FAQ

This is where traditional consulting firms get stuck — charging open-ended retainers for months. At Trellis, if your product touches an unmapped statutory gray area, our experts trigger our Agency Escalation Protocol at zero additional charge. We deliver your completed Primary Dossier covering everything that can be audited, along with an official, trade-secret-scrubbed Agency Inquiry Brief on your original deadline. This allows you to submit a formal technical inquiry to agency program officers without holding your project or launch timeline in limbo.

No — unfavorable agency outcomes or additional laboratory testing required later are not refund grounds. Fees are fixed. You may cancel for a full refund before Project Kickoff (when payment is confirmed, capacity is matched, and materials are released to an expert). After Kickoff, fees are non-refundable except for Trellis-side failures and remedies expressly stated in the Client MSA (including the Fix-It re-issue remedy for verified in-scope scientific errors). Discovering a statutory novelty or a missing toxicology panel is a completed scientific finding — it can save you from submitting a defective filing.

Every delivered Trellis dossier includes 30 days of included portal Q&A support. If you receive an official written email or meeting notes from a government agency within that 30-day window, your assigned expert will synthesize those notes and add a 1-page Agency Response Summary at no extra cost. Because government agencies frequently take 45–90 days to respond, if agency feedback arrives after your 30-day window has closed, you can reactivate your expert queue anytime by purchasing a 30-Day Extension Pack ($500).

Yes. While live meetings are outside the scope of our base dossiers, you can add our Live Agency Pre-Submission Meeting Add-On ($1,500) at checkout or from your delivery portal (add-ons attach to the project). An assigned senior expert reviewer will spend 1 hour reviewing meeting objectives with your team and 1 hour participating live alongside you during the agency video consultation.

Confidentiality is a core commitment under the Client MSA. Client documents uploaded to the Trellis vault are stored in private, encrypted file storage and processed on Cloudflare Workers AI. Cloudflare states it does not train on customer content and does not keep standard requests. Trellis and its Network Experts are contractually prohibited from exporting, pasting, or uploading your formulations or lab files into external public AI tools — enforced by the expert agreement, watermark, access log, and removal from the network. Reviewers are bound by confidentiality and non-solicitation covenants; reviewer identities remain confidential (you see an anonymized ID and credentials).

No. Every Trellis package — from our $1,500 Diagnostic Audit to our $35,000 FDA GRAS Dossier — is sold on a fixed, flat-fee basis. Taxes, third-party lab fees, government filing fees, and out-of-scope add-ons are separate when they apply, as stated in the Client MSA and Order Form. You know the package price before you purchase.

Diagnostics: 2–3 weeks · Filings & registrations: 3–4 weeks · Full safety dossiers: 6–8 weeks — from complete intake and Project Kickoff (answers + source files; clock pauses on data defects).

Incubators, accelerators, and university programs access the exact same transparent catalog pricing as individual founders, with options to purchase multi-company cohort seats or issue grant-funded sponsorships. Build the mix of SKUs your portfolio needs on one invoice. Group packages include wrap-around founder education and program reporting — not discounted product rates. See For programs.

Yes. Card and P-Card when Stripe checkout is open; ACH and invoice anytime via the quote tool or email. Tax-exempt nonprofits can claim exemption on the quote.

The Buyer center — W-9, certificate of insurance, security & privacy summary, data storage agreement, and legal terms.

Trellis runs on a small stack of named systems:

• Trellis DataLattice^™ — secure automated extraction and structuring of Certificates of Analysis and related lab files.
• Trellis Statutory Core^™ — pathway templates aligned to published agency parameters.
• Trellis Global Expert Network^™ (Trellis Experts^™) — a managed network of credentialed regulatory scientists and industry veterans.
• Trellis ResponseShield^™ — included Request for Information (RFI) revision rounds on filing and dossier packages for structural and formatting issues.

Yes — a redacted diagnostic excerpt: sample deliverable.

You are not alone. First, check Resource Cards for the common stuck questions on your offer. If needed, search the Statutory Vault at /expert/help.html. Next: optional Federal Register search when the topic is federal rulemaking. Then Ask Peer Help Desk (Quick Spot-Check $25 or Deep Co-Consult $50). If still unresolved, flag an Agency Inquiry Brief — Ops can draft a note the startup can send; after verification, Stage 1 delivery can complete and your fixed Wise payout follows the Expert Agreement.

No — strictly prohibited. Discussing client CoAs, formulations, or project edge cases with off-platform colleagues or public forums is a direct breach of client NDA and will result in immediate release from the network. If you love collaborating with credentialed colleagues, invite them to join the network. Through our Trellis Experts™ Peer Referral Program, you earn a $100 Wise Referral Bonus for every verified PhD or regulatory peer you refer who completes onboarding and their first review.

Every project includes a package-scaled Trellis Help Credit ($25 / $50 / $100 by tier). When you answer and resolve a peer's Spot-Check, Trellis records a $25 honorarium to your Wise ledger; Deep Co-Consults pay $50. If an asker exceeds their project credit, the overage is deducted from their project payout and credited to you upon ticket closure.

We encourage experts to build our community's collective intelligence. Use Submit Resource in /expert/help.html to share a non-proprietary guidance note or checklist. Once the Trellis Operations Team reviews, verifies non-duplication, and approves the resource for live publication, you earn a +$10 Community Credit in your profile. (Community submit ships with HC-5; the Help Center search is live today.)

Credentialed scientists and industry veterans with direct agency submission experience. A bachelor’s or master’s degree with deep field experience is fully qualified alongside doctoral credentials. Progression runs L1 diagnostics → L2 filings → L3 lead auditor / panels.