Editorial Policy

How we review a supplement

Every review here follows the same five steps and is scored on the same five criteria. This page exists so you can check our working, and so you can tell when we have not done it.

Last updated August 26, 2026

The five steps, in order

Read the label, not the sales page
We transcribe the Supplement Facts panel in full, including the other ingredients line, the serving size, the servings per container and the capsule material. Where a manufacturer uses proprietary blends, we publish the blend totals and say clearly that the individual amounts are not disclosed, rather than quietly listing ingredients as though the amounts were known.
Go to the checkout for the money
Prices, shipping charges, package structures and refund conditions come from the live checkout, not from the marketing page and never from a third party review. Supplement funnels frequently run more than one version, and prices on a lookalike page are often wrong. We record the date the price was checked and put it on the page.
Go to the primary research for the ingredients
Ingredient claims are checked against indexed research, usually PubMed, and against regulatory monographs where they exist. We do not cite other review sites as evidence. Where the research is on an ingredient rather than on the finished product, we say so in that sentence, because those are different things.
Do the arithmetic the label allows
A proprietary blend hides individual amounts but still constrains them. If a blend weighs 350 mg and one component is a standardised 8% extract, the ceiling for that component is 28 mg no matter how the blend is divided. We publish those calculations with the assumption stated out loud, so a reader can check them or reject them.
Check what else is sold under the same name
Supplement names get reused, sometimes by unrelated companies. Before publishing we search the product name across marketplaces to see whether other products share it, because a reader who buys the wrong bottle has been badly served whatever else the review got right.

How the score is calculated

Every product is scored out of 5 on the same five criteria, each weighted equally, and the overall figure is the mean of the five rounded to one decimal place. The breakdown is published inside the review so the arithmetic can be checked.

Criterion	What it measures
Formulation logic	Whether the ingredients chosen actually match what the product says it is for, and whether the choices show knowledge of the research rather than of the competition's bottle.
Ingredient quality	Standardisation, strain designation, extract ratios and identifiable specifications, as opposed to raw plant weight and species names.
Label transparency	How much a buyer can verify from the panel. Proprietary blends, missing CFU counts and undisclosed amounts all cost points here.
Buying terms	Price relative to what is delivered, cost per day, the presence or absence of autoship, guarantee length and what a refund actually requires.
Ease of use	Whether the daily routine is realistic. One capsule with water scores higher than a powder that has to be mixed, measured or refrigerated.

Why our scores are not spread across the whole range. We do not review every product on the market. We review products readers are actively looking at, and we do the qualifying work before writing rather than publishing a takedown for traffic. A product that fails badly enough usually does not get a review page at all, because the useful thing to publish about it is nothing. That means published scores cluster in the upper part of the scale, and it means the criticism inside the review carries the information rather than the number on its own. Read the breakdown, not just the figure.

Rules we do not break

No invented experience. We do not claim to have taken a product, photographed a bottle we did not photograph, or run a trial we did not run. Where an image comes from the manufacturer, it is a manufacturer image.
No testimonials or before and after photos. Not our own, not borrowed, not stock. They prove nothing and the FTC is right about them.
No fabricated urgency. No countdown timers, no fake stock counters, no "price rises tonight".
No disease claims. Supplements are not treatments. Where research touches a condition, we say the research is on the ingredient and that the product does not claim to treat anything.
No borrowed authority. No fake medical reviewer badges, no third party publication names used to imply endorsement, no invented credentials.
No guessing at hidden numbers. If a manufacturer does not publish an amount, we do not invent one. We publish the ceiling the label allows and label it as such.

Things we say when they are true

That we could not verify something. "We were unable to locate a third party certificate of analysis" is more useful to a reader than silence.
That a product is a poor fit for part of the audience, including when that costs a sale.
That we earn more on the package we are recommending, inside the paragraph where we recommend it.
When a criticism of ours turns out to be wrong, on the page where we made it.

Independence and money

This site is funded by affiliate commissions, described in full on the disclosure page. No manufacturer pays for coverage, for placement or for a score. No manufacturer sees a review before publication or has any right to alter one after it. Where we have asked a company a question and it has answered, we say so, and where it has not answered, we say that too.

Updates and corrections

Reviews carrying price information are rechecked against the live checkout at least every 60 days, and the last checked date appears in the article. Substantive corrections are made on the page and dated. To report an error, write to editor@thesupplementdigest.com naming the page and the specific claim.