Best vegan probiotics: 8 compared on capsule, culture medium and CFU

Yes, vegan probiotic supplements exist, and the bacteria were never the problem. The capsule and the broth the strains were grown in are what can make one non-vegan. Our picks: Deva for the strictest vegan standard, NOW Probiotic-10 for the price, Ora Trust Your Gut for a pullulan capsule with a vegan tag.

Only 1 of the 8 makers on this page says what its bacteria were grown on. Deva states that its strains are grown on a non-animal, non-dairy medium, and it says why that matters: some probiotics sold as dairy-free were cultured on a dairy medium that was purified out of the finished product afterwards. The Vegan Society’s trademark standard reaches exactly that step. A registered product’s manufacture and development, and its ingredients, “must not involve or have involved” the use of any animal product, by-product or derivative, and Deva is the only product here carrying that registration. Everyone else tells you about the capsule and the allergens and stops there. That is why “vegan” on a probiotic label is worth reading twice, in the same way our guide to whether vegans need supplements at all asks you to read the reason before the bottle.

The short list

Read from each maker’s own page in October 2026. Prices are the makers’ list prices on that day and change; several run subscriptions and sales.

Product	Vegan status, per the maker	Capsule	CFU per serving, per the label	Dairy
Deva Vegan Probiotic with Prebiotics & Postbiotics	Vegan Society registered; no animal ingredients	Cellulose	2 billion	Free of dairy; strains not grown on dairy
NOW Probiotic-10 25 Billion	“Vegan / Vegetarian”	Hypromellose (cellulose)	25 billion, guaranteed through the Best By date	Made without dairy; facility processes milk
Ora Organic Trust Your Gut Probiotic + Prebiotic Daily Essential	Tagged vegan on the maker’s store	Pullulan	16 billion	Dairy-free
Future Kind Vegan Probiotics (30 Billion CFUs)	“100% vegan brand”	Vegan capsule, material not stated	30 billion, counted at manufacture	Free from major allergens; shared facility handles milk
Culturelle Digestive Daily Probiotic Capsules	“Vegan” badge; FAQ says vegans can take it	Vegetarian capsule	10 billion	No dairy ingredients; facility handles dairy
Seed DS-01 Daily Synbiotic	The page we read does not use the word vegan	Two-part capsule, material not stated	53.6 billion AFU, our total of the 4 blends listed	Formulated without dairy; dairy-tested
Garden of Life Dr. Formulated Probiotics Once Daily	Vegetarian badge; no vegan claim	Not stated on the page	30 billion	Dairy Free badge
Align 24/7 Digestive Support	Vegetarian; no vegan claim	Not stated on the page	Not stated on the page	Not stated on the page

What makes a probiotic not vegan

The organisms themselves are bacteria and yeasts. The National Institutes of Health defines probiotics as “live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host”, and nothing in that definition is an animal. Three things around them can be.

The capsule is the one everyone checks. A gelatin shell is animal-derived; cellulose, hypromellose and pullulan shells are not. NOW names hypromellose, Ora names pullulan, Deva names cellulose. Future Kind says vegan capsule without naming the material, Culturelle says vegetarian capsule, and Garden of Life and Align leave the shell off the page.

The growth medium is the one almost nobody checks, because it is not an ingredient. Bacteria are cultured in a broth before they are dried into a powder, and a dairy broth leaves no dairy in the finished capsule. Deva says plainly that its strains are grown on a non-animal, non-dairy medium and that a product grown on dairy and purified afterwards is not vegan-suitable by the Vegan Society’s standard. That standard does cover it: manufacture and development of the product and its ingredients must not have involved any animal product, by-product or derivative. None of the other 7 makers says anything about the medium on the pages we read. We are not saying they use dairy; we are saying they do not say.

The third is the allergen line, which is about safety rather than veganism. Culturelle, NOW and Future Kind all say no dairy ingredients and all three disclose a facility that handles milk. Deva’s free-from line covers dairy and egg; Seed says formulated without dairy and dairy-tested.

The products, one by one

Deva Vegan Probiotic with Prebiotics & Postbiotics

Deva is the strict choice, because its page is the only one here that answers all three questions: cellulose capsule, strains grown on a non-dairy medium, Vegan Society registration. The label lists 2 billion CFU from 3 spore-forming Bacillus strains, coagulans, subtilis DE111 and clausii, with 100 mg of fructooligosaccharides as the prebiotic, in a 90-capsule bottle at 1 a day; other ingredients are the cellulose capsule, rice flour, vegetable magnesium stearate and silica. The number to notice is 2 billion. Every other product in the table that states a count is at least 10 billion, so if you have been told to look for a high count, this is not it; Deva’s pitch is the strain type and the manufacturing standard, not the CFU. Do not buy it if the CFU figure is the thing you are shopping on. The page we read did not show a price.

NOW Probiotic-10 25 Billion

The value pick, and the clearest label. NOW prints “Vegan / Vegetarian” and “Made w/o Dairy”, names a hypromellose capsule, lists all 10 strains with their strain codes, and says the product is formulated to deliver 25 billion CFU through the Best By date. The 30-capsule bottle was $14.99 on sale against a $19.99 list price in October 2026, with 50, 60 and 100 counts above it. The allergen line says not manufactured with milk, egg or the other major allergens, in a facility that processes them. One strain on the list is Streptococcus thermophilus, a yogurt culture by trade; its presence says nothing about what it was grown on, and NOW does not say. If the medium question matters to you, this is a vegan label without a vegan registration.

Ora Organic Trust Your Gut Probiotic + Prebiotic Daily Essential

Ora is the one that names pullulan, a capsule made by fermentation, and tags the product vegan, dairy-free, soy-free and gluten-free in its own store. The dose is 16 billion CFU from 6 Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains plus organic prebiotics, 2 capsules a day, made in California in a cGMP facility, at $39.99 a bottle. That is 2 capsules for 16 billion where NOW gives 25 billion in 1, so the price per CFU is the thing to weigh. Buy it for the capsule and the tag; do not buy it if you want the fewest pills.

Future Kind Vegan Probiotics (30 Billion CFUs)

A vegan company first and a probiotic second. Future Kind says it is a 100% vegan brand that uses no animal products in its ingredients, and the capsule is 1 a day, 30 to a bottle, at $29. The strain it names is DE111 Bacillus subtilis, at about 5 billion of the 30. Two lines further down are the ones to read. The 30 billion “refers to the bacterial population at the time of manufacturing”, which is the opposite of NOW’s through-the-date guarantee, and the capsules are made in a shared facility that handles milk, soy, wheat, egg, peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish. Future Kind also says you can refrigerate the capsules to keep them potent longer, which is the maker telling you the number on the front is a starting point.

Culturelle Digestive Daily Probiotic Capsules

Culturelle is what the pharmacy shelf offers, and it is vegan by the maker’s own answer. It carries a “Vegan” badge, says in its FAQ that vegans can take it, uses a vegetarian capsule and gives 10 billion CFU of a single strain, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, 1 a day, no refrigeration, at $17.99. The dairy-free claim has a footnote: no dairy-derived ingredients, made in a facility that also handles dairy. Culturelle makes a point of its count being lower than many competitors’ on purpose, so if you came here to buy the biggest number, this is the one that argues with you from the box.

Seed DS-01 Daily Synbiotic

Seed is the expensive one, with the most strains and the least said about veganism. It lists 24 strains across 4 blends whose counts add up to 53.6 billion AFU (active fluorescent units, Seed’s measure, not CFU; the total is our addition of the 4 figures on the page), in a 2-part capsule with a prebiotic outer shell and a probiotic inner one, 2 a day, $49.99 for 30 days. It is formulated without gluten, soy and dairy and tested for allergens, pesticides and contaminants. The product page we read does not use the word vegan and does not name the capsule material. That is not an accusation; it is a gap, and at $49.99 you are entitled to ask the maker to close it before you order.

Garden of Life Dr. Formulated Probiotics Once Daily

Vegetarian, not vegan, by its own badges. The page shows Non-GMO Project Verified, NSF gluten-free, Vegetarian, Dairy Free and Soy Free marks, 30 billion CFU from 14 strains, 1 refrigerated capsule a day, $27.99 for 30, and it was out of stock when we read it. There is no vegan claim, no capsule material and no ingredient list in the page text. The dairy-free mark is not a vegan mark; buy it as a vegetarian probiotic or not at all.

Align 24/7 Digestive Support

On the list so you can walk past it. Align’s page says gluten free, vegetarian and no refrigeration required, and names its single strain, Bifidobacterium 35624. Nowhere on the page is the word vegan, and the ingredient list is an image we could not read. When a maker writes vegetarian and not vegan, take it at its word. Read the Supplement Facts panel on the box in the store before this one goes in the basket.

The number on the front

Every box leads with a CFU figure, and the figure is less fixed than it looks. The NIH fact sheet says the Supplement Facts label is only required to list the total weight of the microorganisms; manufacturers “may voluntarily list the CFU” alongside it. So the billions are a courtesy, and the makers here count them at different moments. NOW guarantees 25 billion through the Best By date. Future Kind counts its 30 billion at the time of manufacturing. Seed uses AFU instead of CFU. Two bottles with the same number on the front are not promising the same thing on the day you swallow one.

The NIH page also says the effects of probiotics can be specific to particular strains, which is the case for reading the strain list rather than the count. NOW prints strain codes for all 10; Culturelle and Align each name their single strain; Deva names its 3. Ora and Garden of Life give genus-level descriptions and a strain count on the pages we read.

What we judged on, and what we did not

We judged four things, all readable on the maker’s page: whether the maker says vegan rather than vegetarian or dairy-free; whether the capsule material is named and plant-derived; whether anything is said about the growth medium; and whether the CFU claim says when it is measured. Price went in the table, dated, because every one of these is sold on subscription with a different number next week.

We did not judge whether you need a probiotic. The NIH fact sheet says there are currently no formal recommendations for or against the use of probiotics in healthy people, and that probiotics have not been through the FDA’s premarket process for medical uses. This page compares labels. If you are taking one for a medical reason, the strain and the dose are a conversation with your doctor or a registered dietitian, not with a roundup.

Buying it

Buy the bottle whose maker answers the question you actually have. If the question is “is this vegan to the Vegan Society’s standard”, Deva is the only one here that says yes in those terms. If it is “is this a vegan label at a pharmacy price”, NOW and Culturelle both print it. If it is “which bottle will still hold its number in month 3”, NOW is the only one that promises that on its page. Check the storage line before you choose where it lives: Garden of Life’s is a refrigerated product, Culturelle and Align say no refrigeration, and Future Kind says refrigeration helps.

The other supplement most vegans buy without reading the back is B12, and the form on the label matters there too; our roundup of vegan B12 supplements is the same exercise for that bottle.