The Money In Menopause Supplements

I created Dr. Jen's Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplements to find out just how much

Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images

It seems there are an ever-increasing number of health influencers promoting bespoke supplements on social media. This spectrum includes celebrities, naturopaths, podcasters, PhDs, and even medical doctors. I’m not talking about advertisements for an already established supplement company via posts that raise “awareness,” which might come with a “15% off code.” Here, I’m referring to health influencers with their own line of supplements. While a few of these products might be straight-up vitamins or minerals that may have an evidence-based place for some people (think calcium or vitamin D, although almost always less expensive elsewhere), most of these bespoke supplements are concoctions that suggest a health benefit but often have very little, if any supporting research. Instead of the rigorous research you deserve, we typically find cherry-picked, low-quality studies, social media posts, and websites filled with 5-star anecdotes from “satisfied customers.” This is especially insidious when the influencer is a medical doctor or someone with expertise in the biomedical field because they transfer their perceived expertise to the product they sell.

There are definitely some supplement trailblazers, for example, Dr. Steve Gundry and the naturopath Jolene Brighten, who have had their own products for years. It’s a feat worthy of Barnum for people like Brighten to claim that medications like the birth control pill are under-tested and unsafe (it is well-tested and extremely safe), all the while selling untested, unregulated pharmaceuticals (which is how you should think of supplements).

While supplements targeting women have been around for a long time, it feels like menopause is having a supplement moment. Drew Barrymore introduced her Dr. Kellyann &ME Peri + Menopause supplement, designed by a naturopath who is also a bone broth wizard. But Ms. Barrymore isn’t the only one tapping into the menopause supplement gold rush. Alloy, the online menopause platform, has its own branded synbiotic. Dr. Marie Claire Haver, an OB/GYN, has her ‘Pause Nutrition line of supplements. And Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon, has NovaMD, which includes a product called Advanced Menopause Support, which she claims can help with all kinds of menopause symptoms, and yet each claim requires an asterisk to direct you to the disclaimer that there is no proof this product can treat anything. Always believe the asterisks!

The veracity of the health claims for all of these menopause products and their safety is for another post. But, in case you are considering NovaMD Advanced Menopause Support, you should know the 2023 Menopause Society Guidelines did not recommend a single supplement for hot flashes and that green tea extract, an ingredient in the product, is associated with liver injury.

For a good reason, we require pharmaceutical companies to report how much money they pay physicians, but there is zero reporting in the supplement game for any kind of health influencer, from health coaches all the way to medical doctors. I know the people who sell the useless Liver Shield supplement that promotes binge drinking claimed in writing that they were on track to be in the tens of millions of dollars in sales in 2024, but I didn’t have any data on menopause products. So, I decided to see how easy and profitable it might be to tap into the menopause gold rush myself and sell a bespoke “Dr Jen” product in my very own shop. Theoretically, of course!

The World of Private Labeling

There are two ways to source a supplement. One is to have your own manufacturing facility, and the other is to pay someone to make it for you. It seems that most companies have someone else make it. Even the big names. For example, Pharmavite in California makes supplements for a limited range of big-name companies: Nature Made, Megafood, Equelle, Uqora, and Bonefide.

Private labeling is the concept of a company making a specific product for someone else. And it isn’t just for big players like Nature Made. There are companies that will help anyone start a private-label supplement. There is another option called white labeling, which is a mass-produced product that is then sold to multiple retailers who put their own labels on it. However, this is not a way to get a product with a specific set of ingredients. It seems that most influencer supplements are likely private label, so that will be Dr Jen’s route.

Dr Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplement

Since turmeric was recently mentioned in Woman’s World magazine as something that might be beneficial in menopause, I decided that would be my product as women may be looking for it. Also, tons of supplements and supporting scammy articles pop up when I google turmeric, so the market has been well-primed for me. I think it’s good to have an entry-level product that seems to be sold everywhere and recommended in a magazine by an OB/GYN, as that lends a veneer of legitimacy.

I decided on a turmeric supplement that consists of 500 mg of turmeric root extract and 5mg of black pepper fruit extract per pill, and the daily dose would be two pills. How did I come up with that formulation? I spent about five minutes googling turmeric supplements and copied what seemed to be a common formula. I did zero research (wow, this is an awesome business so far). As there are quite a few supplements with this or very similar formulations, I wondered if it were a common practice to see what is selling and come up with something identical or different in a meaningless way (although who knows, as all this shit is essentially unstudied, maybe it’s a meaningful change!). The black pepper is supposed to enhance the absorption of turmeric.

A Google search brought up multiple companies that provide private-label supplements. These companies will manufacture my pills (or gummies or elixirs, etc), although where the products are made wasn’t clear. Some companies will make my formulation and even handle the shelving and shipping, so I don’t have to worry about renting a warehouse or figuring out how to ship. I just need to create a Shopify website and drive my social media followers to my site to learn about the amazing benefits of Dr. Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric supplements.

I did not have to prove I was a doctor or have any data to back up the benefits of my proposed product to get a quote; I just told them my ingredients, and the two companies I contacted said fine. The emails were sent from my husband’s email, so there was no way to trace the request to a physician.

Price Quote for Dr. Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplement

These numbers came from a quote from a private-label supplement manufacturer that does everything. I chose this route because I want to show how little effort is required to be up and running. The company will make the product, design a label that meets the FDA language standards, store the product, and even connect with my Shopify account. If someone wants to source their own storage, there are probably cheaper ways, but I chose the easy path. Here is my cost to make Dr. Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplement. I chose a high-end label because I’m fancy like that.

I chose a gelcap formulation, which is more expensive, but I think it looks bespoke. The lowest minimum volume that the manufacturer would accept is 8333 bottles. If I went with a regular capsule instead of a gelcap, I could order less and have less upfront cost. Also, if I ordered more bottles, the price per bottle of 60 gel caps could drop from $6.77 to $4.99, increasing my profit by almost $2 a bottle. Buying in greater volume means I have to put out more cash up front, but it also gives me greater profit. However, there is so much profit, even at lower volumes, that I don’t really need to worry.

There are a few minor costs not included here. There is a one-time upfront design cost for the label and some monthly storage charges. None of these are significant, and might add a few pennies per bottle.

The only other upfront cost is setting up and designing a Shopify website. That can range from $2000 to $20,000 (source: Shopify website). A simple shop with 10 items or so can be nicely designed for about $5000, but I’m paying $10,000 fictitious dollars for my website because image is everything in this kind of business. With the Shopify model, my supplements are stored by the private label manufacturer for a relatively small fee. The manufacturer works with Shopify or whatever other retail website I might choose to complete the sale.

The total startup costs for Dr. Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric supplements would be:

This will cost me $73K to get started, which is a lot. I could lose it all. (If I went with regular capsules instead of gelcaps, I could get started for only $28K due to lower minimum order quantities). So what is the risk here? How much do I have to sell to break even? First, we need to understand the entire cost model on a per-bottle basis to figure that out. That breaks down as follows:

And now, on the revenue side. Nature Made charges $13.99 a bottle for their turmeric, but they don’t have fancy advertising or menopause brand (although they are still likely making a great profit at this price based on their production scale). The naturopath Jolene Brighten sells her “women’s hormone support” for $63.95 for one month’s supply, and a few of Dr. Steve Gundry’s products seem to be about $49.95. More than $40 sounds steep to me, so I will copy Dr. Marie Claire Haver’s pricing for her turmeric supplement and charge $35 a bottle, $31.50 if you subscribe and save.

For every bottle I sell at $35, I make a $24.93 profit. If someone subscribes, I make a $21.43 profit per bottle, but that’s okay because I think a repeat customer will likely spend more over time. Shipping is extra, but if someone spends over $100 on my supplements, I am happy to pay for shipping.

How risky is this for me? Remember, I am putting out $73k upfront for my order, storage, and Shopify. To recover the $73K, I will need to sell one of the two to break even:

• 2929 bottles at $35 a bottle ($24.93 profit/bottle)

or

• 292 yearly subscriptions ($31.50 a bottle, so $21.43 x 12 or $247.16 profit/year)

Let’s go with the single bottles; I need to sell 2929, or just over one-third of my order, to cover my initial investment. Not bad.

If I have a large social media presence, making this sale should be easy. For example, with 250,000 followers on Instagram, I would need 1.1% of my followers to buy just one bottle to break even. If I have one million followers on Instagram, I just need 0.3% to buy a bottle of my Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplement to break even. To be clear, that last number is not 3 percent; it is one-tenth of 3 percent. But with turmeric mentioned in Women’s World, I’m no longer limited to my social media footprint.

Once I sell my entire 8333 initial run, I will have made $195,760. I didn’t need a staff or a warehouse; there was no factory to inspect, government forms to fill out, licenses to acquire, or payroll to meet. It took about 5 minutes on Google, some emails, and paying someone (theoretically) to set up my Shopify.

It might seem like a lot of sales, but if I had one million Instagram followers, I would just need to convince about 0.8% of them to buy one bottle to make that $195,302 profit.

I make more if I order more than 8,333 bottles for my first run. And, of course, my profit margin grows with my next order because setting up my Shopify was a one-time expense. Even if I keep ordering lots of 8,333 bottles, my cost per run is now $63,021, so I am making about $205k per production run. For one supplement.

And, of course, if I am a celebrity like Drew Barrymore, I can get even more press coverage, and the sky really is the limit.

But These Are Bespoke Products!

The influencers and celebrities selling these products will claim they are made for their customers’ needs. Yes, they are made with a particular customer in mind, but this says nothing about efficacy or safety. Also, no one selling supplements knows their turmeric farmer or green tea farmer, ya know? This is America. Anyone can make a supplement and sell it. Anyone. The only real requirement for success is having a large social media following, being in health care, or preferably both. Remember, with supplements, there is no requirement that they actually work. In case you are wondering, the science behind turmeric is pretty sketchy, which I will cover in a future post.

Like Lifting Up the Floorboards and Finding an Oil Well That’s Ready to Go

We priced Dr. Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric Supplements with two companies, and the pricing seemed to be in the same ballpark. Other supplements might cost more or less, and I don’t know what business model people selling supplements are actually following, so to be clear, this model I am presenting is only for my theoretical supplement. There is probably a wide range of profit per product. Some people may only make $15 a pop, but for another supplement, it could possibly be $30 or more. But even at a $15 profit, if you can sell 1,000 bottles a month, that’s $180,000 a year for doing next to nothing. If I am someone like Dr. Sood, an anesthesiologist and one of the creators of the liver condom, and I have 2.3 million followers on TikTok, if I can convince 3% of my followers to buy just one bottle of a product with a $15 profit, I’ve made $1,035,000. Followers are a currency that can be potentially converted into supplement sales.

There are many variables like volume ordered, the company, storage, and the actual product itself, so I have no idea how much money anyone makes selling supplements. The model I chose was about three months for everything to get stocked and ready for customers to buy. It doesn’t appear to take much time or effort, and certainly, no research, to start a potentially very profitable supplement business, so it’s no wonder we are seeing health influencers getting in on the action. Why limit yourself to making just $5,000 for an advertisement here and there for other people’s products or even charge $1,000 for an in-office consultation? That’s nothing compared to what supplements can offer if you have a sales strategy and a market. After all, there is only so much time in the day to see patients or make content. But supplements? It’s a business with almost no effort and an exponential potential for profit. Americans spend about $45 billion a year on supplements, so there’s a lot of action to get in on.

Selling bespoke menopause supplements isn’t championing women; it’s cashing in on the menopause gold rush, and the same holds true whether you are a celebrity, a doctor, a naturopath, or a health coach. If the evidence showed these products worked, they would be in the guidelines instead of being sold with an asterisk about the product being unstudied and untested. And so, Dr. Jen’s Menopause Taming Turmeric will never see the light of day. But stay tuned for an in-depth look at turmeric! I wanted to learn about what I almost (okay, not really) sold.

References

1. Hu J, Webster D, Cao J, Shao A. The safety of green tea and green tea extract consumption in adults - Results of a systematic review. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2018 Jun;95:412-433. doi: 10.1016/j.yrtph.2018.03.019. Epub 2018 Mar 24. PMID: 29580974.

2. Oketch-Rabah HA, Roe AL, Rider CV, et al. United States Pharmacopeia (USP) comprehensive review of the hepatotoxicity of green tea extracts. Toxicol Rep. 2020 Feb 15;7:386-402. doi: 10.1016/j.toxrep.2020.02.008. PMID: 32140423; PMCID: PMC7044683.

3. The 2023 nonhormone therapy position statement of The North American Menopause Society. Menopause 2023:30: 573-590.