A rare clean act in the supplement space: it grades the science behind ingredients, sells only information, and takes no industry money, so there is nothing for a vendor to buy, though its deepest analysis lives behind a paywall and it won't pick a brand for you.
What it's really for An independent research summarizer that takes no industry money, ads, or affiliate revenue, funded by memberships.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its evidence summaries of supplement research, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
Its paying customers are individual readers and clinicians who buy subscriptions, not supplement makers; by its own disclosure no one can pay for placement or a grade, and the company says it dropped Amazon affiliate links specifically so sales could not bias its research. Co-founder Sol Orwell said on Hacker News that linking to products made it "easier to doubt the research when we still profit from the sales."
Source →- Operating since
- 2011 (15 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Partly paywalled Some content is free, but the full reviews or detailed ratings sit behind a paid subscription.
- How they make money
- 100% subscription, by its own disclosure: paid memberships (Examine+ for consumers and the Examine Clinician Edition for health professionals) unlock the full database and study summaries. The free site carries no ads, sells no supplements, runs no affiliate links, and states it accepts no industry funding, donations, or sponsorship.
- What they do
- Examine is an evidence-synthesis encyclopedia that systematically collates published human trials on supplements and nutrition, then assigns A-to-F grades to ingredients on a per-outcome basis (e.g., how creatine affects strength). It reviews the research behind ingredients, not specific branded products.
- What to watch for
- It grades ingredients and evidence, not brands, so it will not tell you which company's fish-oil bottle to buy or flag contamination or label-accuracy in a given product. The full database and detailed syntheses sit behind the Examine+ paywall, so the free pages show conclusions more than the reproducible underlying work.
- Composite score
- 4.80 / 5.00 → grade A+
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- By its own disclosure, Examine states its revenue comes entirely from subscriptions and that it is not influenced by commercial interests, does not advertise or promote products or brands, and does not accept donations, third-party funding, or sponsorship of any kind; its research team is described as contractually obligated to have no conflicts of interest. Source: Examine - About →
- Examine assigns interventions a letter grade from A to F on a per-outcome basis, built by systematically collecting all randomized-trial data on a topic rather than cherry-picking studies; the company says it never starts with a pro- or anti-supplement objective and reports on the full body of published evidence. Source: Examine - How grades are calculated →
- Media Bias/Fact Check rates Examine.com 'Pro-Science' with 'Very High' factual reporting and 'High' credibility, citing peer-reviewed sources and a clean fact-check record, and notes revenue is generated by the sale of exclusive content. Source: Media Bias/Fact Check - Examine.com →