Best Glucose Monitors: 6 Pharmacist-Ranked Brands for 2025 | U.S. News (2025)

OTC Blood Glucose Monitors

If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, or are on the cusp of the condition, a blood glucose monitor can help track your health. There are many over-the-counter blood glucose monitors available to check your blood sugar levels, and it’s important to understand the components and find a product that suits your needs.

All OTC blood glucose monitors require test strips, lancets and a control solution — a liquid containing a standard amount of glucose. This liquid is used to check the accuracy of your monitor. It sometimes comes packaged with the monitor, but you may have to buy it separately. Lancets are used to prick your fingertip for a blood sample, and a drop of your blood goes on a test strip that’s inserted into the meter. You need lancets and test strips compatible with your specific meter because these supplies are typically not interchangeable. In some cases, you can find generic versions of these supplies, but you need to make sure they work with your device. If you’re shopping in a store, you can ask the pharmacist for help checking compatibility.

Your insurance plan may cover OTC blood glucose monitors and supplies. Before purchasing anything out of pocket, it’s a good idea to check your plan to see if it covers certain brands of monitors, test strips and lancets. Consider the copay or out-of-pocket cost of lancets and test strips for your monitor, as these will be ongoing costs. It’s similar to a printer that you need to keep stocked with paper and ink.

If you suddenly realize your test strips expired, you might be tempted to use them anyway, but this isn’t a good idea. Control solutions, test strips and lancets all come with an expiration date. Using them beyond the expiration date means you may have inaccurate blood glucose readings, which could endanger your health. The Food and Drug Administration also advises against buying testing supplies secondhand. Test strips need to be stored properly to give accurate readings. If you buy them secondhand, you won’t know if they were left in a hot car or tampered with, for instance.

As a pharmacist, I always recommend getting a monitor with a large display that's easy to read. Depending on your preferences, you may want to consider a monitor with alternative site testing capabilities so you can use blood from other parts of the body besides the fingertip. Other factors to consider when buying an OTC blood glucose monitor include:

The table below lists brands and recommended models of some OTC blood glucose monitors. Note that prices are accurate as of December 2023.

Symptoms of High or Low Blood Glucose

Even if you don’t have diabetes, you can check your blood sugar to see how your diet and exercise habits affect it. In most cases, dietitians agree that this is not necessary unless your doctor has recommended it. Symptoms of low blood sugar can include:

Blood glucose is measured in milligrams of glucose per deciliter (which is about 6 tablespoons) of blood. Generally, a blood glucose reading of 70 mg/dl or lower is considered too low. Repeated readings of 100 to 125 mg/dl may indicate prediabetes, while those over 126 mg/dl likely mean that you have diabetes. Symptoms of high blood sugar can include thirstiness and frequent urination. If you experience any symptoms of high or low blood sugar, it’s best to contact your health care provider.

Treating Kids with High or Low Blood Glucose

Young children may need help testing their blood sugar. You can meet with a diabetes self-management support person who will teach you and your child about blood glucose monitoring and how to treat high or low results. As your child gets older, he or she may want to take on more responsibility with blood sugar testing. Note that hormonal changes and social pressure during puberty can make blood sugar management challenging.

When experiencing symptoms of low blood sugar, children and teens with type 1 diabetes should check their glucose levels at least four times, and up to 10 times, per day. This includes before all meals and at bedtime. Children and adolescents should also check their glucose levels:

Precautions for OTC Blood Glucose Monitors

In most cases, OTC blood glucose monitors are an effective tool for checking blood glucose. To ensure your monitor and test strips are accurate, you can use a control solution. Compare the meter’s result using the control solution – rather than blood on a test strip – to the range provided by the manufacturer. If the doctor checks your blood glucose in their office, you can also compare their results to your monitor. Better yet, you can check your level using your meter at the same time your blood is taken at the lab. According to the Mayo Clinic, a blood glucose monitor is considered accurate if its result is within 15% of the lab result.

In some cases, your doctor may recommend a continuous glucose monitor. This type of monitor is placed under your skin and continuously monitors your blood glucose. It alerts you if you need to take action to treat changes in your blood sugar. These devices are currently recommended for anyone with type 1 or type 2 diabetes who uses insulin and is not meeting their blood sugar goals. If you have questions about continuous glucose monitoring, talk with your health care provider to learn more.

What Are Blood Glucose Problems?

There are many causes of blood glucose problems. Glucose intolerance includes prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. If you have glucose intolerance, your pancreas makes insulin but can’t use it properly. A combination of genetic factors and lifestyle can cause the condition.

Prediabetes

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 98 million American adults live with prediabetes. With prediabetes, your blood glucose is higher than normal but not high enough to be considered diabetes. Prediabetes can often be reversed through diet and exercise. Prediabetes and type 2 diabetes rates are increasing among younger individuals, but new treatments are being developed to target metabolism and prevent or reverse these problems.

Type 1 diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, typically diagnosed early in life, in which your body’s immune cells mistakenly attack the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. The immune cells essentially consider the insulin-producing cells as something foreign that should be removed from the body. The pancreas is then unable to produce insulin, a hormone necessary for blood glucose control.

Keeping your blood sugar in a healthy range prevents serious complications, such as heart disease, kidney and nerve damage, and vision problems. Checking your blood glucose level at home helps you and your doctor determine how food, medications, activity and illness affect your diabetes.

When to See a Doctor About Your Blood Glucose

If you don’t have diabetes but are experiencing symptoms of high or low blood sugar, talk with your health care provider about getting tested for diabetes. If you check your blood glucose at home, you can share the results with your doctor.

If you have diabetes, your doctor will share a plan for you to handle high and low blood glucose readings. Ask your doctor what blood glucose range is suitable for you. For example, if your blood glucose is too low (below 70 mg/dl), your doctor may tell you to use the 15-15 rule . This means you’ll consume 15 grams of carbohydrate to raise your blood glucose, and check it 15 minutes later. You can repeat this up to three times. If you still can’t get your blood glucose up after three rounds, you should seek medical care.

Examples of snacks with 15 grams of carbs include:

Over time, high blood glucose can cause problems that require medical care. Your doctor will recommend an appropriate blood glucose range based on your age, gender and activity level. If you check your blood glucose and it’s above the recommended number, you may need to take some steps to correct it. For example, a very high blood glucose reading of more than 240 mg/dl increases your risk of medical emergencies, such as diabetic ketoacidosis or diabetic coma. Symptoms to watch out for include fruity-smelling breath, nausea, vomiting, dry mouth and shortness of breath.

The Best OTC Medicine & Health Products are based on the reviews of nearly 500 independent pharmacists and dermatologists.

U.S. News partnered with The Harris Poll, a global market research and consulting firm with more than 65 years of experience conducting surveys. For the 2025 rankings, The Harris Poll randomly assigned 133 over-the-counter categories of health or personal care products to 357 pharmacists and 134 dermatologists who practice in the U.S. and asked them to rank their top three brands for each category based on what products they would most recommend to consumers.

Independence and transparency

Across the 133 categories that were evaluated, each category included between five and 10 products representing their respective brands that could be ranked. More than 1,100 products were included in the survey. The products included in each category were selected to represent their respective brands based on input by several independent pharmacists and dermatologists on our

. The list of products were finalized by the health editorial team to ensure all products can be purchased without a prescription and are readily available at most pharmacies or pharmacy sections of grocery stores in the U.S.

We independently evaluate the products we recommend. Brands do not pay to be included or ranked in our survey. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. The dermatologists and pharmacists who participated in the survey were paid a small honorarium by The Harris Poll for their time.

OTC category winners

Pharmacists and dermatologists selected their top three brands from representative products in each OTC category assigned to them. At least 112 dermatologists evaluated each skincare-related category and at least 108 pharmacists evaluated each of the other categories. For each evaluation, the top-ranked brand received 5 points, the second-place brand was awarded 3 points and the third-place brand earned 1 point. All unranked brands were given 0 points. Points were averaged for each brand. The results were then rescaled so the winner in each category scored 100 points, and the scores for other brands were expressed as percentages of the top score. Brands were then ranked according to their rescaled scores. Scores were rounded to the nearest whole number.

Category winners and brands that scored within the margin of error of the category winner and achieved a score of 80 or higher were given a Gold Badge in that category. The results: 196 brands received a Gold Badge. In total, 849 products are displayed. Brands that received a score of less than 10 were not included in the final display list. See our full methodology here.