About us
We read the label so you don't have to
Hydration Rated compares electrolyte powders, tablets and drinks on the numbers printed on the back of the packet — not the claims printed on the front.
Why this site exists
This site started with a practical problem in endurance training: working out what to actually drink on a long, hot session, and discovering that the products on the shelf were almost impossible to tell apart.
They are sold with near-identical imagery — athletes, heat, exertion — regardless of what is in them. The one thing that would separate them is the supplement facts panel, and that is usually a low-resolution photo at the bottom of a product page, reported on a serving basis that differs from the product next to it.
The result is that people routinely buy the wrong thing: a daily sipping mix for a marathon, or a heavy sweat-replacement dose to drink at a desk. Neither is a bad product. They are just answers to different questions.
The spread across the 10 products we cover — a nearly twentyfold difference, all sold in the same aisle.
What we do, and what we don't
Our remit is narrow on purpose, and we try not to exceed it. Four principles govern everything published here.
Label data, not press releases
Every figure comes from a manufacturer supplement facts panel or support document. Each review lists its sources and the date they were checked.
Ranking before revenue
Products are chosen and ordered before any affiliate link is attached. Ranking data and link configuration live in separate files so the two cannot influence each other.
We say what we do not know
Where a manufacturer states no figure, we print "Not stated" rather than an estimate. We have not lab-tested these products and we do not imply otherwise.
Risk stated on the page
Where a product is a bad idea for an identifiable group — kidney disease, hypertension, potassium-sparing medication — we say so in the review, not in a footer.
The full process is written out in how we test, including a plain list of the things we deliberately do not claim.
Who writes this
Hydration Rated is written and maintained by a small team whose background is in endurance sport rather than clinical practice. We want to be direct about what that means, because it changes how you should read this site.
We are not dietitians or clinicians. Nobody here holds a nutrition or medical qualification. What we have is first-hand experience of the problem these products are sold to solve — long sessions in heat, the difference a genuinely salty sweat rate makes, and years of buying the wrong thing before learning to read the panel.
That experience is enough to compare products honestly on published data, explain what the numbers mean, and flag when a product is being sold for a job it cannot do. It is not enough to tell you what your body needs. Wherever the answer depends on your physiology or your medical history, we say so and point you to someone qualified rather than guessing.
Background claims about hydration physiology on this site are sourced to government health agencies and peer-reviewed literature, linked in each page's sources section, rather than asserted on our own authority.
How we're funded
Through affiliate commission on some outbound links. If you buy something after clicking one, the retailer pays us a small percentage. You pay exactly what you would have paid arriving any other way.
We think that model is fine as long as it is visible, so the disclosure sits at the top of every page carrying links rather than buried in the footer.
What commission does not affect
- Which products appear in a roundup
- What position a product is ranked in
- Whether we describe a product's drawbacks
- The nutrition figures we publish
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong, we want to know and we will fix it. Manufacturers reformulate quietly and we will not always catch it first — if the panel on your pack disagrees with our page, your pack is right and we are out of date.
Where a correction materially changes a recommendation, we note the change and the date rather than editing silently.
Get in touch
Corrections, questions about a product, or anything else about the site.
Go to the contact formStart with the comparison
All 10 products side by side on sodium, potassium, magnesium and sugar — with the serving basis shown, so the numbers can be compared fairly.