Optimum Nutrition is the second most searched creatine brand this site has measured, at about 18,000 US searches a month for the name and 14,000 more for its "micronized creatine". It is also the brand with the most formats: powder in five flavours, capsules, gummies, travel stick packs and a creatine-plus-vitamins blend. The ranking pages for it are, almost without exception, its own store, big retailers and lists of picks.
This page reads what Optimum Nutrition itself publishes — its labels, its store and its claims — against the certifiers' registers and the literature. It does not test the product and it does not rank it.
The label, format by format
The five creatine products on Optimum Nutrition's US store on 2026-09-27, with the label figures from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements' Dietary Supplement Label Database:
| Product | Creatine per serving | Serving | Other ingredients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micronized Creatine Powder, unflavoured | 5 g creatine monohydrate | 1 rounded teaspoon (5 g) | None (label 319465, 2024) |
| Micronized Creatine Powder, flavoured (Mango Orange, Strawberry, Watermelon Lime, Blueberry Lemonade) | 5 g | 6 g | Natural and artificial flavours, citric acid and further ingredients; 1 g carbohydrate, 5 calories (label 332126, Blueberry Lemonade, 2025) |
| Micronized Creatine Capsules | 2.5 g | 2 capsules | Gelatin, magnesium stearate (label 276660, 2022) |
| Creatine Monohydrate Gummies | 5 g | 3 gummies | Not listed in the store description |
| Micronized Creatine Stick Packs | 5 g | 1 stick | Unflavoured and three flavours |
| Creatine [+] | 5 g | one serving | Vitamins B, C and D; 370 mg electrolyte blend (store description) |
Three things stand out from the labels themselves.
- The dose is the same everywhere: 5 g of creatine monohydrate, about 4.4 g of creatine once the water of crystallisation is subtracted — the amount the trials used for maintenance (how much creatine should I take). The capsules reach it at four a day: the label directs two capsules with a meal, twice a day.
- The loading phase has gone from the label. The 2016 powder label (label 57442) set out "creatine loading": a rounded teaspoon with three meals and at bedtime for 4–5 days. The 2024 label gives one serving and no loading instruction. The trial record supports both routes reaching the same store — faster with loading, in about 28 days without (creatine loading phase).
- The capsules are not vegetarian. The shell is gelatin. The powder has nothing in it but creatine, which is made synthetically; the capsule question is covered on creatine for vegetarians and vegans.
What a gram costs
Optimum Nutrition's own US store, list prices on 2026-09-27, per gram of creatine monohydrate:
| Product and size | Price | Creatine monohydrate | Per gram |
|---|---|---|---|
| Powder, unflavoured, 60 servings | $20.49 | 300 g | $0.068 |
| Powder, unflavoured, 120 servings | $31.99 | 600 g | $0.053 |
| Powder, unflavoured, 240 servings | $53.99 | 1,200 g | $0.045 |
| Powder, flavoured, 60 servings | $20.49 | 300 g | $0.068 |
| Capsules, 100 / 200 / 300 | $22.99 / $39.99 / $57.49 | 125 / 250 / 375 g | $0.184 / $0.160 / $0.153 |
| Stick packs, 14 / 24 | $16.99 / $24.99 | 70 / 120 g | $0.243 / $0.208 |
| Gummies, 35 servings (105) | $39.99 | 175 g | $0.229 |
| Gummies, 25 servings (75, Mixed Berry) | $34.49 | 125 g | $0.276 |
| Creatine [+], 40 / 80 servings | $16.99 / $28.49 | — (combination) | — |
The spread inside one brand is about six-fold, from $0.045 a gram in the largest unflavoured tub to $0.28 in the smaller gummy bag. The format, not the brand, decides most of the price. Creatine [+] is left without a per-gram figure because its price also pays for vitamins and electrolytes. Format trade-offs are on creatine pills vs powder and types of creatine.
Who checked it
NSF Certified for Sport: not listed. NSF's public register, retrieved in full on 2026-09-27 (2,531 listings), carries two Optimum Nutrition products — both flavours of Gold Standard 100% Whey — and no Optimum Nutrition creatine.
Informed-Choice: the seal on the label. The 2024 unflavoured label and the 2025 Blueberry Lemonade label carry the Informed-Choice seal ("We test — you trust. Regularly tested for banned substances"). Informed-Choice is run by LGC, a laboratory company, and tests for banned substances. Its product register sits behind a bot check and was not checked for this page, so the seal is reported as a label statement, not as a verified listing. NSF and Informed-Choice are separate programmes with separate registers; one does not stand for the other.
The brand's own claim. The store says its products go through "250+ rigorous tests". No certificate of analysis or lot-level purity figure is published on the product pages read for this page.
What is printed, and what is not
- Where the creatine comes from. The 2016 label said "Manufactured in the USA". The 2024 label says "Packaged in the USA — this product contains ingredients of international and domestic origin". Neither names the raw-material manufacturer or country. A brand using a trademarked source can say so on its label (Creapure explained); this one names none.
- "Micronized". The word is in the product name, but no particle size is given. Grinding changes how powder disperses, not how much creatine a gram holds (micronized creatine).
- Who is behind it. The label names the distributor: Glanbia Performance Nutrition (NA), Downers Grove, Illinois.
- Age and pregnancy. The powder labels state the product is "Not for use by those under the age of 18 or women who are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or nursing." The evidence on those groups is on creatine for teens and creatine and pregnancy.
The store's own words, checked
- "5mg serving size". The gummies page says "it only requires 3 gummies to get the full, 5mg serving size" — for a product it also describes as "5g of creatine" a serving. Five milligrams would be one-thousandth of the stated dose. It reads as a typo, but it is on the live page. Gummies as a format have a documented problem with hitting their label claim (creatine gummies).
- "America's #1 Creatine Brand". Footnoted on the gummies page to Nielsen, SPINs and Stackline sales data for the 52 weeks ending late December 2024, plus Costco data. It is a statement about sales, not content.
- "Accelerating recovery", "enhance muscle strength and growth". The page marks these with footnote symbols. What creatine does and does not do for strength and recovery is on creatine benefits.
The checkable summary
- Label: 5 g creatine monohydrate per serving in every format; the unflavoured powder has no other ingredient.
- Cost on the brand's store, 2026-09-27: $0.045–$0.068 a gram for unflavoured powder, up to $0.28 for gummies.
- Certification: Informed-Choice seal on the label (register not checked); no NSF Certified for Sport listing for any ON creatine.
- Not stated: raw-material source, particle size, lot purity.
- On the live page: "5mg serving size" for a 5 g gummy serving.
- Not on this page: a ranking, a verdict or any claim that we have bought, used or tested the product.
Limits of this page
Everything here is what Optimum Nutrition, NSF and the label database publish, read on one date; nothing has been laboratory-verified for this page. The label database can lag the current packaging, and store prices change. The Informed-Choice register was not checked. Search volumes are DataForSEO's clickstream-adjusted US estimates for 2026-09-23.
Sources and dates
- Optimum Nutrition US store product feed (
optimumnutrition.com/en-us/products.json) — Micronized Creatine Powder, Micronized Creatine Capsules, Creatine Monohydrate Gummies, Micronized Creatine Stick Packs, Creatine [+]: prices, sizes and descriptions read 2026-09-27. - NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, Dietary Supplement Label Database: labels 319465 (powder, 2024), 332126 (Blueberry Lemonade, 2025), 276660 (capsules, 2022), 57442 (powder, 2016), read via API 2026-09-27.
- NSF Certified for Sport, certified products register, full listing retrieved 2026-09-27.
- PubChem molar masses for creatine (CID 586) and creatine monohydrate (CID 80116).