Comment · Fri, August 7, 2020 · ND Owner
Tongkat Ali feels like modafinil to me (question of timing)
What they were answering
TheGermanGuy21 · 5 points
However, you should probably start with the 2% and see how you like it first.
Copy that. I noticed the capsules are only about 1$ cheaper per month than the powder. Why is there a huge gap for some products and for others a very small difference in price, like in this case? I noticed the same for the difference in pricing between the small and big jars for some products.
Anyways, I still ordered the powder. Somebody has to, right? Will probably regret this, but I just have to smell and taste it. My brain associates the taste with the positive effects. And interestingly the most disgusting things, especially bitter tasting ones, always work the best for me. I love the nasty taste of ginseng leaf, caffeine and green tea extract in the morning. Can't get used to berberine though.
Another question regarding tongkat ali, why did you decide to make the tablets 5 times stronger (10%), but make it half the dosage so that it's only 2.5x stronger? Why not 200mg of a 5% extract? Or couldn't you just put 2.5 times the dosage of the 2% (500mg) in capsules? I know you said they feel slightly different, but I interpreted that as the 10% being stronger, but the 2% preserving the ratios better.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
The powder is cheaper than the capsules... Are you sure you are calculating it right? 60ct capsules at 200mg is 12 grams. $20/12 is $1.66/g. 15g powder is $23. $23/15 is $1.53/g. So the powder is cheaper per gram than the capsules. Are you just wondering why the disparity is not as high as some other powders vs. capsules? We have been trying to bring the costs of our encapsulation down over time. When you encapsulate things, there is always loss in the process. Sometimes that loss can be significant if the cost of the raw material is high. So any time we can reduce loss, we have more flexibility on price for the capsules. Certain powders run easily on encapsulation equipment. Others are a massive bitch, like berberine. The loss in an encapsulation run on berberine is like 3X higher than tongkat. This is why we moved to tablets for that one. So what goes into pricing of capsules, tablets, and powders can get pretty complex.
Interestingly enough, since I have moved to our capsules and tablets instead of the powder, I have been finding I am missing that psychosomatic response in the morning! I almost miss that nasty ass taste in my mouth!!! My brain started to associate that with the start of my day, and the energy it gave me. So now that I don't taste it I am missing that initial response. So you might actually appreciate the powder.
Source Natural's LJ100 was our baseline for comparison, as that is the only retail brand I personally tried that I felt had any effect. The rest sucked. So that was our baseline comparison. I was trialing both the 2% and 10% extracts as powders for many months. I was trying all sorts of doses and ratios. What we settled on was mainly due to my personal testing, plus a balance of what we could do with the cost/pricing. I also wanted the extracts to be different enough to justify offering both. If we offered a 5%, then you could make the argument that just taking more of the 2% would make more sense. I was originally going to only offer the more potent one, as I was unsure if we would confuse people and cannibalize sales, but later decided to do both. I mean, look at our pricing. Compare our 2% capsules to Source Natural's LJ100 tablets and you will see. Ours are much more potent for a lot cheaper. iHerb has theirs at $36.39 for 60 80mg tablets. Ours are $19.99 for 60 tablets at 200mg of a 4X more potent extract. Much much cheaper for a better product. I think there are good reasons for both, and having one be a capsule and the other a tablet also differentiates them. These are custom made for us, though. I could go make a 20% if I wanted to, and chuck that into a 200mg tablet. However, we are getting into ridiculously potent territory now as it is. Seriously, the 10% tablets are nuts compared to anything else in the world. So I had to draw a line somewhere, and that's where I picked. If we are going to offer two versions, I want them to be different enough to justify it, but still within a reasonable dose/price.