Delivery, drops and refills
Is a lifetime refill guarantee real?
Last updated by The PanelCompare editorial team
How reliable is each refill window in practice?
| Window | Typical premium over no refill | Realistic reliability |
|---|---|---|
| 30 days | +20–50% | Commonly honoured |
| 60 days | +40–80% | Usually honoured |
| 90 days | +60–120% | Mixed |
| 180 / 365 days | +100–250% | Frequently unhonoured; the panel often exits or delists the service first |
| Lifetime | +150–400% | Treat as a marketing claim, not a term |
Source: PanelCompare domain research, 2026-09-06 — corroborated across many catalogues and recorded as an estimate rather than a measurement.
Why can a small panel not underwrite a lifetime guarantee?
Because refill liability is a cost it cannot cap. The panel does not own the inventory; it buys from a provider that buys from a source, and it has no contractual claim on either when a purge wipes out a tranche of accounts. A lifetime promise on a cheap row is an option sold for a few cents against an obligation with no ceiling, which is only survivable if the promise is not kept.
The useful question is therefore not what a panel advertises but what it has honoured. That requires either test orders or structured dispute data, and it is the hardest information in this market to collect — which is exactly why nobody publishes it and why it is worth building.
Think this answer is wrong?
Prices, refill terms and platform policies in this market all move, so an answer that was right in September may not be right in December. Every figure above names its source and the date it was checked; if one of them is stale or wrong, the correction process on the about page has a two-working-day reply target, and corrections are published with a dated note rather than quietly patched.