Thorne vs Pure Encapsulations: Why I Take Both After 10+ Years of Supplements (and What I Pay)

Thorne vs Pure Encapsulations is a question I never really settled, because I ended up taking both. I’ve been taking supplements for more than 10 years, and I’ve gone through more brands than I can remember. These two are where I landed after a pharmacist told me they were the brands to look at for good-quality ingredients. Right now I take six products from Thorne and six from Pure Encapsulations.

This post is everything I can tell you from using them side by side: what each brand says it does to test its products, exactly which bottles I take from each one, how five of the same supplements compare in price, how I split my whole stack into 3 times a day, and what one day of it costs at list price. I buy every single one on Amazon. Hunting down each brand’s own website felt like too much work, so that’s just how I shop.

One thing before we start. I’m not a doctor, a pharmacist or a nutritionist, and this isn’t a recommendation. I’m sharing what I take and what’s printed on the labels, not what any of it does. If you take medication, are pregnant or nursing, or have a health condition, please check with your doctor or pharmacist before you start or combine supplements. There’s more on that in my disclaimer.

Quick Look: Thorne and Pure Side by Side

Quick look	Thorne	Pure Encapsulations
What the brand says about testing	4 rounds: raw materials, during manufacturing, finished product and stability	Raw materials tested for identity, potency, microbes, heavy metals, 32 solvent residues and allergens (by risk)
Certifications it lists	NSF-certified facility making 20+ NSF Certified for Sport products, A rating from Australia’s TGA	NSF-GMP registered in the U.S., GMP certified in Canada
Front of the bottle	Product name and a watercolor design	“Gluten-free, Non-GMO & Hypoallergenic” on most of my bottles
Products I own	6 (7 bottles, 2 of them Basic Prenatal)	7 (6 for me, Folate 400 is my husband’s now)
What I take	5 daily, 1 as-needed	4 daily, 2 as-needed
List price of my bottles	$37.00 to $70.00 per bottle	$24.50 to $63.50 per bottle
Where I buy	Amazon	Amazon
Best for / Good to know	Best for: anyone who wants a brand that explains how it tests	Good to know: “better” depends on the product, so compare the Supplement Facts panels, not the logos

Thorne vs Pure Encapsulations: Why I Take Both

My supplement stack didn’t happen all at once. Over more than 10 years it grew one bottle at a time, and I tried a lot of brands along the way.

Then a pharmacist told me Thorne and Pure Encapsulations were the brands with good-quality ingredients. So I started buying from them, and little by little most of my cabinet turned into these two. They became my safe default.

Why both, and not just one? Honestly, there was no big plan. I trusted both names, so whenever I added something new, I never felt the need to move everything over to a single brand. Today it’s six products from each, plus a handful of other brands I’ll show you below.

I also had the question you might have right now: is it true these are better than cheaper brands? I can’t test what’s inside a capsule, and I won’t pretend to. What I can do is read what each brand says about how it makes and tests its products, and compare the labels. That’s what the next few sections are.

What I Take From Each Brand

Here’s every Thorne and Pure Encapsulations bottle on my counter, what one serving is on the label, and how much I actually take.

Product	Label serving	What I take	When
Thorne Theanine	1 capsule	1 capsule	After dinner
Thorne Memoractiv	2 capsules	2 capsules	After dinner
Thorne Glucosamine & Chondroitin	1 capsule	1 capsule	Empty stomach
Thorne CoQ10	1 gelcap	1 gelcap	After breakfast or lunch
Thorne Basic Prenatal	3 capsules	3 capsules (2 + 1)	2 after breakfast or lunch, 1 after dinner
Thorne L-Arginine Sustained Release	2 capsules	As needed	Travel and camping days
Pure Encapsulations L-Glutamine 500 mg	1 capsule	1 capsule	After dinner
Pure Encapsulations Vitamin D3 & K2	1 capsule	1 capsule	After breakfast or lunch
Pure Encapsulations Inositol Complex	1 capsule, 2 times a day with meals	1 capsule	After breakfast or lunch
Pure Encapsulations NAC 600 mg	1 capsule	1 capsule	After breakfast or lunch
Pure Encapsulations Digestive Enzymes Ultra	2 capsules with each meal	As needed	When my stomach feels heavy
Pure Encapsulations Hyaluronic Acid	1 capsule, 1 to 2 times a day	As needed	When my skin feels dry
Pure Encapsulations Folate 400	1 capsule, 1 to 2 times a day with meals	My husband’s now

Serving sizes and directions differ a lot from bottle to bottle. Inositol Complex, for example, suggests 1 capsule twice a day with meals. So check each label, and if you’re working out your own amounts, your doctor or pharmacist is the right person to ask.

My Thorne Bottles

Thorne covers my everyday basics: Basic Prenatal, which I take in place of a regular multivitamin, plus CoQ10, Theanine, Memoractiv and Glucosamine & Chondroitin. L-Arginine Sustained Release is the one Thorne bottle I don’t take every day.

You’ll see two Basic Prenatal bottles in my photo. It’s a 3-capsule serving, the biggest daily amount of anything I take. It’s labeled for pregnant and nursing women, so if you’re thinking about using it as a multivitamin like I do, that’s a good one to run by your doctor first.

My Pure Encapsulations Bottles

From Pure, my daily four are L-Glutamine, Vitamin D3 & K2, Inositol Complex and NAC. Digestive Enzymes Ultra and Hyaluronic Acid stay on the shelf for as-needed days. The seventh bottle, Folate 400, belongs to my husband now, and I’ll explain why in the section on switching brands.

Is Thorne a Good Brand?

This was my own question too, so I looked up what Thorne says about itself. Thorne says every supplement it makes goes through four rounds of testing: raw materials and components, in-process testing during manufacturing, finished product testing, and stability testing to confirm it meets its label claim up to the expiration date. It also says its two in-house labs run more than 100,000 tests a year, its facility is NSF certified and makes more than 20 NSF Certified for Sport products, and it holds an A rating from Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). It’s all on Thorne’s quality page.

What does that tell me as a regular buyer? That I can see how they test, and that outside groups have looked at how they make things. For me, that’s the reassuring part: a pharmacist pointed me to Thorne, and the brand openly explains how it tests. What it can’t tell me is how a product will feel for me personally, and no label can.

Good to know: Thorne’s front labels are very simple, just the product name and a watercolor design. The serving size and amounts are on the Supplement Facts panel on the side, so that’s the place to look before you buy anything new.

Is Pure Encapsulations a Good Brand?

Pure Encapsulations says its raw materials are tested for identity, potency, microbial contaminants, heavy metals (including mercury, arsenic, cadmium and lead), 32 solvent residues, and allergens depending on risk. It also says it’s NSF-GMP registered in the U.S., GMP certified in Canada, and that it exceeds the standards of the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) for supplement manufacturing. You can read the details on Pure’s quality page.

Something you can check without any research is right on the bottle. Most of my Pure bottles say “Gluten-free, Non-GMO & Hypoallergenic” on the front, and the brand describes its formulas as free from unnecessary additives and many common allergens. If you’re someone who reads labels for allergies, that front line saves you a step.

Just like with Thorne, none of this tells me what a product will do for me personally. It does show the brand is upfront about how it makes things, which is the same reason I’m comfortable with Thorne.

Same Supplement, Both Brands: Labels and Prices

Since “which one is better” really comes down to the exact product, I lined up five supplements I take where both brands make a version. Same ingredient, each brand’s own label and list price, and which bottle is actually in my cabinet.

Supplement	Thorne	Pure Encapsulations	The one I own
L-Theanine	Theanine 200 mg per capsule 90 capsules, $68.00 About $0.76 a capsule	l-Theanine 200 mg per capsule 60 capsules, $65.50 or 120 capsules, $115.00 About $1.09 or $0.96 a capsule	Thorne
NAC	NAC (N-Acetylcysteine) 500 mg per capsule 180 capsules, $63.00 About $0.35 a capsule	NAC 600 mg 600 mg per capsule 180 capsules, $63.50 About $0.35 a capsule	Pure
L-Glutamine	L-Glutamine 500 mg per capsule 90 capsules, $26.00 About $0.29 a capsule	l-Glutamine 500 mg 500 mg per capsule 90 capsules, $24.50 About $0.27 a capsule	Pure
Vitamin D3 and K2	Vitamin D + K2 5,000 IU D3 and 180 mcg K2 per capsule 60 capsules, $30.00 About $0.50 a capsule	Vitamin D3 & K2 4,000 IU D3 and 100 mcg K2 per capsule 120 capsules, $35.50 About $0.30 a capsule	Pure
Folate (as L-5-MTHF)	5-MTHF 1 mg 1.7 mg DFE per capsule 60 capsules, $24.00 About $0.40 a capsule	Folate 400 667 mcg DFE per capsule 90 capsules, $22.00 About $0.24 a capsule	Pure (my husband’s now)

These are the list prices on each brand’s own website (Thorne, Pure Encapsulations), checked November 2026, and the amounts come from each product’s Supplement Facts panel. Pure’s l-Theanine comes in two sizes, so I listed both.

A few things stood out once I saw them side by side. The amount in one capsule isn’t always the same, so price per capsule is only half the story. NAC costs about $0.35 a capsule from either brand, but Pure’s capsule has 600 mg and Thorne’s has 500 mg. Thorne’s Vitamin D + K2 has 5,000 IU of D3 per capsule, and Pure’s has 4,000 IU. The suggested use can differ too: Pure’s l-Theanine label suggests 2 capsules for adults, while Thorne’s Theanine serving is 1 capsule.

So which brand is cheaper changes from product to product, and that’s why I’d compare the exact bottle you want instead of the brand name. And for numbers like vitamin D and folate, how much is right for you is a question for your doctor, not a price table.

The Other Brands in My Cabinet

Not everything I take comes from Thorne or Pure. Here’s the rest of my stack, so you can see the whole picture:

• Double Wood NMNH 250 mg: 2 capsules after breakfast or lunch. If the NAD side of things is what you’re curious about, I also wrote about trying an NAD IV at home.
• Biosil Advanced Collagen Generator: 1 liquid capsule after breakfast or lunch.
• Quality of Life Kinoko Platinum AHCC: 2 capsules on an empty stomach.
• Designs for Health Magnesium Glycinate Complex: 2 capsules after dinner.
• Jarrow Formulas Fem Dophilus and Physician’s Choice 60 Billion Probiotic: 1 of each on an empty stomach.
• Aurora Nutrascience liposomal Vitamin C and Glutathione: 1 packet of each after breakfast or lunch.
• Sports Research Digestive Enzymes: as-needed, next to my Pure enzymes.
• CheongKwanJang Hong Sam Won: a Korean red ginseng drink I have every now and then.

How I Split Them Into 3 Times a Day

With this many bottles, grouping them is how I keep track. So everything is sorted into three times: on an empty stomach, after breakfast or lunch, and after dinner. On a regular day that’s 21 capsules and 2 liquid packets.

These groups are just how I’ve arranged my own routine, not a rule. Each label has its own directions, and a pharmacist can tell you if anything in your stack should be taken apart from something else.

Time	What I take	Capsules
On an empty stomach	Fem Dophilus 1, 60 Billion Probiotic 1, Glucosamine & Chondroitin 1, AHCC 2	5
After breakfast or lunch	NMNH 2, Biosil 1, Vitamin D3 & K2 1, NAC 1, CoQ10 1, Basic Prenatal 2, Inositol Complex 1, plus 1 Vitamin C packet and 1 Glutathione packet	9 + 2 packets
After dinner	Theanine 1, L-Glutamine 1, Memoractiv 2, Basic Prenatal 1, Magnesium Glycinate 2	7
Every day	Everything above	21 capsules + 2 packets

On an Empty Stomach

This group goes in before I’ve eaten anything: both probiotics, 1 Glucosamine & Chondroitin and 2 AHCC. That’s 5 capsules. You’ll see Inositol Complex in this photo too, because that’s where it lived for a long time. While writing this post, I reread its label, saw that it says to take it with meals, and moved it to my after breakfast or lunch group. Lesson learned: read the directions, not just the dose. (If you’re curious what the rest of my morning looks like, here’s my wellness morning routine.)

After Breakfast or Lunch

This is my biggest group: 2 NMNH, 1 Biosil, 1 Vitamin D3 & K2, 1 NAC, 1 CoQ10, 2 of my 3 Basic Prenatal capsules, and now the 1 Inositol Complex I moved over from my empty stomach group. That’s 9 capsules.

The same time slot gets my two Aurora packets, one liposomal Vitamin C (the box says 3,000 mg per serving) and one liposomal Glutathione (750 mg per serving). Each packet is 20 mL, and a box holds 30 plus 2 bonus packets. Both of these names were also on the ingredient list of my at-home IV drip, which I broke down in what’s in an IV drip, but the packets are just my everyday habit at home.

After Dinner

The last group is 1 Theanine, 1 L-Glutamine, 2 Memoractiv, my third Basic Prenatal capsule and 2 Magnesium Glycinate. That’s 7 capsules. It goes in after dinner, and the rest of my night is in my evening routine with 3 dogs.

My Pill Organizer Setup

Twenty-one capsules a day means a lot of lids. To keep it manageable, I use two 7-day pill boxes, one purple and one clear, plus a small beige travel case for days away from home.

My three dogs have a supplement lineup of their own too, chopped into their breakfast. Here’s our daily dog supplement routine if you’re juggling theirs as well.

What I Keep for As-Needed Days

A few bottles never go into the pill boxes. I take them only on certain days, and this is just my personal habit, not a suggestion.

• Digestive enzymes: Pure Digestive Enzymes Ultra and Sports Research Digestive Enzymes. I reach for one of these when my stomach feels heavy after a meal.
• Pure Hyaluronic Acid: on stretches when my skin feels drier than usual.
• Thorne L-Arginine Sustained Release: on travel and camping days, when I know it’s going to be a long, active day.
• CheongKwanJang Hong Sam Won: every now and then. It’s a Korean red ginseng drink in a single 50 mL pouch, and red ginseng is a very familiar thing in Korean homes.

What I Pay for My Daily Stack

Here’s what one regular day of my whole stack costs at list price, based on how much I actually take. The as-needed bottles aren’t included. I buy everything on Amazon, where prices go up and down, so think of this as a ballpark rather than my exact receipt.

Product	Bottle and list price	What I take	Per day
Thorne Theanine	90 capsules, $68.00	1 capsule	$0.76
Thorne Memoractiv	60 capsules, $70.00	2 capsules	$2.33
Thorne Glucosamine & Chondroitin	90 capsules, $40.00	1 capsule	$0.44
Thorne CoQ10	60 gelcaps, $53.00	1 gelcap	$0.88
Thorne Basic Prenatal	90 capsules, $37.00	3 capsules	$1.23
Pure L-Glutamine 500 mg	90 capsules, $24.50	1 capsule	$0.27
Pure Vitamin D3 & K2	120 capsules, $35.50	1 capsule	$0.30
Pure Inositol Complex	60 capsules, $55.50	1 capsule	$0.93
Pure NAC 600 mg	180 capsules, $63.50	1 capsule	$0.35
Double Wood NMNH	60 capsules, $59.95	2 capsules	$2.00
Biosil Advanced Collagen Generator	180 capsules, $91.17	1 capsule	$0.51
Quality of Life Kinoko Platinum AHCC	60 capsules, $79.95	2 capsules	$2.67
Designs for Health Magnesium Glycinate Complex	120 capsules, $33.49	2 capsules	$0.56
Jarrow Fem Dophilus	60 capsules, $40.36	1 capsule	$0.67
Physician’s Choice 60 Billion Probiotic	60 capsules, $40.14	1 capsule	$0.67
Aurora Liposomal Vitamin C	32 packets, $41.19	1 packet	$1.29
Aurora Liposomal Glutathione	32 packets, $58.99	1 packet	$1.84
Total		21 capsules + 2 packets	$17.70

That comes to about $17.70 a day at list price, or roughly $531 for 30 days. The Thorne and Pure Encapsulations part of that is about $7.50 a day, and the biggest single line is the 2 AHCC capsules.

Prices checked November 2026. Thorne and Pure Encapsulations prices are the list prices on each brand’s own website (Thorne, Pure Encapsulations). For the other brands, I used the brand’s own site where it shows a price (Double Wood) and the regular price at Vitacost for the rest.

What to Know Before Switching Brands

The one switch I’ve made recently is a good example of why the label matters. I used to take Pure’s Folate 400 on its own. When I started Thorne Basic Prenatal, I saw it already has folate in it, so I stopped the separate bottle. That Folate 400 is my husband’s now.

The labels make it easy to see why. Pure’s Folate 400 lists 400 mcg of folate as Metafolin L-5-MTHF per capsule (667 mcg DFE). Thorne’s Basic Prenatal lists 1.7 mg DFE of folate per 3-capsule serving. When two products share an ingredient, adding the amounts from both labels gives you the total, and that total is exactly the kind of thing to show your pharmacist.

If you’re thinking about switching between Thorne and Pure, or adding either one to what you already take, here’s what’s worth checking:

• The Supplement Facts panel, not the front label. The same ingredient can come in different forms and amounts from brand to brand.
• The serving size. One serving might be 1 capsule or 3, so the price per bottle doesn’t tell you the price per day.
• The directions, not just the dose. I kept Inositol Complex in my empty stomach group for a long time before I noticed its label says to take it with meals.
• Overlap with a multivitamin or prenatal. They cover a lot of ground, so compare them against anything you take on its own.
• The seller and the date if you buy on Amazon. Look at the “Sold by” line before you check out, and the expiration date when the bottle arrives.
• A quick check with your pharmacist. Bring the whole list, including the as-needed bottles.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you take one thing from this, make it the label. Thorne vs Pure Encapsulations isn’t really a contest in my cabinet, since both have a spot. I group everything into 3 times a day so nothing gets missed, and before anything new joins the stack, the Supplement Facts panel is where overlapping ingredients show up. If you’re choosing between the two brands for the same ingredient, compare the amount per capsule and the serving size, not just the price. And before you copy anyone’s routine, mine included, run it by your doctor or pharmacist.

On the wellness side, I also shared where a hair mask goes in my wash routine, before or after shampoo. Tell me in the comments which brand fills most of your cabinet. And if you’re curious about the IV side of my routine, here’s how long an IV drip actually takes from the two I’ve done at home.