8 Prebiotic Soda Brands, Ranked Worst To Best

Tons of prebiotic soda brands have hit the market in recent years, with Olipop and Poppi leading the way since 2018. This segment is expected to continue to grow as consumers, particularly younger generations, are focused on wellness and nutrition. These sodas boast lower sugar levels than traditional colas and the like, and are made with natural ingredients and, of course, prebiotics. So, what exactly are prebiotic sodas? The ingredients in these drinks feed the good bacteria in your gut, known as probiotics, which brings multiple benefits like balanced blood sugar levels, reduced risk of certain cancers, and better functioning digestive and immune systems. While prebiotics are naturally present in some high-fiber foods, like bananas, potatoes, and wheat breads, prebiotic sodas can be a good way to increase your intake in addition to diet. 

I was a lover of traditional sodas for most of my life, but gave them up several years ago for health reasons. I've been curious to try these alternatives, but didn't know where to start. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to put my sommelier skills to use with these beverages. I tried several flavors of eight popular brands and ranked them against each other.

Keep in mind, it's a good idea to consult a doctor or nutritionist before increasing your prebiotic intake. People with certain digestive issues may have an adverse reaction. For everyone, it's always best to add new supplements slowly into your routine — adding too much too quickly doesn't give your body time to adjust.

Even though Popwell's prebiotic sodas ended up with the lowest score overall, I do have to give the brand props. These sodas have the lowest amount of sugar, with only one gram per can. They also include 40 grams of caffeine, which is a big plus for me, as I'm always on the lookout for coffee alternatives to keep my energy up. Along with prebiotics, Popwell's sodas are also packed with a good percentage of your recommended daily intakes of vitamin C and several B vitamins, as well as zinc, and have only 35 calories. If you're looking for the prebiotic soda brand with the lowest sugar and a slew of nutrients, Popwell is definitely the first one you should consider.

That said, I found the flavors to be all over the place. The cherry citrus and lemon lime both smelled and tasted like Jolly Rancher candy, and had a thick texture and a lingering aftertaste that was less than pleasant. The blackberry lime was more successful, but I got a medicinal tinge on my tongue after a few sips and couldn't shake the cough syrup comparison. The orange cream and cream soda, however, were both absolutely delicious. Something about the addition of creaminess as an element in these sodas creates the perfect balance. I liked the tropical mango, too, which had an enveloping aroma and tasted like an island vacation. I'll happily stick with those three flavors, but the other half were misses for me.

TV viewers may remember Poppi from the show Shark Tank, which offered the company a funding deal in 2018. Since those early days, the soda brand has grown massively, and is now a product of PepsiCo. Because of its staggering success and popularity, I assumed it would probably be one of my top picks. However, like Popwell, what held Poppi back was inconsistency, as I once again found half of the six flavors I tried to be delightful, and the other half lackluster at best.

Poppi's sodas max out at 5 grams of sugar and 35 calories per can, and in addition to prebiotics, they also contain apple cider vinegar, a health booster made popular by a Hollywood wellness guru. As far as varieties, I found the cherry limeade, strawberry lemon, and ginger lime to be underwhelming. The citrus element of each tasted too much like sweet candy and lacked tartness, which would have balanced the flavors better. The other three cans I tried were very enjoyable. Poppi's wild berry soda was juicy and bright, and the orange cream had a vibrant fresh-squeezed flavor. Perhaps the most surprising to me was the raspberry rose, which had an inviting yet subtle floral aroma and a zesty, tart raspberry flavor. Once again, the weight of the three misses brought down the brand's overall score in my book.

Despite this placement in the lower half of the pack, I really enjoyed Simply Pop's prebiotic sodas. All three of the flavors I sampled — pineapple mango, citrus punch, and fruit punch — were juicy, refreshing, vibrant, and tasty. The odd thing is, they're 30% juice, so they didn't really strike me as sodas. Now, that said, I'm not mad about it — I just feel that in a soda competition, there are other more soda-like beverages that deserve the higher spots. The official website actually says, "So juicy, you might just forget it's soda!" That was exactly what I experienced. These drinks come across more like juice with a splash of bubbly water than full-on sodas. Perhaps I'm just being a stickler, but it gave me pause. 

One thing I really appreciate about Simply Pop is that it's sweetened with monk fruit, which I find to be much more neutral and agreeable in flavor than stevia, though I understand that's a personal preference. The high juice content does make Simply Pop fairly high in sugar compared to most of these other sodas. However, it's still far lower than a traditional can of pop, and the 10 grams of sugar are naturally derived from the fruit juice — not added. Whatever category Simply Pop falls under, I look forward to drinking it on a hot sunny day.

Evolution Fresh is a brand best known for its juices, and now it's expanded into the soda sector with these prebiotic offerings. As you might imagine from an organic juice company, these contain real fruit and no added sugar, and just 5 grams of natural sugar. The rest of the sweetness comes from stevia, as is the case with many of the brands on this list. Stevia is a popular alternative sweetener that's derived from the leaves of a plant of the same name, prized for its low calories and lack of carbs. Personally, I don't always enjoy stevia when it's added to beverages, as it can sometimes leave my palate with an unpleasant filmy aftertaste. But, in this case, it's integrated so well that I barely noticed its presence.

While the two flavors of Evolution Fresh's prebiotic sodas didn't blow me away, I found them pretty darn tasty and am intrigued enough that I'd like to try more. I'm a sucker for tropical flavors, which both of them were chock-full of. Both the tropical mango and the pineapple dragon fruit varieties had beautiful aromatics and fresh, juicy flavors. I'd definitely drink either one of these again — they only reside at this point in the rankings because there were others I'd probably reach for first. 

I must admit, I've always been a Coca-Cola girl. I'm not a Pepsi hater, though, and some of my family members actually prefer it, so I've had my fair share of it over the years. I wasn't sure what to expect from Pepsi's prebiotic sodas — one classic cola and the other cherry vanilla-flavored — and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked them both. Of all the colas I tasted, these Pepsi sodas were the closest to the real thing. I even roped some of my Pepsi-loving relatives into the mix, and they confirmed that it tastes just like the actual flavor of Pepsi, with its classic vanilla and caramel profile plus a bright citrus kick.

That's impressive, considering the difference in nutrition and ingredients. With 5 grams of sugar and 30 calories, the prebiotic colas offer a much lighter option than regular Pepsi, which contains 41 grams and 150 calories per can. Also, prebiotic Pepsi is sweetened with cane sugar and stevia rather than high-fructose corn syrup. The regular prebiotic Pepsi is perfect for anyone hankering for a real cola, and the cherry vanilla version brought me right back to being a kid at the movies. The fact that Pepsi also owns Poppi is an interesting little fact — it seems it's doubling down on the prebiotic trend. If given the choice, I'll opt for Pepsi over Poppi.

Wildwonder is another soda brand that appeared on Shark Tank and landed an investment deal. In the years that have passed since, the company appears to be doing quite well, having launched multiple new flavors and made inroads with major retailers like Whole Foods and Target. Founder Rosa Li isn't just in the business of improving people's gut health — she also donates 5% of the company's profits to organizations that help communities in need. Of course, it's great to support such honorable intentions, but I had to wonder, how are the actual sodas?

Like many of these brands, there are hits and misses with the flavors, but they're mostly excellent. Only one threw me off completely: guava rose, which smelled divine, but made me feel like I was drinking perfume. I struggled to find the guava underneath the floral intensity. The cherry lemonade was fine, if a little too candied for my taste. The other four, however — strawberry passion, pineapple paradise, raspberry lychee, and mango gold — were straight-up delicious. In addition to the starring flavors, each soda has a surprising ingredient that adds complexity, almost like a fine wine or craft cocktail. Pineapple paradise includes Sichuan peppercorn, which adds a lively, floral, and piquant dimension to its musky tropical notes. The mango gold soda includes turmeric, which grounds and balances the fruitiness. My favorite, though, was the raspberry lychee with honeysuckle, which smelled and tasted like a glass of gewurztraminer, one of my favorite white wines.

When I saw that Slice was making a comeback with alternative sodas, I started having flashbacks. I remember drinking Slice sodas when I was a kid decades ago, and thought they were long gone. Formerly a Pepsi-owned brand, it's now a part of Suja Life, known for its cold-pressed juices, and has been rebranded as a healthy soda option. Slice is serious about packing its rebooted sodas full of beneficial ingredients, boasting not just prebiotics, but also probiotics and postbiotics, and a maximum of 5 grams of sugar per can.

With such a wide variety of flavors, I didn't expect to like them all, but I couldn't find much fault with any of them. The classic lemon lime Slice, which I used to drink when MTV was brand new and neon legwarmers were all the rage, tasted surprisingly familiar, and was by far the best citrus soda I tried out of the entire lineup. Every flavor had more pros than cons, from the ocean-blue tropical pacific pop to the tart pomegranate shirley temple. The highlight of the group, though, was the apple, which had a remarkable crisp, crunchy, pure apple flavor. All of Slice's sodas are super bubbly, flavorful, and have the perfect amount of sweetness. It was a photo finish between this and my top choice, but when I matched Slice head-to-head with my number one pick, it fell just short when it came to fresh, real-fruit flavor.

From the first sip I had of Olipop's vintage cola to the last taste I took of strawberry vanilla, I never stopped nodding. Every variety of Olipop delivered exactly what you expected it to and then some. It was among the first alternative soda brands to hit the market, and it's easy to see why it stuck around. The proprietary blend of gut health ingredients known as Olismart includes seven types of fibers and roots, and while some of the flavors contain 10% or more juice, you never question whether or not you're drinking a soda.

While I didn't try every single one of their vast array of flavors, there wasn't a miss in the bunch that I did get my hands on. The vintage cola tasted like a classic cola, but with a little twist; cinnamon and vanilla played off one another to create a unique and delicious take on the classic drink that I'd never quite tasted before. When I tried the root beer, I got an instant craving for a float, and unlike many root beers I've tried, it had a lighter and less syrupy feel, but was still full of flavor. The tropical punch smelled like the fruit punch sodas I remembered, but on the palate, it had a natural juicy flavor that tasted like biting into a ripe piece of pineapple. While both leaned toward dessert levels of sweetness, the strawberry vanilla and cream soda were absolute perfection. Olipop's sodas are impressively satisfying, and I can't wait to try them all.

I searched online and physical grocery markets to come up with a more-or-less exhaustive list of all prebiotic soda brands available in the U.S. I reached out to each brand and received samples to taste from many of them; others I purchased myself. Whether or not the brand provided samples did not affect my assessment or ranking. I tasted a variety of flavors for each to get a wide range of their offerings. 

I gave each flavor a numerical ranking, and then took an average per brand. This resulted in the ranking order. In the case of a tie, I re-tasted those brands head to head and gave the winner an extra advantage. For each soda, I assessed flavor, sweetness level, texture, carbonation, quality of ingredients, and most importantly, how enthusiastic I'd be to drink it again. I also considered nutritional content, but I didn't give that factor as much weight as taste.