Is there something different about ND's krill oil that justifies the high price compared to other brands?

Well to start off, krill oil is one of the most expensive things to test correctly. Most people don't. Krill oil is naturally higher in arsenic, due to its environment in the ocean. However, those forms are organic forms. Organic arsenic is not harmful to humans. It's inorganic arsenic that is harmful. Krill is naturally higher in organic forms of arsenic, like arsenobetaine and arsenocholine, which are totally safe. What you want to avoid is inorganic forms of arsenic, like arsenite and arsenate. Most heavy metals analyses companies do cannot tell the difference. They only tell you total arsenic levels. We do a much more expensive speciation analysis using more complex HPLC/GC separation to ICP-MS methods. You have to use some chromatographic separation to really know the difference. That way we can ensure that the levels of the dangerous forms of arsenic are at safe levels. We also do extra peroxide analysis to ensure the krill oil is not oxidized from improper storage, on top of a full GC fatty acid profile analysis. We reject more fish/krill oil than probably any other product out there, due to all those factors and our high standards. I've also tested other brands fish/krill oil at some customer's requests, because some of the claims they were making about being the "most pure" out there pissed me off. Sure enough they all came back higher than stated claims. So the reason you would buy thing from us is the same reason you buy anything from us: we do what is necessary to ensure what you are getting is correct and pure every time.

Regarding the price, we set our prices off our costs. Sometimes we go with more expensive suppliers because we cannot meet our standards with the cheaper ones. The krill oil in our softgels is from Neptune. They are a high quality krill oil supplier. There are 85 different species of krill around the world. Neptune only uses Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), which is the species that accumulates the least amount of toxins. Their krill oil is also certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, and follows the sustainability guidelines set forth by the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Over-fishing of our oceans in a big problem, and using a supplier that respects the sustainability of those resources is crucial. So if you want to compare like-for-like pricing, you should look at other brands using Neptune krill oil (NKO), and at the same dosage we are using (500mg per softgel).

Source Naturals is selling an identical product to us, which is currently $32.19 on iHerb. Ours is $24.99. Mercola's is currently on sale for 25% off, and is still higher than ours at $28.12. You'll notice we don't play pricing games like other vendors. We set a price and keep it there, unless things drastically change in cost. I appreciate it when pricing is consistent, so I have maintained that ethos on all my brands. Protocol brand NKO is $31.28 for 60 softgels. From what I am seeing, we are one of the cheapest place you can get 60 softgels of Neptune krill oil. Sure, the garbage brands of Healthy Origins and Nature's Bounty are cheaper. However, they are not using Neptune krill oil, and I guarantee you they are not testing things to the level we are in every batch. Actually, looking at those two products it seems they are playing shady games as well! Look at the Healthy Origins one. That says 60 softgels, but you need to take TWO to get the 500mg. Ours is only one. The Nature's Bounty one is only 30 softgels, and is not Neptune. Seriously, we don't play these shady games like others do. We set our sizing and pricing logically, not in a way to confuse people on pricing to win the sale. Yes, we lose sales because of it. However, the customers we keep are more loyal to us because of it.

So to recap: we use very high quality krill oil, doing proper testing of every batch, and are still one of the cheapest for real Neptune krill oil in softgels. Other brands obfuscate and confuse people by making a dose 2 softgels, making it look like they are cheaper when they are not, or using lower quality krill oil that has not been properly tested. You have to compare like-for-like with amount of softgels per dose and bottle sizing. Don't just look at the price of the bottle and think they are the same. Also, there are going to be products that we sell where we just are not going to be able to be the cheapest out there for; especially when comparing our consistent pricing to sale pricing. However, that is what you get with us: consistently tested, consistently priced, and consistently high quality products.