About STD Ally

What this site does

STD Ally helps people in the United States find a path to STI testing that fits their privacy, cost, and timing constraints. We compare insurance, cash-pay labs, public clinics, and at-home kits side by side, with the actual privacy trade-offs of each.

We don’t test you. We don’t treat you. We don’t collect lab results. We try to be the resource you wish you’d had at 11pm the night you started worrying.

Why we built it

Most existing “where do I get tested” resources fall into one of two camps: aggressive affiliate sites optimized to push paid lab orders, or generic clinical pages that don’t talk honestly about what the policyholder will see on an Explanation of Benefits. The intersection — private, cost-aware, source-backed, no-upsell — was missing.

The first hard problem we picked: when a parent or spouse is the policyholder, what actually gets disclosed, and how do you avoid it without lying to your insurer? That’s the state-by-state privacy check tool.

Who runs STD Ally

STD Ally is independently operated. We’re not a clinical organization, a healthcare provider, or a public-health agency. We don’t employ physicians or nurses, and we don’t use “physician reviewed” or “medically reviewed” badges we haven’t earned.

Content is researched and written from primary sources (CDC, USPSTF, state statutes, peer-reviewed literature, and provider documentation). When we describe medical concepts, we link the source. When we describe a law, we link the bill text. See our editorial policy for how that works in practice.

How we make money

Some links to commercial testing providers (e.g., STDcheck, LetsGetChecked) are affiliate links. When someone uses one of those links to order a test, STD Ally may earn a commission at no extra cost to the user. We disclose this clearly next to every paid link.

Affiliate revenue does not influence which providers we recommend or how we rank them. Free public clinics and cash-pay options are included even when STD Ally earns nothing. If a paid option is wrong for someone’s situation, we say so. See the methodology page for the ranking logic.

What we won’t do

• Tell you what you have. We’re not a diagnostic tool.
• Promise “guaranteed,” “anonymous,” or “100% private” testing. Privacy is a spectrum and we describe it that way.
• Generate hundreds of low-quality city or state pages just to rank.
• Push doxy-PEP, PEP, or any prescription strategy as a click-driver. Time-sensitive prevention is mentioned only when context-appropriate, with clinician follow-up.
• Hide affiliate relationships. Paid links are labeled and use rel="sponsored nofollow".

Tell us when we’re wrong

Laws change. Prices change. Clinics close. If you spot something that looks out of date or wrong, email corrections@stdally.com with the page URL and what you saw. We aim to review corrections within a week and credit the reporter (with permission) on the page’s changelog.

Get in touch

• General: hello@stdally.com
• Corrections: corrections@stdally.com
• Privacy: privacy@stdally.com
• Methodology: methodology@stdally.com