Know What You'reActually Paying For.

Products are graded one of three ways, and each card says which:

✓ Computed from label — every dose is disclosed, so each ingredient earns credit against a clinical target dose in three bands: at 85%+ it's ✓ fully dosed (full credit), from 70–84% it's ◐ close (proportional credit, just under the dose), and below 70% it's ⚠ low (proportional credit, and it trips the weakest-link cap). Hidden or absent scores zero. Two guardrails keep the grade honest: a single ingredient below 70% of its clinical dose caps the whole grade at B (a formula can't ace it while whiffing a headline ingredient), and A+ is reserved for products with every ingredient at or above 100% of its clinical dose. Ingredients labeled as a "malate" or other complex are credited by their actual active content (e.g. 6 g citrulline malate ≈ 3.9 g citrulline), not the headline number.
⚠ Proprietary blend — the label hides at least one amount, so the grade is computed but capped at C, because an undisclosed dose can't be verified.
◐ Label-based rating — reserved for the products we genuinely can't reduce to a per-ingredient score: greens and kitchen-sink formulas with 30–90 ingredients, or a proprietary blend that lists one combined weight (e.g. "Test Matrix, 500 mg") and hides how much of each ingredient is inside. A fully disclosed label is always Computed — even with 10+ ingredients — because disclosure is exactly what a proprietary blend lacks. When we do fall back to a label-based grade, it reflects transparency, formula design and price instead of a dose average, and we flag it as a judgement call.

The Deal grade compares a product's price per serving to an itemized make-it-yourself receipt (open any card to see it): every active at its real bulk price, plus a flavoring line (~$0.20/serving) for anything you drink as a flavored mix — so we're comparing a flavored tub to a flavored DIY, not to bare powder. Divide the brand price by that true cost and grade the markup: up to ~2× is A+, ~3.5× an A, ~5× a B, then C, D, F. Capsules and single powders get no flavoring credit, so a plain-creatine tub marked up 5× is still exposed. The cost is a line-by-line total you can audit; only the grade thresholds are a judgement call.

The dose bands. An ingredient counts as ✓ fully dosed at 85%+ of its studied dose — label rounding and capsule-fill variance shouldn't fail a formula over a few milligrams. From 70–84% it's ◐ close: just under, still meaningful, credited proportionally, and it never triggers the weakest-link grade cap. Below 70% it's ⚠ low — proportional credit and it caps the formula grade at B, because a real miss on a headline ingredient should show. The same bands apply everywhere: the product cards, the dose breakdowns, and the label decoder.

Not all "clinical doses" are equal. Each target carries an evidence tier, shown when you open an ingredient: Clinical (human studies or a position stand clearly support it), Studied (real human evidence, but the right dose depends on the outcome, extract or form), and Experimental (no strong human dose — turkesterone, fadogia, apigenin). Experimental ingredients are capped so a product can't earn a top grade by loading up on unproven compounds. Caffeine works the other way: anything under the reference 200mg is graded as fine — a lighter stimulant dose is a choice, not a defect. Doses are measured on the right basis, too — magnesium as elemental, omega-3 as EPA+DHA (not total fish oil), and some targets (berberine, phosphatidylserine) are per-serving amounts taken a few times a day.

Where the clinical doses come from. Every target is sourced. Click any supplement to open its breakdown and see the exact citation — NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheets for vitamins and minerals, ISSN position stands and landmark randomized trials for the performance compounds, and Examine.com evidence pages (which aggregate the underlying studies) for the rest. Where human trials are thin or missing — turkesterone, fadogia, apigenin — the source note says so plainly rather than inventing a number.

Educational only — not medical advice. Talk to a clinician before starting any supplement.