DIY WooCommerce, freelancers, specialist agencies, and managed platforms, with published pricing verified August 2026, the seven questions that actually sort providers, the anonymity trap, and the 24-month math. Written by a vendor, bias in plain sight.
What this market actually looks like from inside it
Arguments and teardowns rather than instructions: what a $15,000 agency build buys line by line, where dropship margin really goes, why the anonymity stack fails the one review that matters, and who wrote the comparison guide you just read. Looking for the how-to instead? That's the guides.
Audit the SERP and every comparison table has its own author in first place. Why the format works on you, the five ninety-second checks that expose any guide in this market, and why this site holds itself to the standard a vial of BPC-157 is held to.
One studio publishes its pricing in full, which finally makes the agency path auditable: what's genuinely in the invoice, what lands after the handoff, the 24-month arithmetic, and the three cases where the agency is the right call.
Fifteen components from a dozen vendors, and the age gate, disclaimers, and state blocking are load-bearing compliance infrastructure with nobody watching in production. The questions that reveal who actually operates the machine you're buying.
Anonymous domains and monero-first checkouts are sold as protection, but underwriting is a verification of identity, so the anonymity stack fails the one review that decides whether you can take cards. What the offshore fallback really costs, and where privacy tools legitimately fit.
Never buy inventory, 65% margins, free website. What processing, disputes, and acquisition take back out of that number, plus what you don't own, why regulatory liability never dropships, and the three cases where it's still the right first move.
You're told paid social is closed to this category, then you see the ads. An agency pitched me those campaigns. Here's the deliverable that explains it, where the risk actually lands, and the unit economics that made me pass.