Buying 5-HTP: price per mg, not per bottle

Two numbers make 5-HTP products comparable, and neither of them is printed on any pack: the cost per day and the price per 10 mg of 5-HTP. Both can be worked out in a minute from figures that do have to be there — the pack price, the number of units, the recommended daily portion and the milligrams of 5-HTP per daily portion.

Two numbers that push themselves forward are of no help at all: the pack price, because it says nothing about the contents, and the unit price per kilogram that a shop has to state. That one refers to the weight of the tablets — and that weight is mostly filler.

The calculation that makes two products comparable

Cost per day = pack price ÷ (number of units ÷ tablets per daily portion)

Price per 10 mg = pack price ÷ (number of units × mg of 5-HTP per tablet) × 10

What matters is which milligram figure goes into the sum: the 5-HTP line from the nutrition panel, not the extract amount from the front of the pack. "500 mg of Griffonia extract" is not a statement about content; how one figure converts into the other is explained in 5-HTP dosage: how much is actually in there?.

Three examples of the kind that sit next to each other online:

Product	Price and count	5-HTP per tablet	Daily portion	Cost per day	Price per 10 mg
A	€14.90 / 180 units	12.5 mg	1 tablet	8 cents	7 cents
B	€19.90 / 60 units	25 mg	2 tablets	66 cents	13 cents
C	€9.90 / 90 units	12.5 mg	1 tablet	11 cents	9 cents

Pack A therefore lasts 180 days, C lasts 90 days, B lasts a month.

C is the cheapest pack and the most expensive 5-HTP in the comparison — around a third more per milligram than A. B costs eight times as much per day as A, but delivers four times the amount; measured against content it is still almost twice as expensive. The two final columns therefore answer two different questions: cost per day says what the purchase actually costs, price per 10 mg makes different strengths comparable.

Why the unit price per kilogram is misleading

For food supplements in tablet and capsule form, a unit price per kilogram has to be stated — the obligation goes back to the EU price indication directive (98/6/EC), and Germany's Federal Court of Justice confirmed it expressly for capsules (judgment of 23 March 2023, I ZR 17/22), because such products are sold by weight. Only, that weight describes the pressed tablet, not the content:

	Product A	Product D
Tablet weight	500 mg	1,000 mg
5-HTP per tablet	12.5 mg	12.5 mg
Units	180	180
Price	€14.90	€19.90
Unit price	€165.56/kg	€110.56/kg
Price per 10 mg of 5-HTP	7 cents	9 cents

D looks a third cheaper per kilogram and is a third more expensive per milligram of 5-HTP. The difference sits in the filler that makes up the heavier tablet. For comparing two 5-HTP products the unit price is therefore useless — it weighs the cellulose along with everything else.

Reading the ingredient list from the back

Ingredients are listed in descending order of their share by weight (Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Article 18). If the Griffonia extract comes after two fillers, it is the smaller part of the tablet — which is normal at a content of 12.5 mg and not a defect. What else is listed there is more telling. Additives have to be given with their category name and their name or E number; the usual ones are quickly explained:

Additive	Category name	What it does
Microcrystalline cellulose (E 460)	Filler	gives the tablet mass and pressability
Magnesium salts of fatty acids (E 470b)	Anti-caking agent	stops sticking in the press
Silicon dioxide (E 551)	Anti-caking agent	keeps the powder free-flowing
Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (E 464)	Glazing agent	film coating, also used for capsule shells
Titanium dioxide (E 171)	formerly a colour	no longer authorised since 2022

The last entry is the only real deal-breaker in this list: titanium dioxide was removed as a food additive when Regulation (EU) 2022/63 entered into force on 7 February 2022; goods produced under the old rules could still be placed on the market until 7 August 2022 and sold off after that until their date of minimum durability. Anyone who finds E 171 on a label today is holding either very old stock or goods that were never intended for the EU market.

Whether the capsule shell is made of gelatine or of cellulose is the second question the ingredient list answers.

The label checklist

A food supplement that may lawfully be sold in the EU carries all of the particulars below — they come from Directive 2002/46/EC, Articles 6, 8 and 9, and in Germany are transposed by § 4 of the Food Supplements Ordinance (NemV). If one is missing, it is not missing for reasons of space:

• the name food supplement
• the categories of the substances contained
• the portion recommended for daily consumption — that is, whether a daily portion consists of one tablet or of two
• the warning not to exceed the stated recommended daily dose
• the statement that the product is not a substitute for a varied diet
• the statement that it should be stored out of the reach of young children
• the amounts of the substances per daily portion, as average values based on the manufacturer's analysis of the product

The last point explains a figure that irritates some people: 12.5 mg of 5-HTP per tablet is an analytical average, not a single dose guaranteed to two decimal places. And a percentage figure only appears next to vitamins and minerals — those have nutrient reference values, 5-HTP does not. A pack without a "% NRV" in the 5-HTP line is therefore labelled correctly.

Food supplements are not a substitute for a balanced and varied diet and a healthy lifestyle.

With a combination product, count the vitamin B6 as well

5-HTP is frequently sold together with vitamin B6, because unlike 5-HTP, B6 has authorised statements — for instance vitamin B6 contributes to normal psychological function (Regulation (EU) No 432/2012). Our 5-HTP + Vitamin B6 contains 1.6 mg of B6 per tablet, which is 114 % of the nutrient reference value.

For a purchase that means: the B6 line belongs in the calculation if other products are already in the cupboard. In 2023 the EFSA set the tolerable upper intake level for vitamin B6 at 12 mg per day for adults (EFSA Journal 2023;21(5):8006), and a B complex or a multivitamin almost always contains some. Only vitamin B6 counts towards it — the other B vitamins do not touch this limit.

Pack size: what the stockpile really costs

Large packs lower the cost per day, because the same effort for jar, label and shipping is spread over more daily portions. How much can be seen in our own range with two packs of the same product: melatonin 2 mg comes as a blister of 30 tablets and as a year's supply of 365 tablets.

Two things limit this nonetheless. First, the date of minimum durability: a two-year supply is no use if that date arrives first. Second, tolerability — with 5-HTP, gastrointestinal complaints top the list of reported undesirable effects. Anyone buying a product for the first time pays a few cents more per day with the smaller pack and risks less.

Where it is bought

Search the internet for 5-HTP and you quickly find offers with 100 or 200 mg per capsule from shops outside the EU. The price per 10 mg often looks unbeatable there, and the reason for that is legal: in the European Commission's Novel Food catalogue, only Griffonia seeds and seed extracts with a 5-HTP content of up to 30 percent count as not novel. Isolated 5-HTP and highly concentrated extracts cannot be marketed here without an authorisation of their own — in the EU rapid alert system RASFF there were four alerts on 5-HTP extracts from Griffonia seeds in the first five months of 2024 alone.

In practice, an order like that lacks everything the checklist above lists: labelling in your own language, the mandatory statements, someone answerable within the EU. What is stocked by an EU retailer, on the other hand, can be compared side by side — with us in the 5-HTP category.

Common questions

Is the more expensive product the better one? Nothing follows from price alone. Two products become comparable through the milligrams of 5-HTP per daily portion and through whether the standardisation of the extract is stated. If the percentage is missing, the content cannot be worked out — that is the only point at which a pack genuinely drops out of the comparison.

Why is there no percentage next to the milligrams of 5-HTP? Because percentages relate to nutrient reference values, and those are laid down only for vitamins and minerals. No such value exists for 5-HTP, so there is no "% NRV" either. For vitamin B6 in the same table it is there.

Is the year's supply worth it? Per day, yes — provided the pack is used up within its date of minimum durability and the product is tolerated. On a first purchase the smaller pack is the better decision, even though it costs more per day.

Can I combine two cheap packs to get more milligrams? Not without doing the sums, if it is a combination product with vitamin B6: the amount of B6 multiplies along with it, and its upper limit is 12 mg per day. How that affects the number of tablets is explained in 5-HTP dosage.

Sources: Directive 2002/46/EC, Articles 6, 8 and 9 (German transposition: NemV § 4) · Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Articles 9 and 18, Annex VII and Annex XIII · Regulation (EU) 2022/63 (removal of titanium dioxide E 171); BVL, "Ban on titanium dioxide in food" · Directive 98/6/EC on unit prices; German Federal Court of Justice, judgment of 23 March 2023, I ZR 17/22 (unit price for food supplements in capsule form) · EFSA, Tolerable upper intake level for vitamin B6, EFSA Journal 2023;21(5):8006 · European Commission Novel Food catalogue, entry Griffonia simplicifolia · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012.