LMNT vs. Liquid I.V.: Which One Do You Actually Need?

Short version: buy LMNT if you sweat hard, sweat salty, or eat low-carb — one stick carries 1,000 mg of sodium and no sugar.¹ Buy Liquid I.V. if you're rehydrating after illness or a genuinely soaking session and want the glucose helping to drag fluid across your gut wall.² If you're sipping one at a desk, the honest answer is neither.

We earn a commission from both brands, and it doesn't move the verdict, because the verdict is arithmetic. Every number below comes off a current Nutrition Facts panel or a published trial, and the working is shown — including the part where neither product is the oral rehydration solution one of them says it is.

One note on what else you'll read, since it explains the disclosure above. Search this query and a striking share of page one is written by companies that sell a third electrolyte powder — several of the "independent dietitian comparisons" sit on a competitor's own blog, and the third powder wins with impressive regularity. Two more results belong to companies that sell water bottles and gym gear. Our bias is different but real: we take a commission on both products here. The mitigation is that every number is checkable against a label or a trial, and where the arithmetic doesn't flatter a product we link, it's on the page anyway.

LMNT vs. Liquid I.V. at a glance

Both panels were read on 25 July 2026 — LMNT's Citrus Salt Nutrition Facts and ingredient list from its product page,¹ Liquid I.V.'s Lemon Lime panel and its "1 stick with 16oz of water" direction from its own.²

One thing worth knowing before you compare this page to any other: Liquid I.V. has reformulated, and most of the internet hasn't caught up. The label archived in NIH's Dietary Supplement Label Database — the version nearly every comparison still quotes — reads 500 mg sodium, 11 g carbohydrate and 45 calories.⁶ The panel the brand publishes today reads 560 mg, 13 g and 50 calories.² We use the current one. Both brands run several SKUs and both reformulate, so older boxes are still on shelves: check the panel on the one you're actually holding. Percent Daily Values are the FDA's, against a 2,300 mg sodium reference.⁸

How much sodium do you actually lose? Start here, not with the labels

Every comparison of these two products prints two sodium numbers and then argues about which is better. Neither number means anything without a third one: how much sodium came out of you.

Here is that number. In 157 experienced marathon runners sampled during a real race, sweat sodium concentration averaged 42.9 ± 18.7 mmol/L, with a minimum-to-maximum range of 7.0 to 95.5 mmol/L.³ Convert at 23 mg per mmol and the average litre of sweat carries about 990 mg of sodium — call it a gram.

So, roughly:

• One LMNT stick ≈ one litre of average sweat. (1,000 mg ÷ 990 mg/L ≈ 1.0 L.)
• One Liquid I.V. stick ≈ 0.6 litres. (560 mg ÷ 990 mg/L ≈ 0.57 L.)

That reframes the question from "which product is better" to "how much did I sweat." A one-hour indoor session that costs you half a litre is a Liquid I.V.-sized loss. A four-hour hot ride at three litres is three LMNT sticks' worth.

Now the part that should stop you overcommitting. The spread in that study is enormous — the saltiest runner lost about 14 times more sodium per litre than the least salty one.³ In milligrams: the low-salt group averaged 21.4 mmol/L (≈490 mg per litre of sweat), while the salty group — 20% of the field — averaged 71.0 mmol/L (≈1,630 mg per litre).³ For the same litre of sweat, one LMNT stick is a double replacement for the first runner and a 60% replacement for the second.

And you can't predict which one you are. Sweat electrolyte concentration in that cohort did not correlate with sweat rate, age, body characteristics, training, or experience.³ Being big, fit, or a heavy sweater tells you nothing about how salty your sweat is. Women averaged lower than men (33.9 vs. 44.0 mmol/L), and that is roughly the extent of the useful prediction.³

Could you get tested? Sort of. A review of sweat-testing methodology found that results shift with the collection system, the timing and duration of collection, skin cleaning, sample handling, and the analytical technique — before you reach real biological variation from exercise intensity, heat, and acclimation.⁴ A patch test at a running expo is an indication, not a number to build a protocol on. No web page, this one included, can tell you your own figure.

So: use the average as your unit, then adjust by experience. If you finish long sessions with salt crusted on your face, or you cramp and feel wrung out on a plain-water day, behave like the salty 20% and lean LMNT. If you don't, you probably don't need a gram of sodium per bottle.

One number nobody prints: sweat potassium in those same runners averaged 6.0 mmol/L, about 235 mg per litre.³ Against that, LMNT's 200 mg is roughly what a litre of sweat costs you and Liquid I.V.'s 370 mg is rather more — and both are a rounding error against the adult adequate intake of 2,600–3,400 mg a day.⁷ Potassium is not the reason to pick either one.

What's actually in each one

LMNT: a salt product that admits it

The ingredient list is salt (sodium chloride), citric acid, magnesium malate, potassium chloride, natural flavours, and stevia leaf extract — six items, in that order.¹ The panel reads 1,000 mg sodium, 200 mg potassium, 60 mg magnesium, 1 g carbohydrate, 0 g sugars, 5 calories per 6 g stick.¹

There's no ambiguity about what this is. Sodium chloride is the first ingredient by weight and the other minerals are supporting cast. The 60 mg of magnesium is 15% of the Daily Value — a real but modest contribution against an adult RDA of 310–420 mg, so treat it as a bonus, not a magnesium strategy; if that's what you're after, start with our magnesium guide instead.¹⁷

Liquid I.V.: an ORS-shaped sports drink

Cane sugar and dextrose lead the list, then citric acid, salt, potassium citrate, sodium citrate, dipotassium phosphate, silicon dioxide, stevia leaf extract, natural flavours, and five added vitamins.² Per 16 g stick: 50 calories, 560 mg sodium, 370 mg potassium, 13 g carbohydrate of which 11 g are sugars — all of them added sugars, 22% of the Daily Value.²

The vitamins are the least interesting part: vitamin C at 70% DV and B-vitamins at 110–240% DV are cheap to add and easy to market, and none of them is there for a hydration reason.² The sugar, by contrast, is doing real work — which is the next section.

Is Liquid I.V. really an oral rehydration solution?

This is the claim the whole category leans on, and nobody on page one has checked it. Liquid I.V.'s own product-page FAQ, as of 25 July 2026, states that Hydration Multiplier products "are classified as an Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS), a globally recognized science used by several organizations including the National Institute of Health."² The older packaging archived in NIH's label database sold the same idea as "Cellular Transport Technology," alongside the claim that it "hydrates 2–3x faster than water alone."⁶ (Both have since been retired — the current formula trademark is LIV HYDRASCIENCE™, which most of the comparisons still ranking for this query haven't noticed.²)

The underlying science is genuine. Glucose and sodium are absorbed together in the small intestine, and water follows — WHO's own ORS production guidance states that glucose facilitates the absorption of sodium, and hence water, on a 1:1 molar basis.⁵ That principle is why oral rehydration therapy works, and it's a real thing to build a drink on.

The question is whether this drink matches the reference formulation. WHO's reduced-osmolarity ORS is defined: sodium 75 mmol/L, glucose 75 mmol/L (13.5 g of anhydrous glucose per litre), potassium 20 mmol/L, total osmolarity 245 mOsm/L.⁵ Liquid I.V.'s label tells you to put one 16 g stick in 16 fl oz of water.² Sixteen US fluid ounces is 473 mL, so:

On every assumption, the direction is the same: less salty and sweeter than a real ORS. That's not a scandal — it's a drink designed to taste good, while WHO's formulation was designed to keep children alive through cholera. And the reformulation moved it closer: at the old 500 mg it sat at 61% of ORS sodium, at 560 mg it sits at 69%.⁶² Closer is still not there. "ORS-inspired sports drink" is the accurate description, and "classified as an Oral Rehydration Solution" implies a conformity the label numbers don't support.

Put LMNT through the same filter, for fairness. One stick is 1,000 mg of sodium, or 43.5 mmol, and its panel specifies no water volume — the directions on its retail listing say to mix one stick with 16 to 32 ounces, which works out at ≈92 mmol/L at the strong end (well above ORS sodium) and ≈46 mmol/L at the weak end (well below).¹¹⁶ Either way it carries 0 g of sugars, so there's no glucose driving cotransport at all.¹ LMNT isn't an ORS either — it has simply never claimed to be, because sugar is the thing its low-carb buyers are avoiding.

Neither of these is an oral rehydration solution. If that's what you want — after a stomach bug, say — it's a different product category, and pharmacies stock WHO-formulation sachets sold for exactly that.

The sugar question: feature or defect?

Every comparison treats Liquid I.V.'s 11 g of sugar as a flaw. That's lazy. In rehydration science the glucose is the mechanism: it's what pulls sodium, and therefore water, across the gut wall.⁵ Take the sugar out and you take out the reason ORS beats plain water.

Which has an awkward corollary nobody's brand page volunteers: the sugar-free version of a cellular-transport product has removed the transport rationale. Liquid I.V. does sell a sugar-free line, and if you buy it you're buying a flavoured electrolyte mix, not a faster-absorbing one.

So when is 11 g of sugar a feature?

• Replacing genuine fluid loss — after illness, or a long, hot, soaking session. The carbohydrate aids absorption and gives you some fuel.
• When you'd otherwise not drink enough. A drink you finish beats a drink you don't.

And when is it a defect?

• Keto and low-carb. 13 g of carbohydrate is a meaningful share of a strict daily allowance, which is why the low-carb crowd converged on LMNT. Our keto electrolytes guide covers what carb restriction actually does to your sodium needs.
• Fasting. Sugar is the one ingredient that unambiguously ends a fast. See electrolytes while fasting.
• Daily desk use. One stick is 22% of the Daily Value for added sugars,² which is a strange thing to spend on a drink replacing sweat you didn't produce.

Does the glucose measurably change hydration? A randomised trial comparing 13 common drinks in euhydrated adults found that beverages combining sugar, sodium, and protein — an oral rehydration solution and milk among them — were retained better at two hours than plain water.¹³ A real effect, in a controlled setting. It is not "hydrates 2–3× faster," and it's a long way from justifying a sugary drink on a day you didn't sweat.

Is 1,000 mg of sodium too much?

It depends entirely on the sweat, which is why this comes after the arithmetic and not before it.

The population reference points: the adult Adequate Intake for sodium is 1,500 mg/day, and the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction intake — the level above which you're advised to reduce — is 2,300 mg/day.⁷ Americans average about 3,400 mg/day, already well over it.⁸ One LMNT stick is 43% of that 2,300 mg ceiling before you've eaten anything, and its own label says so in the %DV column.¹ A Liquid I.V. stick is 24%.²

For a desk worker adding a stick a day to an already-salty diet, that framing applies in full. For someone who just lost two litres of sweat — roughly two grams of sodium at the population average³ — it mostly doesn't; you're replacing a loss, not adding a surplus. The FDA's own guidance quietly concedes the distinction, noting that the body needs sodium in relatively small amounts "provided that substantial sweating does not occur."⁸

Nor is the underlying science settled, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Controlled feeding is clear that cutting sodium lowers blood pressure: DASH-Sodium produced stepwise reductions on both the control and DASH diets.⁹ A Cochrane review and meta-analysis of longer-term modest salt reduction reached the same conclusion across randomised trials.¹⁰ Against that, the large PURE observational cohort reported a J-shaped association, with elevated risk at both high and low estimated sodium excretion.¹¹ Different designs, different answers, live argument. What isn't in dispute is that a sedentary adult adding a gram of sodium a day for no physiological reason has picked the wrong side of it.

Which should you buy?

Two of those rows deserve their own sentences.

Everyday desk hydration → neither. If you're sedentary, healthy, and drinking to a normal thirst, your kidneys manage electrolyte balance across a very wide intake range using ordinary food. Nothing in the sweat literature applies to you, because you haven't lost the sweat. We work through the evidence for daily use — including who genuinely benefits — in are electrolytes actually good for you?, and the wider picture is in our full guide to electrolytes.

Hangover → neither, honestly. A systematic review of placebo-controlled randomised trials of hangover interventions found 21 studies covering 386 participants, no two testing the same intervention, with every efficacy outcome graded very low quality.¹⁴ The interventions it did find were things like clove extract, tolfenamic acid, pyritinol and red ginseng — the review's scope was pharmacologically active agents, and no electrolyte drink appears in it.¹⁴ So the accurate statement isn't "electrolytes don't help hangovers" — it's that nobody has run the trial, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something. Grade that a D and drink water.

If you're replacing heavy sweat losses

LMNT is the right shape for this job: a gram of sodium, no sugar to think about, and a flavour range that includes an unflavoured version if you want to add it to your own drink. Replacing sodium during prolonged exercise is also the one use case here with a position stand behind it — the ACSM's guidance on exercise and fluid replacement recommends including sodium when sweat losses are large or prolonged, with the caveat that individual needs vary widely.¹²

We may earn a commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. We have not reviewed or tested this product and publish no score for it — the recommendation is based on its published label matching this specific job.

If you're rehydrating after illness or a hard, sweaty session

This is the job Liquid I.V. is built for, and the sugar is the reason it's better at it than a straight salt mix — even though, as above, it doesn't meet the WHO ORS specification.

We may earn a commission if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you. We have not reviewed or tested this product and publish no score for it — and this page says plainly where its marketing overstates the case.

What each one costs

Both are premium for what they are, and the received wisdom that Liquid I.V. is the budget pick didn't survive a look at the two brands' own storefronts on 25 July 2026: at single-box list price, per-stick cost was within a few cents either way. What they do share is that the cheapest route is a bundle or a subscription, not a one-off box — LMNT's largest multi-box bundle cut roughly a quarter off its single-box per-stick price, and Liquid I.V. advertised 30% off subscription deliveries. Retail prices swing more than the gap between the brands, so check both rather than trusting anyone's stale comparison, this one included.

The genuinely cheap answer is neither, and LMNT publishes it themselves. Their ingredients page gives the DIY equivalent of one stick: 2,500 mg sodium chloride, 385 mg potassium chloride, and 390 mg magnesium malate.¹⁵ That's table salt, a potassium salt substitute, and a magnesium powder — pennies per serving, no flavour, and the same electrolytes. Publishing your own competitor's recipe is an unusually honest move, and it tells you what you're actually paying for: convenience and taste.

Frequently asked questions

The bottom line

Both of these are sodium delivery systems with different accessories. LMNT delivers about a litre of average sweat's worth of sodium with no sugar; Liquid I.V. delivers half that, plus glucose that genuinely helps absorption and 45 calories you may or may not want. Neither meets the WHO oral rehydration specification, and one of them says it does. Pick LMNT for salty sweat, keto, and fasting. Pick Liquid I.V. for rehydrating after real fluid loss. And if you found this page while looking for something to sip at a desk, buy neither — that is the recommendation that costs us money, which is exactly why you should trust the other two.