Ranked by sodium, the bottles that do the most rehydrating are the ones that look least like a lifestyle product. Pedialyte and Gatorlyte sit at the top of the shelf. The fashionable bottles with the athletes on the label — BodyArmor, Prime, coconut water — sit near the bottom, because what they are mostly delivering is potassium and, in two cases, sugar. And "electrolyte water" turns out, on its own label, to be water.
Here is the ready-to-drink category on one table, normalised to a litre so the bottle sizes stop hiding the numbers. Powders are a separate shelf and we have covered them already; this is the bottled aisle.
How we ranked them, and why sodium
Sodium is the mineral your body uses to decide whether to keep the water you just drank, and it is the one you lose most of when you sweat. Potassium, magnesium and calcium are real and useful and lost in far smaller amounts. So the fair way to rank the bottles is by sodium per litre.
Two more things matter, second and third. A little carbohydrate helps the sodium do its job: glucose and sodium cross the gut wall together and water follows them — the mechanism is in the electrolytes explainer, and the retention research that puts numbers on it is in the hangover-drink criteria. The benchmark is the World Health Organization's oral rehydration formula, about 1,725mg of sodium per litre with a matching dose of glucose; the best-drink article uses it as the yardstick, and nothing in the bottled aisle reaches it. The third thing is how much sugar came along. A few grams a litre runs the transporter. Sixty grams a litre is a sugared drink first and a mineral drink second.
Electrolyte drink: any beverage sold on the minerals it contains. There is no US rule we could find that sets a minimum for the term, which is why a bottle with 10mg of sodium and a bottle with 1,080mg can both carry it.
The table: nine bottles, per litre
Figures are from each company's own published panel or, where the company does not publish one in text, from the USDA branded-food database or a dated dietitian review. Per-litre numbers are ours, scaled from the label serving.
| drink | sodium per litre | potassium per litre | sugar per litre | what the bottle says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pedialyte Classic | 1,080mg (47 mmol/L) | 780mg | 13g | 390mg sodium, 280mg potassium, 5g sugar per 12 oz |
| Gatorlyte | ~830mg (36 mmol/L) | ~590mg | ~23g | 490mg sodium, 350mg potassium, 12g sugar per 20 oz |
| Electrolit | ~700mg (31 mmol/L) | ~790mg | ~51g | 250mg sodium, 280mg potassium, 18g sugar per 12 oz |
| Gatorade Thirst Quencher | ~450mg (20 mmol/L) | ~110mg | ~59g | 160mg sodium, 40mg potassium, 21g carbohydrate per 12 oz |
| Propel Electrolyte Water | ~450mg (20 mmol/L) | ~110mg | 0g | 160mg sodium, 40mg potassium, no sugar per 12 oz |
| Coconut water (Vita Coco) | ~150mg (7 mmol/L) | ~1,960mg | ~42g | 36mg sodium, 470mg potassium, 10g sugar per 8 oz |
| BodyArmor | ~55mg (2 mmol/L) | ~1,440mg | ~62g | 20mg sodium, 510mg potassium, 22g sugar per 12 oz |
| Prime Hydration | 20mg (1 mmol/L) | 1,400mg | 4g | 10mg sodium, 700mg potassium, 2g sugar per 16.9 oz |
| smartwater | 0mg | not declared | 0g | "electrolytes added for taste" |
Sources: Abbott's Pedialyte panel; Gatorade's Gatorlyte page and hydration portfolio sheet; Electrolit's label via H-E-B; USDA data for Vita Coco; BodyArmor's 12-ounce label via MyFoodDiary, consistent with a dietitian review, August 2024; USDA data for Prime; Coca-Cola's smartwater page. Flavours vary by a few milligrams; check your bottle.
The three tiers, and what each one is actually for
The rehydration tier: Pedialyte, Gatorlyte, Electrolit
Pedialyte Classic is the strongest sodium drink on this table, at 1,080mg a litre with 13g of sugar — close to half of the FDA's daily value for sodium in a single litre, with glucose at about the level the medical formula uses and sodium at roughly 60 per cent of it. It is sold as an oral rehydration solution and tastes like one; the two things go together.
Gatorlyte is Gatorade's answer to the same brief: 490mg of sodium in a 20-ounce bottle, with potassium, magnesium and calcium alongside and only 12g of sugar — about 830mg a litre, nearly twice the ordinary Gatorade formula. Electrolit, which by its own account began in Mexico in the 1950s as a response to a national health crisis, runs about 700mg of sodium a litre on dextrose, and is by some way the sweetest of the three at around 51g of sugar a litre — a full 21-ounce bottle carries roughly 31g.
The sports-drink tier: Gatorade and Propel
Ordinary Gatorade runs 160mg of sodium per 12 ounces, about 450mg a litre — a quarter of the oral rehydration standard. That is the design, not a flaw: sports drinks are meant to be sipped continuously by people who are sweating but not depleted. The ACSM position stand on fluid replacement suggests drinks taken during prolonged exercise might carry roughly 20 to 30 mEq/L of sodium — about 460 to 690mg a litre — with carbohydrate no higher than about 8 per cent, and Gatorade sits at the bottom edge of both on purpose.
What nobody at a desk needs is 34g of sugar in a 20-ounce bottle, two-thirds of the FDA's daily value for added sugars. Propel is the same electrolyte formula with the sugar removed — 160mg of sodium and 40mg of potassium per 12 ounces, essentially calorie-free — and for a desk or a short workout it is the more sensible version of the idea.
The potassium tier: BodyArmor, Prime and coconut water
The table is unkind to this tier, and it is the tier the marketing is built around.
BodyArmor's label reads 20mg of sodium and 510mg of potassium per 12 ounces; Prime Hydration's reads 10mg of sodium and 700mg of potassium per bottle. Both are built on coconut water, and in both the headline electrolyte figure is what you get when you add several hundred milligrams of potassium to a rounding error of sodium. Per litre, Prime carries about one-fiftieth of the sodium in Pedialyte. BodyArmor carries about one-twentieth, plus 62g of sugar a litre, more than ordinary Gatorade.
None of that makes potassium worthless. The NIH's adequate intake is 3,400mg a day for men and 2,600mg for women, most Americans fall short, and 700mg in a bottle is a real contribution to a diet. But the same fact sheet notes that only "a very small amount" of potassium is lost in sweat. You are not replacing what you lost; you are having a potassium supplement in a sports bottle, sweetened with sugar or, in Prime's case, sucralose and acesulfame potassium.
Coconut water is the honest version of this tier: roughly 150mg of sodium and nearly 2g of potassium a litre, no claim beyond being coconut water. The ratio is backwards for rehydration, as the hangover-drink ranking spells out, and it is a perfectly good drink.
Electrolyte water: read the small print
smartwater's own label lists sodium at 0mg and describes its minerals as "electrolytes added for taste." That is not a scandal — distilled water tastes flat and a trace of minerals fixes it — but it means the words "electrolyte water" tell you nothing about whether the bottle will rehydrate you. Propel calls itself an electrolyte water and carries 450mg of sodium a litre; smartwater calls itself one and carries none. The category name is doing no work. The panel is.
A bottle's real advantage is that it is chilled and on a shelf at midnight. Powders let you set the concentration to the day and run higher on sodium — the Liquid I.V. versus LMNT comparison shows how much higher.
Which bottle for which day
- An ordinary hour in the gym, or a hot afternoon at a desk. Water, or Propel if you want flavour. You have not lost enough for the sodium to matter.
- Two hours or more of real sweating. Gatorade is the classic answer; Gatorlyte is the better version if the day is hot or you are a salty sweater. Sodium losses vary enormously between people, and the long-day playbook shows how to estimate your own.
- A stomach bug, or a genuinely depleted morning. Pedialyte, because it is the closest thing on the shelf to the medical formula. If someone cannot keep fluids down, that is a clinician's problem, not a beverage aisle's.
- The morning after. Something from the rehydration tier, or a powder with real sodium, and then the rest of the morning matters more than the brand.
- Because you like the taste. BodyArmor, Prime or coconut water, understood as a flavoured drink with potassium in it — fine, as long as nobody is paying for rehydration they are not getting.
One caution for the strongest bottles: more is not better past the point of need. A litre of Pedialyte at a desk is a lot of sodium for someone who has not lost any.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best electrolyte drink? For rehydration, the one with the most sodium per litre and a little carbohydrate to carry it — on the bottled shelf, Pedialyte, then Gatorlyte, then Electrolit. For an ordinary workout, Gatorade or Propel is enough. The potassium-led bottles are pleasant drinks that do not rehydrate you much.
Is Prime a good electrolyte drink? Not for rehydration. Its label lists 10mg of sodium per bottle against 700mg of potassium, and sodium is the mineral that governs fluid retention. It is a low-calorie flavoured drink with a potassium supplement in it.
Is BodyArmor better than Gatorade? For hydration, no. BodyArmor has about an eighth of Gatorade's sodium and slightly more sugar per litre; its advantage is potassium, which you lose very little of in sweat. Gatorade is the better sports drink; BodyArmor is the better potassium drink.
Is electrolyte water actually hydrating? Depends which one. smartwater lists 0mg of sodium and adds its minerals "for taste," so it hydrates exactly as well as water. Propel carries 160mg of sodium per 12 ounces and behaves like a sugar-free sports drink.
Is Pedialyte better than Gatorade? For replacing real losses, yes — about 1,080mg of sodium a litre against about 450mg, with a fifth of the sugar. For sipping through a workout, Gatorade is designed for that and Pedialyte is not.
Do electrolyte drinks have too much sugar? Some do. Ordinary Gatorade carries about 34g in a 20-ounce bottle and BodyArmor about 29g in a 16-ounce one, a large share of the 50g daily value for added sugars. The rehydration-tier bottles use far less: enough glucose to run the sodium transporter, not enough to fuel a match.
Where Snake Oil fits
On the same table, one stick in 16 ounces of water is 370mg of sodium — about 780mg a litre — with 5g of dextrose. That puts it in the rehydration tier, between Gatorlyte and Electrolit, above every sports drink and far above the potassium bottles, at a sugar level closer to Pedialyte than to Gatorade. Plus 95mg of potassium, 30mg of magnesium, zinc, 200mg of vitamin C, vitamin E and the full B lineup.†
We are not the strongest sodium number on the shelf, and we say so. What no bottle on this table attempts is the rest of the stick: the glutamine-led amino acid blend, the vitamins, and 100mg of caffeine, which is why it is built for a specific moment — the end of a long night or a long day — rather than as an all-day sipper. The bottled aisle is where you buy sodium in water. This is where you buy the sodium and everything else the morning after asks for.
†These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Related reading: Best electrolyte powder: how to actually choose one · The best drink for a hangover · What are electrolytes?