Best Berberine Supplement

Preventable diseases kill hundreds of thousands of people annually and cause years of suffering for hundreds of thousands more. For perspective, in 2024, eight of the top ten causes of death in the United States were diseases,43 including diabetes (affecting 11.6% of the U.S. population) and heart disease (accounting for one in every three deaths).44 45

Berberine, a golden yellow compound found in certain plants, might play a role in preventing or slowing the progression of both diseases, as well as several others. In this guide, we investigate the pros and cons of adding berberine to your daily diet, explore the safety and quality measures of different supplements, and spotlight the five best berberine supplements in 2026.

If you’re in a hurry, check out our top recommendations below.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions to live healthier lifestyles.

Not all berberine supplements are created equally, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there. That’s why, for this guide, we’ve spent over 400 hours closely reading more than 70 scientific studies to separate the facts from the falsehoods about berberine supplementation. Through this effort, we’ve gained a thorough understanding of what berberine is, how it works, and how it can be beneficial, as well as who would and would not be a good candidate for taking it. Everything we learned went into choosing our top product recommendations.

We've tested the customer experience for years by interacting with many makers of berberine supplements, a practice we routinely revisit. And we've consulted with nutritionists and clinicians to gain deeper insights into the strengths, limitations, and practical realities of berberine supplementation.

All of this cumulative experience led our product development team at Innerbody Labs to create a berberine supplement that aims to deliver the benefits of berberine while mitigating risk of the more common side effects. Regardless of who makes the supplements, we make our assessments independently and apply the same evaluation criteria in our assessment of all products in this guide so you can make an informed decision. What's best for you depends on your goals and circumstances, and no product is ideal for everyone.

Like all health-related content on this website, this review was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy. And as the berberine space continues to evolve, we’ll keep an eye on the latest science and product options to ensure this guide stays up-to-date.

In identifying the market’s best berberine supplements, we considered three major criteria:

• Safety: How great or minimal is a given product’s risk of adverse effects?
• Efficacy: How efficiently does the product deliver its key active ingredient(s)?
• Cost: How affordable and financially sustainable is the product?

In the following sections, we summarize our findings in each category.

Safety

Advantage: Innerbody Labs Berberine+

While berberine has many powerful benefits, it also has some drawbacks. It can be rough on the digestive system, for example, capable of causing nausea, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation, and there haven’t been many studies on its long-term safety.47 So a berberine supplement that’s been through extensive third-party testing will be safer than most, as would one that somehow mitigates the risk of side effects.

Innerbody Labs Berberine+ offers both solutions. Its third-party testing is made clear right on the product page, where visitors can view the product’s certificate of analysis. And with regard to side effects, its formulation is designed specifically to minimize the possibility of gastrointestinal (GI) distress:

• Its Berbevis® berberine delivers a tenfold superior bioavailability compared with the more common HCl form, which reduces the amount of berberine you need to take to see results.51 The reduced presence of berberine in your gut, in turn, equals a smaller potential for a bad gut reaction.
• It contains curcumin, which has been shown to alleviate symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome,39 so you have a generally-recognized-as-safe ingredient that actively works against gut distress.

While other companies in our top picks also perform rigorous testing, they don’t take the measure of using a more bioavailable (hence safer) form of berberine or adding GI-protective ingredients.

Cost

Advantage: Bulk Supplements Berberine HCl Powder

Generally, the most affordable berberine supplements are going to be those that feature traditional berberine HCl as the active ingredient. It is the most common form of berberine and also the form that’s been studied the most in clinical research. That body of research establishes both its effectiveness and its capacity to cause gastrointestinal side effects for a portion of people who try to take it.

As with many supplements, the true cost of a berberine product comes down to the per-serving level. And packaging and form-factor decisions can also impact the cost of supplements. With that in mind, we’ve designated Bulk Supplements Berberine HCl Powder our budget pick. This table illustrates how it compares with our other top recommendations (prices rounded to the nearest cent or dollar):

It’s because Bulk Supplements gives you so many servings in every bag that its per-serving costs are so much lower than those of competitors. The bags contain loose powder, so you’ll have to contend with some potential messiness as well as the berberine’s extremely bitter taste, but there’s no denying the bargain they represent. Ultimately lower prices come with tradeoffs, and in the case of berberine, those tradeoffs typically involve less convenience, fewer complementary ingredient(s), and more risk of side effects.

Efficacy

Advantage: Innerbody Labs Berberine+

One of the most important factors behind balancing effectiveness and safety is the dose. Most clinical research, including the most recent reviews of the literature, has demonstrated that daily doses of 500-1,500mg of berberine provide therapeutic benefits but remain well tolerated, aside from the aforementioned GI side effects.46 12 But berberine is normally stubborn about bioavailability, such that less than 1% of it gets absorbed into the bloodstream.31

Remember, though, that Innerbody Labs Berberine+ doesn’t use berberine HCl, the more common form. It uses Berbevis®, a phytosomal form that’s significantly more bioavailable.51 Plus, at 550mg, its dose is in line with amounts used in successful clinical research on phytosomal preparations of berberine.51

The other ingredient in the formulation plays a part in Innerbody’s improved efficacy, as well. As delineated in a 2023 review of studies, curcumin has been shown to be an effective supplement in the treatment of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and obesity76 — three conditions that berberine itself acts against — so whereas most other berberine supplements have only a single attack on cardiometabolic health concerns, Innerbody takes a dual-angle approach.

To help you break down the differences between our top products, we’ve put together a chart mapping all of their most important features. Check it out below (prices reflect the lowest-cost one-time option before shipping fees, and they’ve been rounded to the nearest cent or dollar).

Berberine is an alkaloid found in the roots, bark, and other structures of many plants, including the Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), Indian barberry (Berberis aristata), and European barberry (Berberis vulgaris). It has a long history of therapeutic uses in Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine and an equally expansive list of potential benefits within the framework of contemporary medicine.

Those potential health benefits relate to:

• Metabolic health: e.g., metabolic syndrome,8 41 diabetes,3 insulin resistance,4 nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD),12 fat mass48
• Cardiovascular health: e.g., high cholesterol,5 high blood pressure,6 stroke risk68
• Gut health: e.g., ulcerative colitis,10 irritable bowel syndrome (IBS),11 Candida overgrowth7
• Hormonal health: namely polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)9

Some research suggests that berberine may even be a potential cancer preventive or adjunctive therapy. For example, a 2019 literature review discussed berberine’s potential for antitumor effects against a few types of cancer, and a more recent review from 2024 highlighted its ability to support chemotherapy.13 49

At this time, however, the most extensive research on berberine has revolved around its impacts on cardiometabolic matters and PCOS, so those are the health concerns for which prospective users tend to gravitate to it.

Supplementally, berberine generally comes in one of two forms:

• Berberine hydrochloride (HCl): the salt form created by combining berberine with hydrochloric acid — improved water solubility and, therefore, better absorption in the body. There’s a branded extract form of berberine HCl called Himaberb, which has been concentrated to achieve 97% purity.50
• Berberine phospholipid (a.k.a. Berberine Phytosome): berberine bonded to a matrix of plant and fat molecules to aid absorption. An example of a branded phospholipid extract is Berbevis®.

Berberine HCl is the most common form. Indeed, it’s the one used in most research studies on berberine. When we first published an extensive guide to berberine supplements years ago, we considered berberine HCl to be the safest and most reliable form.

Since then, however, research on berberine phospholipid has only grown, and it has become clear that this bioenhanced version is superior to HCl in terms of both efficacy and safety. A 2021 study, for instance, found that a phytosomal berberine preparation resulted in up to a tenfold improvement in bioavailability compared with HCl.51 And this exponentially higher bioavailability logically correlates with greater safety, as berberine’s most common side effects (gut distress) are dose-dependent and result from its physical presence in the gut. A lower volume of berberine equals a correspondingly lower likelihood of an adverse reaction. Case in point: a 2023 study using Berbevis® reported few to no GI side effects.48

Based on these findings, we now recommend berberine phospholipid over HCl as our top pick in this guide, although the less bioavailable form remains a viable option, especially when you’re looking for a bargain or a specialty product aimed at treating additional health concerns.

Berberine activates AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), the primary enzyme that monitors and regulates our cellular energy levels, and it’s this action that either directly or indirectly links berberine’s most recognized potential health benefits:

Even outside of AMPK activation, berberine may have multifaceted mechanisms against other health concerns. For example:

• As an antimicrobial agent: A 2022 study investigating berberine’s antimicrobial properties found that berberine may slow bacterial metabolism, stopping pathogens from creating new cell walls and amino acids, and lowering their antioxidant levels.15 More recently, a 2024 review broadly confirmed that berberine has anti-pathological capabilities.52 And although much of the research on berberine’s impact on the gut microbiome health is still in progress, studies have supported the anecdotal evidence that berberine may be a potent anti-diarrheal agent.2 16
• As an anti-inflammatory: Berberine’s anti-inflammatory effects come into play through the modulation of multiple signaling pathways. In this regard, most studies look at berberine’s effects on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, but inflammation is also a critical part of conditions like heart disease and diabetes.12 17 Notably, a 2020 meta-analysis found significant reductions in CRP (C-reactive protein, a major marker of inflammation) in patients taking berberine,18 and a 2024 review of randomized controlled trials corroborated the findings of the 2020 meta-analysis.53

Berberine dosages have not been formally established, but most clinical studies have administered between 500mg and 2,000mg daily. One study found that high cholesterol levels start to improve at 300mg daily,26 but most people report seeing success with three 500mg capsules daily (1,500mg total). That’s the case with berberine HCl, at least.

With a phytosomal preparation, such as Berbevis®, a clinical dose tends to be 550mg, once or twice a day.

Generally speaking, berberine is a safe supplement for healthy adults, but it famously poses a risk for several GI side effects:

• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Stomach cramps
• Bloating
• Constipation (particularly when you stop taking it)

The more berberine you take, the more likely you are to experience these side effects. Higher doses also mean you might feel stronger side effects for a longer time. If you know you have a sensitive stomach, it makes sense to start on a low dose of berberine and slowly increase it over time.

Inversely, the less berberine you introduce into your system, the lower the likelihood of gut distress. That’s why the advent of phytosomal berberine, such as Berbevis®, can be a game changer: you simultaneously use less but absorb more, allowing you to enjoy more of the benefits without as much of the risk.

To give you a quantifiable sense of the difference in side effect risk profiles, consider these numbers:

• Berberine HCl: In a 2023 systematic review of randomized controlled trials, the authors found that berberine HCl had a gastrointestinal side effect incidence rate of 8.4%.77 In a specific 2008 study, the incidence of gastrointestinal effects reached as high as 34.5%.34
• Phytosomal berberine: In a 2023 randomized controlled trial with 49 subjects, not a single participant experienced adverse events.48 In another 2023 trial, this one with 130 subjects, the side effect incidence rate was only 6%.70

Gut distress aside, there aren’t many studies on the potential long-term risks associated with berberine supplementation. So, although some of the longest-running studies lasted two years and found only a few adverse reactions,27 you should speak with your doctor to determine your suitability for extended use.

Contraindications with berberine

We said that berberine is generally safe for healthy adults, but certain health conditions and medications would disqualify a person from the “healthy” category.

For example, berberine is particularly unsafe in cases of pregnancy or lactation. Babies and fetuses that ingest berberine are more likely to have jaundice — a condition in which the liver doesn’t function as expected, leading to a buildup of bilirubin and jaundice’s hallmark yellow skin. This could lead to a form of jaundice-induced brain damage called kernicterus, a rare disorder in which bilirubin is deposited in the brain, leading to vision and hearing loss that can be permanent.56 Likewise, children under 18 should not take berberine supplements.

Also, if you have diabetes and take insulin, be careful while taking berberine. Since it can lower your insulin resistance, you might need to use less insulin than before to stabilize your blood sugar.

Keep an eye out for low or dropping blood sugar levels, too, as hypoglycemia can be extremely dangerous. It’s best to check in with your endocrinologist beforehand if you want to take a berberine supplement.

Berberine’s drug interactions

Berberine interacts with several liver enzymes called cytochromes — specifically CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP3A4, all of which come from cytochrome P450. These enzymes break down medications and help our bodies build the cholesterol and certain steroids needed to function.

Berberine’s interaction with cytochrome P450 is important because it can influence how much of particular prescription medications gets absorbed, which is why it’s essential to check with your doctor before starting berberine.

The list of potential cytochrome P450 interactions is quite long. Here are just some examples:

Besides the contraindicated populations we discussed in the previous section, berberine is likely not to be a suitable supplemental intervention for anyone seeking:

• Dramatic weight loss: Although berberine appears to have weight-reducing potential,32 33 it isn’t the “nature’s Ozempic” that some of the marketing might have you believe.62 If you experience any weight loss on berberine, it will be through roundabout mechanisms and much more modest than what you can expect with something like a GLP-1 receptor agonist.
• A cure-all for inflammatory, metabolic, or cardiovascular diseases: Despite the research support for berberine’s uses for these conditions, don’t expect it to substitute proper medical evaluation and prescription treatment. After all, it’s not an FDA-regulated or approved substance. Heed your doctor’s guidance before embarking on a berberine regimen.

Also, if you’d rather take an additive-free berberine powder instead of capsules, you should know that berberine isn’t exactly enjoyable to consume. Let’s say it’s an acquired taste that we’re not sure anyone has ever acquired. It’s not a complementary flavor, either, so it isn’t likely to hide well behind the fruits and yogurts in your smoothie.

Best overall

Innerbody Labs Berberine+ stands apart from the other recommendations in this guide because of its simple, well-thought-out formulation. Its key active ingredients are:

• Berbevis® berberine (550mg): A branded form of berberine with up to a tenfold superior bioavailability compared with berberine HCl.51 The 550mg per-serving dose is the same used in most clinical research on phytosomal berberine.
• Phytosomal curcumin (100mg): The key active compound in turmeric, and a well-known anti-inflammatory ingredient. Research suggests it may confer benefits against metabolic diseases (e.g., type 2 diabetes, obesity),76 as well as a protective effect for gut health. The 100mg dose is only a little higher than the 98mg daily intake shown to improve symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome in a 2024 study.39

Berbevis® here plays a dual role. It ensures that you get more therapeutic benefit from each one-capsule serving, and it helps mitigate the risk of GI side effects. That’s because the dose-dependent side effects associated with berberine are due not to the supplement’s absorption into your system but to its physical presence in your gut. Therefore, the less berberine you need to take to see results, the less likely you are to experience diarrhea, nausea, and other such unfortunate occurrences.

Curcumin, for its part, supports berberine. Its action against metabolic diseases potentially enhances berberine’s therapeutic utility, and its GI-protective quality can further reduce your likelihood of experiencing berberine’s most common adverse reactions.

Together, the two ingredients make for a safer, more effective product. Plus, like all of our favorite berberine brands, Innerbody Labs subjects its supplements to third-party testing. It even publishes the test results right on the product page.

Pricing

Like all Innerbody Labs supplements, Berberine+ is available at multiple price points depending on your purchase option:

The price point is higher than some other recs in this guide, but typically not compared with other brands that use the more bioavailable Berbevis® brand of berberine. Momentous Berberine, for example, costs nearly $50 as a one-timer and around $38 on subscription for the same 550mg dose, but without the added GI protection of curcumin.

The key takeaway is that you do pay more for the likely safer, phytosomal berberine than you will for berberine HCl. For those who are on a tight budget and willing to see if they tolerate traditional berberine better than other people, opting for a berberine HCl product would be very reasonable and recommendable.

A single bottle of Berberine+ doesn’t qualify for free shipping; you need to buy or bundle for an amount over $50. There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee. The guarantee period isn’t as long as that of Oregon’s Wild Harvest, but it’s the same length as Bulk Supplements and Nootropics Depot.

Best traditional HCl option

Like Innerbody Labs, Double Wood makes a simple and high-quality berberine supplement, except it uses a less bioavailable form of berberine. It’s essentially a lower-cost version of Berberine+ for people who are either dipping their toes into the berberine space or maybe need less berberine to see results.

Each capsule contains 500mg of berberine HCl, which is within the range used in successful clinical studies. The dosage makes it easy to titrate upward to 1,000mg or 1,500mg, as well, should you need to.

Apart from these qualities, one of the biggest reasons that Double Wood stands out as our top HCl alternative is the company’s commitment to transparency. You won’t have to look hard to find that it was made in GMP-compliant facilities in the United States, and its allergen notice is prominently displayed. The company also links directly to a current certificate of analysis and independent third-party testing results on the webpage, revealing that its berberine capsules contain exactly what is claimed on the label. Currently, each capsule contains berberine, hypromellose (veggie capsule), rice flour, silica, and vegetable stearate. The last three ingredients are common supplement additives. But if you’d rather avoid additives (and you have a kitchen scale handy), Bulk Supplements might be a better fit for you.

Pricing

Double Wood sells its berberine capsules at several different price points, depending on the number of bottles you order and whether you join the subscription program. The bulk discount isn’t as large as it used to be, but the subscription discount has increased from 15% to 20%.

Subscriptions are all processed through the third-party service Recharge. You can choose how frequently you’d like to have a new bottle delivered:

• 30 days
• 60 days
• 90 days
• 180 days

Double Wood now charges standard shipping fees on orders under $30 (including subscriptions), whereas it used to ship all orders for free. We’d rather have free shipping on all orders, but the $30 threshold is at least much lower than any other brand in this guide.

If you aren’t happy with your berberine supplement, you can get a refund even if you’ve already opened the bottle. After placing the order, you’ll have 30 days to initiate a refund, and you’ll need to ship the bottle back, at your expense, whether or not you’ve opened it. Double Wood will still accept returns after the 30 days are up but won’t guarantee a refund. While this return policy isn’t as generous as that of Oregon’s Wild Harvest, it’s at least equal to that of our other top recs.

Best organic

Oregon grape root is one of the best plant sources of berberine. Widely used in oral and topical formulas, it addresses a wide range of health complaints, including upset stomach and irritation-related rashes. Oregon’s Wild Harvest encapsulates Oregon grape root to capitalize on the plant’s berberine content, providing you with a supplement made exclusively from natural sources.

Each three-capsule serving contains 1,140mg of organic Oregon grape root and nothing else — unless you count the capsule, which itself consists of a single, natural ingredient (pullulan). The berberine content is unspecified, but we can make an educated guess based on existing scientific research. For example, a 2020 analysis found that an Oregon grape extract contained around 6mg of berberine per 1,000mg of plant material, suggesting that Oregon’s Wild Harvest delivers a little more than 6mg per serving.63 That’s a low dose, but Oregon grape contains other compounds that could help make up the difference. The most notable of them is jatrorrhizine, an alkaloid with antidiabetic, antimicrobial, anti-obesity, and hypolipidemic properties, like berberine.64 Of this alkaloid, Oregon grape has a relatively high concentration.65

On the safety side, Oregon’s Wild Harvest performs every step of the production process in-house — growing the herbs, packaging, testing, and shipping. While it doesn’t appear that the company uses third-party quality testing, it does verify quality and potency on every batch and processes its herbs in facilities compliant with USDA standards.

Pricing

One bottle of Oregon’s Wild Harvest holds 90 capsules (30 servings). You can purchase it as a one-time order or join the company’s subscription program to save 15% on every order. Prices have gone up by about 6.5% since we last checked (and they’d previously increased by 35% before then), so you’ll now pay the following for a single bottle:

• One-time order: $29.95
• Subscribe & save: $25.46

The free-shipping threshold is $60 — higher than any of our other top recs — so not even a double order will qualify. If you don’t cross the threshold, you’ll pay a shipping cost calculated at checkout (for perspective, an order to Kansas would add $10 in shipping to the bill).

Oregon’s Wild Harvest attests to a 100% satisfaction guarantee with 60 days of purchase. The website doesn’t clarify whether all opened products qualify for the guarantee (it speaks instead of a “qualified refund”), so you may need to contact customer support to determine whether you’re eligible.

Best for added liver support

We’ve covered the merits of a 500mg dose of berberine HCl, so here we’re going to focus on silymarin, the ingredient that separates Nootropics Depot from the rest of the pack.

Silymarin, the active ingredient in milk thistle, refers to a group of flavonoid antioxidants best known for their potential to support liver and diabetic health. In clinical studies, daily doses as low as 420mg have led to improved biomarkers of liver pathologies, and doses of 600mg have decreased key diabetic markers.57 58 Nootropics Depot’s 100mg dose is on the low side, but at the label-recommended 2-3 servings per day, it may be sufficient to enhance the metabolic benefits of berberine.

On top of that, Nootropics Depot satisfies the safety criteria we prefer a berberine producer to meet: GMP compliance and third-party testing. Nootropics Depot — like Innerbody Labs — willingly displays its testing results on the product page, which speaks to its confidence in the purity and quality of its supplements.

Pricing

Nootropics Depot Berberine + Silymarin comes in two sizes and price points: $34.99 for a 60-serving bottle and $69.99 for a 180-serving bottle.

Per the label, you’re supposed to take 1-3 servings per day, so a single bottle should last anywhere from 20 days to six months. At best, the effective per-month cost breakdown looks like this (minus shipping):

• 60-serving bottle: $17.50 per month
• 180-serving bottle: $11.67 per month

So, at its most affordable, Nootropics Depot is more cost-effective than Oregon’s Wild Harvest and Innerbody Labs, even though the up-front price tag is higher.

A downside is that there’s no direct subscription option, and therefore no opportunities for additional savings.

The return policy isn’t great, either, as only unopened products qualify.

Budget pick

Like most of our recommendations, Bulk Supplements Berberine HCl Powder delivers a clinically relevant 500mg dose that’s easily adjustable to individual needs. It’s actually more adjustable than our capsule recommendations because it’s a free-standing powder, allowing you to titrate downward as well as upward. But it doesn’t come with a scoop in the bag, so to measure out accurate doses, you’ll need a kitchen scale that reads down to the milligram. And because it’s a powder, you’ll have to contend with its taste, which is unpleasant: an immediate and lasting bitterness.

Bulk Supplements is much more palatable on the safety front. All of its products are manufactured in NSF-certified and FDA-registered cGMP facilities, and they undergo third-party testing before distribution. We wish, however, that it provided test results and certificates of analysis on the product page. If you want this information, you’ll have to request it through customer support.

Pricing

If you don’t mind the inconveniences of measuring and tasting the powder, then Bulk Supplements Berberine HCl gives you the best bang-for-buck we’ve found in its space. You have your pick of multiple package sizes, with the per-serving cost dropping in reverse correlation with volume. Some of the prices have increased since we last checked in, and shipping adds around $10 unless your order exceeds $59, but even then the cost is astonishingly low. Here’s a table to illustrate the price points:

The cost per serving sort of levels off at around $0.07, but that’s half the amount you could hope to pay for our previous budget pick, Puritan’s Pride. As long as you have the up-front cash, you don’t really have to bother with a subscription: just get at least a 500g package and be set for years (it should have something like a five-year expiration date).

Compared with Nootropics Depot, too, Bulk Supplements has the clear cost advantage. With the 100g bag, the effective per-month cost (if you take three servings per day) amounts to less than $16.50, and it only drops lower from there.

Just be sure of how much berberine you want before you buy, because the money-back guarantee is severely limited. You can return your product within 30 days, but only unopened products are broadly eligible for full refunds. For opened ones, your refund will be equivalent to the price of the smallest available unit. If, for example, you buy and use a 500g bag, the most you can hope to get in a refund is the cost of a 50g bag (you eat the shipping cost). The policy, then, doesn’t apply if all you bought was the 50g bag. We’d hardly call this a guarantee, and it’s egregiously worse than that of any other brand in this guide.

Several other brands outside of our top recommendations have a lot to offer in the berberine space, and they’ve even held a spot in this guide at some point. But for one reason or another, they no longer make the cut. We discuss them in the following sections.

Renue By Science LIPO Berberine

Like Innerbody Labs, Renue by Science’s LIPO Berberine uses a bioenhanced form of the main active ingredient. That’s important since the human body absorbs less than 1% of berberine HCl, whereas bioenhanced berberine is stored and absorbed at an exponentially higher rate.31 1

But Renue’s bioenhanced berberine comes at a significantly lower dose than Innerbody Labs — 250mg versus the clinically relevant 550mg — and it lacks any supporting ingredients.

It’s more expensive up front, too, costing $49.95 as a one-time purchase and $44.96 on subscription.

The one area in which Renue does better than Innerbody is in its longer guarantee period: 60 days instead of 30.

Toniiq Berberine 97%

Toniiq’s Berberine 97% has a few things in common with Double Wood, our pick for best HCl alternative: transparency, a solid safety pedigree, and a clinically relevant dose of berberine. Much of the praise we have for Double Wood can therefore be directed toward Toniiq, as well.

Yet Toniiq falls short of Double Wood in some small but important ways. One, because it isn’t verified to be vegan or soy-, gluten-, and GMO-free, it may not be appropriate for as large an audience. And two, its pricing isn’t as friendly, either.

It costs $29.97 as a one-time purchase and $25.47 on subscription, which doesn’t compete with Double Wood’s double- or triple-pack. And while Toniiq offers two- and three-bottle bulk purchasing options, as well, the associated savings here are significantly lower than those of Double Wood (10-15% versus 24-28%). Moreover, Toniiq’s $49 free-shipping threshold is much higher than Double Wood’s $30.

Toniiq has a 60-day money-back guarantee, though, which is one improvement on Double Wood. Refund requests are limited to first bottles, but Toniiq doesn't require you to ship the product back if you decide it’s not going to work for you; instead, it asks that you pass it on to someone else who might benefit from using it.

PureBulk Berberine HCl Powder

PureBulk Berberine HCl powder has a lot in common with Bulk Supplements: it’s available in multiple size options (from 25g all the way up to 1kg), offers the same degree of dose personalization, is made in GMP-certified facilities, undergoes third-party testing before distribution, and has an unpleasant taste.

But for all that, PureBulk isn’t as cost-effective as Bulk Supplements overall, as this table illustrates:

Once you hit the 100g package size, you pay significantly less with Bulk Supplements. Our budget pick also has a lower free-shipping threshold ($59 versus $99).

That being said, PureBulk is noteworthy for its 15% discount programs for teachers, first responders, and military members.

Nutricost Berberine Capsules

Nutricost had previously held our spot for “Most Potent Berberine Supplement,” but since it uses the HCl form, and with the increase in research on Berberine Phytosome®, “most potent” effectively became “more likely to cause GI problems.”

Still, for what it is, Nutricost Berberine Capsules are solid. After all, it’s manufactured in a GMP-certified facility and is tested for purity, potency, and quality by a third party (although the test results are not readily available).

And it’s got a friendly price. A 60-capsule bottle costs $20.97 (one-time) or $16.78 (subscription). These prices are around $1 less than they were previously.

Plus, Nutricost’s money-back guarantee is solid at 60 days.

Thorne Berberine

Thorne’s Berberine (formerly known as Berberine-500) is a clinically refined, potent berberine supplement. A two-capsule serving contains a total of 1,000mg of berberine from Indian barberry extract (450mg) and Berberis aristata extract (550mg). It’s a lot like Nutricost, except with a smaller serving size, so it carries with it a similar risk of GI upset.

Except it’s more expensive: $44 as a one-time purchase and $35.20 on subscription.

The guarantee period is the same 60 days as Nutricost’s, though.

Puritan’s Pride Berberine

Puritan’s Pride stands out for being extremely inexpensive. Its normal price is $26.24 for a two-month supply.

The company also offers berberine mixed with several other ingredients (such as turmeric and black pepper, cinnamon, and silymarin), so you can pick a combination that’ll support your specific health goals if you’re focused on decreasing inflammation, increasing metabolism, or supporting liver health.30

But the reason we no longer recommend Puritan’s Pride is that it isn’t forthcoming about its testing. The company doesn't specify whether the supplements are tested in-house or by independent third parties and doesn’t provide any test results, so there are no guarantees about potency or purity..

Nevertheless, Puritan’s Pride remains an okay option for anyone seeking a low-cost entry into berberine supplementation, especially with its 90-day guarantee window.

If you’re curious about what the rest of the Puritan’s Pride catalog holds, check out our full review.

In addition to berberine’s antimicrobial properties and impacts on diabetes, some of its greatest value lies in its effects on heart health and inflammation. But despite its far-reaching potential health benefits, taking a berberine supplement may not be right for everyone. We’ve laid out some alternative options to berberine if you are seeking a different answer for these issues.