How the Programs Database Works

Full transparency on where our data comes from, how programs are ranked, how the Match Me Quiz scores results, and how we make money. If you find anything here that doesn’t match what you see on the site, email us and we’ll fix it or explain the discrepancy.

Where the data comes from

Our database contains 687 nutrition education programs as of April 2026. We pull from three official credentialing-body directories plus hand-curated commercial provider data:

We do not invent data. Every field in the database (program name, institution, credential earned, accreditor, format, location, program director, accreditation dates) is either scraped from the official accreditor directory or verified on the provider’s own website. Our scrapers run periodically and every detail page shows a “last verified” date.

How programs are ranked

Programs on cluster pages (e.g., /programs/rd-pathway/) and the main database index are sorted in two tiers:

1. Government-recognized accreditation first. ACEND-accredited programs always appear before commercial certifications. Within the ACEND tier, BCNS-recognized programs appear before unaccredited commercial ones. This is a fixed credibility hierarchy, not a paid placement.
2. Alphabetical by provider name within each tier. Auburn University appears before Yale because A comes before Y. Not because Auburn pays us more (neither pays us anything).

There is no paid placement, sponsored ordering, or “featured” program boosting. No school has ever paid us to appear higher in the list. If we add a “Featured” tier in the future, featured programs will be clearly labeled with a badge and will not affect the ranking order of non-featured programs.

How the Match Me Quiz works

The Match Me Quiz asks 6 questions: primary goal, time commitment, budget, current education, insurance-billing need, and delivery format. Each answer contributes points to credential pathway clusters using a fixed weight table:

(This is a representative excerpt. The full weight table covers all 6 questions × all answer choices. The complete table is published in our open-source quiz.js file viewable at /programs/quiz.js.)

After scoring, programs are filtered by your hard constraints (budget ceiling, prerequisite level, format preference), then the top 5 are shown — deduplicated by provider so you don’t see 4 Auburn programs.

The scoring weights are based entirely on credential-pathway fit. They have nothing to do with affiliate revenue. The +1 bonus for government-recognized accreditation is a tiebreaker, not a ranking driver. After you complete the quiz, click “Why these results?” to see the exact point breakdown for your specific answers.

How we make money

Three revenue streams, in order of current contribution:

1. Affiliate commissions (live today)

When a reader clicks through from one of our program detail pages to a provider’s enrollment page and enrolls, we earn a commission from the provider. The commission ranges from $50 to $1,500 per enrollment depending on the program.

7 of 687 programs currently have affiliate relationships (that’s 1.0%). The other 680 programs are listed with zero revenue to us. Every program with an affiliate relationship is labeled Affiliate partner on its card and detail page.

The programs we earn affiliate commissions from:

• Health Coach Training Program — Institute for Integrative Nutrition
• Hormone Health Coaching — Institute for Integrative Nutrition
• Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification — Precision Nutrition
• Level 2 Master Health Coaching Certification — Precision Nutrition
• Nutritionist Certification — ISSA
• Certified Nutrition Coach — NASM
• Certified Sports Nutrition Coach — NASM

That’s the complete list. If a program is not on this list, we earn nothing when you enroll in it.

2. Featured listings (not live yet)

We plan to offer schools a paid “Verified” badge and enhanced lead delivery. If and when we launch this, paying schools will be clearly labeled and their payment will not affect the ranking order of any program. We will update this page when featured listings go live.

3. Lead delivery (not live yet)

When you fill out a “Request program info” form on a detail page, your contact information goes to our Ghost Members system. We plan to route qualified leads to schools’ admissions teams and charge per lead. This is not yet live. When it is, it will be disclosed on the detail page of every school that participates.

What we promise

• We will never move a program up or down in the ranking because of affiliate revenue.
• We will never remove criticism of a program because they are an affiliate partner.
• We will always label affiliate partners visibly on their cards and detail pages.
• We will always show the quiz scoring breakdown so you can audit it.
• We will publish the full list of affiliate partners on this page and keep it current.
• If we launch featured listings, we will update this methodology page before the first paying school goes live.

If you find any place on this site where these promises are violated, email us. We take this seriously because editorial integrity is both the right thing to do and the foundation of our business model — schools will only pay for leads from a source they trust.

Last updated: April 2026. This page is reviewed and updated whenever our revenue model or data sources change.