Accepted answer
Worth being precise here: purity is a method-dependent figure, and that is not a limitation of the measurement, it is a property of what the measurement actually answers.
Mobile phase additive choice affects ionisation and peak shape — TFA gives sharp peaks but suppresses mass spectrometry signal, formic acid gives worse peaks but preserves signal.
Retention time is sequence-specific and method-specific, so comparing your result to a supplier value using a different method is meaningless without method documentation.
Published side-by-side method comparisons show that a two-point difference in purity on the same vial is easily explained by method choice alone.
I would be careful about over-reading a single measurement — treat it as a data point, not as ground truth.
The practical summary: ask for the chromatogram and the method, and ignore the headline number until you have both.
edited 26 Jul 2026 by tabular_nums — clarified the distinction between purity and content