SuppVerify

You're looking at two bottles of the same supplement. The labels use different serving sizes, and all you really have to go on is a brand name you half recognise. Supplement shopping is mostly a matter of trusting a label and a brand name, and SuppVerify takes those two things and makes them checkable.

It gathers label data from official national databases and turns each line into a comparable daily dose, so you can put products next to each other. It also traces every brand to the company and parent company that own it.

The home page gives the scale: 62,099 products, 196,039 comparable dose records, 518 company profiles and 110 ranked ingredients. You can compare up to four products side by side. There's also a dose tool, a cost calculator that works out price per day and per 100 mg, and a stacking checker for people taking several products.

The sources are official label databases, including the US NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database, Health Canada's licensed product database, and registers in Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan, plus brand websites. The site says every figure links to its source and that unverified data is labelled as such.

The rankings are where it's most careful. According to the methodology page, they measure data clarity and dose fit, and they don't measure efficacy or safety. Prices are unverified and not scored. The footer on the home page adds that label data is as declared and not lab-verified. So a high ranking tells you a product's label is clear and its dose sits in a sensible range. It doesn't tell you the product works, or that the bottle contains what the label says.

It's free, with no accounts and no advertising. By its own account on the about page, the site does not sell products, accept paid placement or make efficacy claims. Google Analytics measures aggregate traffic, per the privacy page, which also asks you not to send details of your own conditions or medicines.

Two limits are worth keeping in mind. The content comes from the SuppVerify editorial team and is not currently reviewed by a licensed physician or pharmacist, which the site states itself. And every page carries the same line: for information only, not medical advice, talk to a doctor or pharmacist before starting or stopping any supplement. No person or company is named as the operator.

If you like to read labels closely before you buy, it's a handy place to line products up, and a good source of questions to take to your pharmacist.