DISCLAIMER:

I am not a health professional, and this is not intended to be medical advice. Please assume that I’m a moron (fact check everything) before making any decisions based on the information below.

I recently became interested in CBD oil and started shopping around. After a bit of research, it became clear that Charlotte’s Web (CW) by Stanley Brothers is one of the better quality brands, so I began to check on its pricing. CBD oil is expensive in general, but the cost of CW’s CBD oil is on the high end of the market.

After looking around a bit, I stopped at a local health food store that I had been told sold CBD. When I arrived, I just so happened to be there during their supplement sale, so everything–CBD oil included–was 33% off retail price. The store sells CW’s CBD oil at the same price that it’s sold through the CW Website, so I decided to buy–but which one? There are 3 strengths or concentrations, and each of those comes in 2 sizes (30 mL or 100 mL). I didn’t have time to figure it out, so I bought the middle concentration (Everyday Plus) in the 30 mL bottle.

Fast-forward a few months, and I had read some studies on PubMed and listened to several podcasts about CBD oil. It became clear that 20 to 25 mg of CBD (hemp extract, specifically) was usually the baseline for clinical studies. That seems to be some sort of threshold, so I decided to figure out how that 25 mg minimum dosage related to CW’s CBD oil products (which they have begun calling “Hemp Extract Oil”).

I broke down the price and content of each of CW’s 3 concentrations and 2 size offerings in the chart below. If you’re not a chart person, the major takeaway is that the 100 mL bottle of Advanced is far and away the cheapest when considering cost per 25 mg dosage. For example, the 30 mL of Everyday costs more than 4x per 25 mg serving. So, if you’re seriously considering giving it a try, I would suggest purchasing the 100 mL size of CW’s Hemp Extract Oil Advanced.

It is important to mention that for this brand, hemp extract ≠ CBD. CW considers hemp extract to be the total cannabinoids. The actual CBD content is lower, so this chart should not be used to compare CW’s products against others products, but it does help if you’ve decided to give CW a try.

Dosage

If you’d like to try this out at a 25 mg dosage, you will want to use 5 or 6 drops of oil. A single drop is approximately 0.05 mL, so 1 drop of Hemp EO Advanced contains approximately 4.3 mg of hemp extract (5 drops is about 26 mg of hemp extract).

Chart

CW’s CBD Oil Cost Comparison

Hemp EO Everyday 30 mL Hemp EO Everyday 100 mL Hemp EO Plus 30 mL Hemp EO Plus 100 mL Hemp EO Advanced 30 mL Hemp EO Advanced 100 mL Unit Price (USD) $ 39.99 $ 99.99 $ 74.99 $ 188.99 $ 149.99 $ 274.99 Hemp Extract per Bottle 300 mg 1,000 mg 750 mg 2,500 mg 2,580 mg 8,600 mg Price per mg of Hemp Extract (USD) $ 0.1333 ~ 13 cents $ 0.0999 ~ 10 cents $ 0.0999 ~ 10 cents $ 0.0756 ~ 8 cents $ 0.0581 ~ 6 cents $ 0.0320 ~ 3 cents Price per 25mg Serving (USD) $ 3.33 $ 2.50 $ 2.50 $ 1.89 $ 1.45 $ 0.80 Bulk Discount (Buy 4, Get 1 Free) $ 2.67 per 25 mg $ 1.99 per 25 mg $ 1.99 per 25 mg $ 1.51 per 25 mg – –

I hope the chart was helpful, and please let me know if you find any errors.

Why CBD?

At this time, I’d like to reiterate that I’m not a medical professional…

CBD oil seems to act on the endocannabinoid system in ways that appear to be extremely beneficial in some instances. Claims have been made that CBD oil helps with nearly every ailment known to man: chronic pain, anxiety, sleep, autism, seizures, ADHD, lupus, IBS, and cancer, among others. It is even supposed to be beneficial to dogs (CW sells CBD for pets). I do not know the validity of any of these claims, so please research these matters yourself. I do believe that CBD oil could potentially be helpful for many people, but people vary greatly, so what works for one person may not work for another. It is exciting to see research on CBD increase, and I hope that all of the wonderful claims are true, but I remain skeptical.

Another, Lesser-Known Cannabinoid

Beta-caryophyllene (BCP) is another cannabinoid that interacts with the same endocannabinoid system that CBD and THC do, but in different ways. Equally-miraculous claims (alleviation of pain, depression, anxiety, etc.) have been made about BCP (which is found in high concentrations in copaiba essential oil). The copaiba tree has been used medicinally by natives in South America for a long time, but like CBD, there is not a lot of clinical research available with regards to its safety and/or efficacy.

One current advantage that BCP has over CBD and THC is that it is fully legal in the United States. It is also not likely to cause users to fail a drug test (which THC definitely can do, and even CBD can do depending on the quality of the oil).

I hope you find this information useful. I realize that most of this post is me writing about things that I don’t understand, but I do think that the price breakdown of CW’s products should come in handy for those looking to give CBD oil a try.

Thanks for reading!

P.S.

I recently purchased a bottle of CW’s Advanced Hemp EO and found a coupon code on Reddit that gave me a 10% discount off of the normal price. The promo code is “keepitcrispy”, and I have nothing to do with it, but it worked for me in April 2018. Please let me know if/when it stops working. Reddit is a good place to find such codes.