The inhibition potentials of products and substrate on the growth of Clostridium butyricum and Klebsiella pneumoniae in the glycerol fermentation are examined from experimental data and with a mathematical model. Whereas the inhibition potential of externally added and self-produced 1,3-propanediol is essentially the same, butyric acid produced by the culture is more toxic than that externally added. The same seems to apply for acetic acid. The inhibitory effect of butyric acid is due to the total concentration instead of its undissociated form. For acetic acid, it cannot be distinguished between the total concentration and the undissociated form. The inhibition effects of products and substrate in the glycerol fermentation are irrespective of the strains, and, therefore, the same growth model can be used. The maximum product concentrations tolerated (critical concentrations C*(pi)) are 0.35 g/L for undissociated acetic acid, 10.1 g/L for total butyric acid, 16.6 g/L for ethanol, 71.4 g/L for 1,3-propanediol, and 187.6 g/L for glycerol, which are applicable to C. butyricum and K. pneumoniae grown under a variety of conditions. For 55 steady-states, which were obtained from different types of continuous cultures over a pH range of 5.3-8.5 and under both substrate limitation and substrate excess, the proposed growth model fits the experimental data with an average deviation of 17.0%. The deviation of model description from experimental values reduces to 11.4% if only the steady-states with excessive substrate are considered.