If you're trying to advertise prescription drugs, GLP-1s, telehealth services, or anything else in the regulated health space — and your ads keep getting disapproved or your account flags the moment it goes live — you've probably been told you need LegitScript certification.
Here's what it actually is and how it fits.
LegitScript is a third-party certification body that handles compliance vetting for regulated industries on behalf of major ad platforms and payment networks. Meta, Google, and other major ad platforms check for active LegitScript certification before authorising ads in restricted categories. Without it, ads in those categories won't run.
There are three programmes covering different verticals.
Healthcare Certification
The main one for health and wellness advertisers. Covers:
Online pharmacies — prescription and OTC, including compounded GLP-1 providers (semaglutide, tirzepatide)
Telemedicine and telehealth providers — weight loss, hormone replacement, mental health, primary care telehealth
Medical spas — injectables, dermal fillers, hormone therapy, weight loss programmes, prescription-strength skincare
Digital health platforms — businesses connecting patients with prescribers and partner pharmacies (the Hims, Ro, Henry Meds model)
Pharmaceutical manufacturers, repackagers, and relabelers
Other categories — veterinary services, prescription eyewear, discount pharmacy and price comparison sites, wholesalers, distributors, brokers, facilitators
GLP-1s have made this near-mandatory in the past two years. Compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide are heavily scrutinised on Meta and Google, and operating in that space without certification effectively shuts you out of compliant advertising.
Meta's authorizations and verifications panel
Separate programmes also exist for addiction treatment (rehab and recovery facilities) and CBD (ingestibles and topicals, where platforms permit CBD ads at all).
What it gets you
Three things. Ad eligibility on Meta, Google, and the other major platforms — without certification, ads in regulated categories don't get authorised. Payment processing stability — Visa and Mastercard recognise LegitScript for card-not-present transactions in healthcare, which reduces exposure to merchant account freezes and processor terminations. And ongoing monitoring with a public seal — early warning on issues before platforms catch them, plus a credibility marker for consumers and partners.
Verification confirmed inside Meta — domain authorised to run prescription drug ads
Running without it
Plenty of operators run health and wellness ads without holding their own certification. The common paths and their real limitations:
Grey-hat advertising accounts — sourced through grey-market channels with no real credentials underneath. Performance is typically terrible: low quality health scores, throttled delivery, unstable accounts that get flagged and shut down.
Quick launches — running campaigns fast before Meta's classification catches up. Works for short bursts. Accounts get caught eventually, and you can't scale this approach.
Conservative creative and landing pages — keeping copy and site content vague enough to avoid triggering Meta's classifier. The catch: you're competing against certified GLP-1 players running aggressive, condition-specific ads and landing pages. You're not beating them with watered-down creative.
Each has its place — testing, hit-and-run launches, low-stakes campaigns. None are foundations for a serious business that needs to scale.
Bottom line
If you're advertising in regulated health verticals seriously, certification isn't optional. Workarounds buy you time, not scale.
Scoreify specialises in Meta advertising infrastructure for health and wellness operators — GLP-1, telehealth, pharmacy, and mental health advertisers. If you need help getting set up properly, book a call with our team.
Note: LegitScript handles the platform authorisation side. Meta's separate Health & Wellness pixel data restrictions are a different problem entirely, applied at the domain level and unaffected by certification status. We have covered this in Meta's Health and Wellness Restriction article.
