Two supplements can print the same milligram figure against the same ingredient and be quite different products, because one of them serves four capsules and the other serves two. Both panels are accurate. This is the arithmetic that makes them comparable, done in under a minute.
A panel that only exists because of a 1994 law
Before the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, supplements were labelled using the Nutrition Facts format designed for food. The Supplement Facts panel was created afterwards, in a final rule published in 1997 with compliance required from 1999.
The rule fixed the layout, the type sizes and the order of the rows. What it did not fix — could not fix — was the serving size.
Who sets it
The manufacturer does. The regulation defines a serving as the maximum amount recommended on the label for consumption at one time, which means the brand chooses the number and every figure below it is quoted against that choice.
The trick that is not a trick
Two panels, both accurate. One states 600 mg of an ingredient at a serving size of four capsules. The other states 600 mg at a serving size of two.
Nobody has broken a rule and neither panel is misleading in itself. The second product simply puts twice as much into each capsule, and on a shelf, at a glance, the two look identical.
Why a four-capsule serving is often legitimate
Concede this properly, because it matters. A gram of active material does not fit into one capsule — a size 00 holds roughly 450 to 800 mg depending on the powder, which is worked through in capsule, gummy or powder.
Some formulas genuinely need four. Splitting a dose across the day has a rationale for some compounds. A large serving count is a fact to normalise, not an accusation.
Servings per container is the honest count
Capsule count is a marketing number. A pack of 120 capsules at four per serving is thirty servings, which is exactly the same duration as sixty capsules at two per serving.
The division takes two seconds and is the single highest-value thing on the panel.
Three panels, normalised
Drawn to show the arithmetic rather than to describe real products. Each carries 300 mg of the same ingredient per serving.
| Product A | Product B | Product C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capsules per serving | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| Capsules per container | 60 | 120 | 90 |
| Servings per container | 30 | 30 | 45 |
| Price | $39.99 | $34.99 | $54.99 |
| Cost per serving | $1.33 | $1.17 | $1.22 |
| Ingredient per serving | 300 mg | 300 mg | 300 mg |
| Cost per 100 mg | $0.44 | $0.39 | $0.41 |
| Ingredient per capsule | 150 mg | 75 mg | 150 mg |
The cheapest pack on the shelf is the cheapest per serving here too — and it is also the one where each capsule carries half as much, which is a different fact and worth knowing separately.
Product C looks the most expensive by a wide margin and lands between the other two per serving, because it holds fifteen more days. None of that is visible without doing the division.
Cost per serving, not cost per bottle
Price divided by servings per container. That is the whole calculation, and the resulting figure is the one that belongs in any comparison between two packs.
Why the bottle price misleads
Because it hides duration. A larger pack at a higher price is frequently cheaper per day, and a small cheap pack is frequently the most expensive way to buy an ingredient.
The second normalisation, for one ingredient
Cost per serving divided by the milligrams of the ingredient being bought, multiplied by 100. It converts every pack on a shelf into one comparable figure.
What it is good for
Single-ingredient products, where the whole purchase is that one compound. There the comparison is close to complete.
What it ignores
Everything else in the formula, the chemical forms, and whether the specification is stated at all. A proprietary blend defeats it outright: where several ingredients share one combined weight, no individual amount is declared and there is nothing to divide by.
So it is a check, not a verdict. It ranks products on one axis and says nothing about the other five.
Four places the arithmetic goes wrong
The word "about"
Panels are permitted to declare servings per container as approximate where the count varies — powders in particular. "About 30" is not 30, and for a powder the real figure depends on how the scoop is filled.
Servings measured in something other than capsules
Scoops, millilitres, tablets, soft chews. The arithmetic is the same, but a scoop is a volume and two people will not fill it identically.
Rounding
Declared amounts follow rounding rules, so a panel figure is a declaration rather than a laboratory result. What a batch actually contained is a separate document, requested by lot number.
Comparing a subscription price against a one-time price
The commonest error of all, and the easiest to avoid. Take both prices from the same purchase type before dividing.
The sixty-second normalisation
- Read the serving size. Note how many capsules it is.
- Read servings per container. If it is missing, divide capsule count by serving size.
- Divide the price by servings. That is cost per day.
- Find the ingredient the purchase is actually about, and its milligrams per serving.
- Divide cost per day by that figure and multiply by 100.
Five steps, two divisions, one multiplication. It works on any two packs regardless of what the front of them says.
The same arithmetic on our own ladder
Run without adjustment, since the numbers are ours to be checked against.
| Pack | Servings | Price | Cost per day | Against one pouch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 pouch | 30 | $39.99 | $1.33 | — |
| 3 pouches | 90 | $79.99 | $0.89 | 33% less per pouch |
| 5 pouches | 150 | $119.99 | $0.80 | 40% less per pouch |
The percentages are per-unit arithmetic against our own single-pouch price, not a discount against an invented higher one. Anyone can reproduce them with a calculator.
When a larger serving is the honest answer
When the formula weighs too much for a smaller one. Three ingredients at 300, 400 and 200 mg reach 900 mg before excipients, and that does not go into a single capsule at any density.
The pattern worth distrusting is different: a serving size that grows while the amount printed against each ingredient stays the same. That is the arrangement where each capsule carries less and the pack empties faster.
What a serving size does to a business
It sets how fast a pack empties, and therefore how often it is bought again. A sixty-capsule pack at four per serving is a fortnight; the same pack at two is a month.
Stated without the accusation
That is a consequence of the number rather than proof of a motive, and plenty of four-capsule servings exist because the formula weighs a gram. But the consequence holds either way, and it is the reason the division is worth doing before a subscription starts rather than after.
What serving size cannot tell you
Whether the amount resembles anything used in research, which depends on the population studied rather than the milligram figure — set out for one ingredient in how much alpha-GPC the research actually used.
Whether the chemical forms are the researched ones, which sits in the parentheses rather than the amount column.
And whether any of it works. Cost per 100 mg is a shopping calculation, and no arithmetic on a panel becomes evidence about an outcome.
Where we stand
Weal Focus is two capsules per serving, sixty capsules per pouch, thirty servings, $39.99 — which is $1.33 a day, and $0.44 per 100 mg of the alpha-GPC in it.
Those figures are printed so they can be divided. Running the same five steps on the pack beside it is the entire point of putting them there, and where each number sits on the panel is in how to read a Supplement Facts panel in about sixty seconds.
Sources for every figure, with the population studied in each, are on our citations page.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Sources for every figure, with the population studied in each, are on our citations page.