How To Find Affordable CBD
If you’ve spent any time looking for CBD online, you may know that the prices of comparable products can vary— sometimes by $100 or more.
It’s worth your time to do a bit of research to:
- Figure out what product fits your needs
- Get a clearer picture of industry standards and prices. The more you know, the easier it’ll be to find the best-priced CBD.
Here at Sunset Lake CBD, we’ve put together this small guide to illustrate our farm-to-table philosophy and show you how that philosophy allows us to provide some of the most affordable CBD products on the market.
Quick Navigation:
Our Philosophy: Affordable CBD Direct from the Farm
We’re farmers. We get up early, stay out late, and don’t stop until the work is done. That doesn’t leave us much time to do business with various middlemen and resellers who insist on taking a cut. We’d rather save time, and more importantly, save you money, by selling our CBD directly to you. We grow, process, sell, and ship the hemp that we grow. This allows us to do two crucial things:
- Produce top-shelf, affordable CBD products.
- Guarantee that all of our products were grown without the use of pesticides, with sustainable farm practices, and produced with the help of well-compensated workers.
The Price Per Milligram (mg)
The real measure of CBD product affordability is the price per milligram (mg.) Milligrams are the standard unit of measurement used across the CBD industry and will generally be used to describe recommended doses.
Beware of products that list milligrams of “hemp” instead of milligrams of “CBD.” Hemp products may not contain any CBD at all. Be sure to look for a QR code on the product packaging or ask for the pertinent certificate of analysis. This lab certificate will show you just how much CBD is in that product.
Read more: How To Read A Certificate Of Analysis
How to Find Affordable CBD
Find the Best Affordable CBD Oil Tinctures
Most CBD oil tinctures are made by combining the hemp plant and its flowers with ethanol alcohol. The alcohol used to separate the CBD from the plant material is evaporated off and the resulting substance, CBD-rich concentrate, is combined with a carrier like hemp oil or MCT oil. The latter stands for Medium Chain Triglyceride and is mainly derived from coconuts.
Using a CBD oil tincture is as easy as adding a few drops to your favorite drink or meal. You can also put a few drops under your tongue for 20-30 seconds. This method, called sublingual ingestion, may taste a little more bitter than adding CBD to a beverage, but you will feel the results more quickly this way.
Affordable CBD Oil Tinctures: Price Per mg
According to an October 2021 leafreport.com study, CBD oil tinctures, on average, cost $0.12 per mg. Sunset Lake’s lineup of full-spectrum oil tinctures ranges from $0.02 – $0.04 per mg— a fraction of the industry average.
Check out how we stack up against the competition below.
| Company | Product | Price | Price per mg |
|---|---|---|---|
| cbdMD | CBD Oil Tincture Drops (750mg) | $59.99 | $0.08 |
| Koi Naturals | Koi Naturals Hemp Extract CBD Oil Tincture | Peppermint Flavor (30mL, 1000mg) | $69.99 | $0.07 |
| CBD Distillery | Full Spectrum CBD Oil Tincture (500mg) | $45 | $0.09 |
| Sunset Lake CBD | Full Spectrum 750mg CBD Oil (30mL) | $29.99 | $0.03 |
Finding the Best Affordable CBD Gummies
CBD gummies (under the umbrella of CBD edibles) come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and potency. Because gummies need to be digested for the CBD to enter your system, they do take longer to take effect than taking sublingual CBD oil or smoking hemp flower.
The biggest advantage of gummies over products with similar potencies is the taste. If you can’t stand the earthy taste of a tincture, then CBD candy is the product for you.
Affordable CBD Gummies: Price Per mg
According to an October 2021 leafreport.com study, CBD gummies, on average, cost $0.14 per mg of CBD present. In other words, you can expect to spend 14 cents for every mg of CBD in your gummies. Sunset Lake’s gummies range from $0.06 – $0.07 per mg— half the industry standard.
This is how we stack up against the competition:
| Company | Product | Price | Price per mg |
|---|---|---|---|
| cbdMD | CBD Gummies – 750mg – 30 count | $59.99 | $0.08 |
| Koi Naturals | Koi CBD Gummies | Anytime Balance (600mg) | $59.99 | $0.10 |
| CBDistillery | 30mg Broad Spectrum CBD Anytime Gummies – 30 Count (900mg) | $70 | $0.07 |
| Sunset Lake CBD | CBD Gummies 1000mg pack (40 Count) | $64.99 | $0.06 |
Finding the Best Affordable CBD Hemp Flower
CBD hemp flowers are the buds from the cannabis plant that test under the federal limit of 0.3% delta-9 THC as laid out in the 2018 Farm Bill.
While CBD hemp flower is visually and aromatically similar to marijuana, it will not make the user feel “high” or intoxicated. Instead, most users claim that it helps with:
- Quality of sleep
- Feelings of anxiety
- Managing pain
Affordable CBD Hemp Flower: Factors To Consider
Unlike CBD oil tinctures and CBD gummies, hemp flower prices are relatively consistent across brands. There is still some variance due to things like:
-
Grow Scale – If you see qualifiers on your CBD hemp flower that say small batch or small grow, it’ll likely be a little pricier. The size of certain grows may justify the use of time-saving machines like tractors, increased machine trimming capacity, etc. which will, in turn, lower that farmer’s labor costs and translate into lower prices.
-
Farming Practices – It’s cheaper to grow hemp flower using pesticides, but it doesn’t necessarily make for a better product— to be sure you shouldn’t smoke anything that’s been sprayed with harsh chemicals— nor does the use of pesticides bode well for the ecosystem in the long term.
-
Indoor vs. Outdoor – CBD hemp flower grown outside (this includes sungrown hemp) is always going to be more affordable than hemp flower grown indoors. While growing hemp outdoors presents its own challenges, growing indoors requires precise soil/hydroponic maintenance, the use of several high-powered lights, and generally yields fewer flowers overall.
Affordable CBD Hemp Flower: Price Per mg
While it’s not for everyone, we toiled long and hard in our field to harvest the best CBD hemp flower we could. The resulting buds are gram for gram some of the most potent and most affordable CBD hemp flower on the market.
Here’s how we stack up:
| Company | Product | Price | Price per mg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain Jane | Lifter Flower – 1oz – 15.2% Total CBD (4,256 mg) | $79.99 | $0.019 |
| Cannaflower | Lifter Flower – 1oz – 14.5% Total CBD (4,060 mg) | $109.95 | $0.027 |
| Cheef Botanicals | Lifter Flower – 1oz – 16.8% Total CBD (4,704 mg) | $109.95 | $0.023 |
| Sunset Lake CBD | Lifter Flower – 1oz – 21.43% Total CBD (5202.4 mg) | $79.99 | $0.011 |
A Note About “Cheap CBD”
Not all CBD is created equally. Just like with any other product, there are some winners and there are some losers. And because CBD products aren’t regulated like medications— the advertised CBD content on the products doesn’t always reflect what’s in the product itself— you should be extra vigilant about what you’re buying.
Look for Third-Party Testing
Are third-party certificates of analysis prominently featured or on their website? How about the store page? If not, that might be a red flag. Certificates of analysis are documents that tell you:
- What cannabinoids are present in a product;
- When the CBD product was tested;
- If the tests were conducted by a reputable third-party
All of Sunset Lake CBD’s third-party test certificates of analysis can be found here.
Social or No?
Once you think you’ve found CBD for the right price, do yourself a favor and look up the company’s social media channels. The main indicators you’ll want to keep an eye out for are:
Do they have social media channels?
If not, that’s a problem. Most farms and retailers worth their salt will have and maintain active social media channels, if not to keep open lines of communication, then to at least advertise their products.
Are they active? Do they post regularly (in the last two weeks)?
Have they gone dark all of a sudden? Do they respond to your messages in a timely manner? That may be an indication that the farm isn’t doing well or is no longer selling CBD online.
Does the vendor or farm engage with their community?
The above indicator is more of a vibe check than anything. Does the CBD online retailer maintain a healthy ecosystem and answer questions thoughtfully?
What are folks saying in their comment section?
Are customers singing nothing but praise in the comments? Or are there quite a few regretful buyers?
Updated 2/2/22