learned from other people's orders than your own.
- Ordering the top grade for a pilot study. Covered above. It is the most common waste of money we see.
- Splitting an order across two suppliers to save a little. You now have two lots, two COAs and no way to tell which caused the odd result.
- Not checking the lot number on arrival. It takes ten seconds to compare the vial label with the COA. Do it before the box goes in the freezer.
- Storing vials in a frost-free freezer door. The temperature swings every time the door opens and every time the defrost cycle runs. Put them at the back of a proper minus 20.
- Reconstituting everything on day one. Only dissolve what you will use. Powder keeps. Solution does not. The details are in our SS-31 peptide storage guide.
Working out the real cost of an SS31 order
The price on the page is not the whole cost. When you compare quotes for SS31, put these on the same sheet.
The unit price, obviously. Then shipping, which for a small box of vials is modest but not zero. Then any import duty or handling fee your country applies to laboratory chemicals. Then the cost of the testing you will do on arrival, if any. And finally the cost of failure: what a wasted month of experiments is worth if the material turns out to be wrong.
That last one is never on an invoice. It is still the biggest number on the sheet. A lot of SS31 that costs fifteen percent more and comes with a real, lot-specific certificate is cheaper than a bargain that leaves you guessing.
A practical example. Fifty 10 mg vials of High Purity SS31 at $79 each comes to $3,950. The same fifty vials in Ultra-Pure at $99 comes to $4,950. The difference is a thousand dollars. If the work is a pilot, keep the thousand. If the work is going into a regulatory file, a thousand dollars is trivial next to the cost of repeating it.
International orders and customs
We ship SS31 to buyers in many countries, and the questions are always the same.
Will it clear customs? In most places, a research peptide addressed to a laboratory or company, with a proper commercial invoice describing it as a laboratory reagent for research use, clears without trouble. Rules do differ, and it is the buyer's job to know the local position. If your country needs an import permit for research chemicals, get it before you order.
How should it be described on the paperwork? Accurately. Synthetic peptide, lyophilized, for laboratory research use only, with the CAS number 736992-21-5. We do not mislabel parcels and we will not be asked to.
What if it is held up? Dry SS31 is stable at ambient temperature for the length of any normal delay. A week in a customs shed does it no harm as long as the vials stay sealed. Tell us if a parcel stalls and we will chase the carrier from our end.
Do you need a business address? It helps. Deliveries to a named institution or company go more smoothly than deliveries to a private house, and some carriers will ask.
Planning repeat SS31 orders
If you expect to order more than once, a little planning saves money and trouble.
Tell us your likely usage over the next six to twelve months. With that, we can set aside enough of a single lot to cover you, so that your third order matches your first. This matters most for long studies, where a change of lot halfway through is the last thing you want.
Order before you run out. It sounds obvious. We still get messages on a Friday afternoon from labs that used their last vial on Thursday. Keep a reorder point, say a month of stock, and write to us when you reach it.
Keep the paperwork together. Each order of SS31 comes with its own certificate. File them by lot number alongside your experiment records. When someone asks, two years from now, what was in the vials used for figure three, you will be able to answer in a minute.
Ask about mixed orders. If you also use other compounds from our catalogue, combining them into one shipment cuts the freight cost and counts toward the 50 unit minimum. Many of our regular customers settle into a pattern of one mixed box every couple of months.
And tell us when something was not right. A late parcel, a damaged vial, a certificate that was hard to read. We would much rather hear it and fix it than lose a customer who never said why.
A last check before you send the SS31 order
Read your enquiry back once before pressing send. Is the grade named? The vial size? The number of units? The delivery address complete, with a phone number for the courier? Have you said whether you want SS31 from a single lot, and whether you need the certificate first? Five lines, and it saves a round of emails. Orders with all of that in them usually get a full quote for SS31 back the same day.
Questions buyers ask us about SS31
Is SS31 legal to buy?
It is sold as a research chemical for laboratory use. Rules differ between countries, and it is the buyer's responsibility to know what applies locally. We sell to researchers, laboratories and institutions on the condition that it is for research only.
Is this the same as the approved medicine?
No. A pharmaceutical form of elamipretide received accelerated approval in the United States in 2025 for Barth syndrome. Our material is a research chemical, not that product. It is not for human or animal use. Background on the molecule is on Wikipedia.
Can I get a sample before a large order?
Ask. We look at it case by case, and it helps if you tell us what you plan to test.
How do I know the SS31 I receive matches the COA?
The lot number on the vial matches the lot number on the certificate. If you have access to an HPLC, run it yourself. We would encourage that. A supplier who is confident in their material has no reason to mind.
What if something arrives damaged?
Photograph it before you open anything else and write to us the same day. We sort it out.
The short version
Decide what the SS31 is for. Pick the lowest grade that does the job. Order enough from one lot. Read the COA and check the lot number. Ask whether the weight is net or gross. Test the supplier with a question before you send money. And be wary of any price that looks too good.
If you would like a quote, the quickest route is the Order button on the SS-31 peptide page, or write to us directly through the contact form. For a broader introduction to SS31 itself, start with our nine essential facts about SS-31.