We sell a creatine, so take the first section as evidence that the rest of this is written straight. Nearly every creatine on a New Zealand shelf is the same compound, and the differences that matter are smaller and more boring than the packaging suggests.
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Start with the uncomfortable part
Creatine monohydrate is a defined chemical compound. Whichever tub it comes in, the molecule that reaches your muscle is identical, and monohydrate is already close to fully absorbed, which leaves almost no room for one version to out-absorb another.
So when you read that a particular branded creatine absorbs better, works faster or builds more muscle than ordinary monohydrate, that is a marketing claim with nothing underneath it. We use a premium processed monohydrate ourselves and we are telling you the same thing about ours. The processing changes how it mixes and how it sits. It does not change how well it works.
That leaves a short, honest list of things that genuinely vary between two tubs. The rest of this article is that list, and the last section runs it against our own product.
One: the form, and why newer is not better here
Monohydrate is the form nearly every creatine study ever run was built on. The meta-analyses on muscle and strength, the reviews on memory, the long safety record of up to 30 grams a day for five years in healthy people: all monohydrate. That is the deepest evidence base any supplement ingredient has, and it belongs to the cheapest form on the shelf.
Newer forms exist and generally cost more. Their evidence bases are a fraction of the size. There may be a good one among them eventually, but right now choosing monohydrate is not settling for the budget option. It is choosing the one the research was actually done on. This is worth saying because it runs the opposite way to the advice we give on other ingredients. With magnesium, the form genuinely decides how much you absorb. With creatine it does not, and repeating the magnesium argument here would be us selling you something. If a tub is charging a premium for a different form, the question to ask is what you are getting in exchange for leaving the evidence behind.
Two: processing, and the grit problem
This is the difference most people can actually feel, and the one the industry undersells because it sounds unglamorous.
Raw creatine monohydrate is not very soluble. Left coarse, it sits as sediment in the bottom of the glass, tastes chalky, and can sit heavy in the stomach. Two processing steps change that. Water-washing is a purification step. Micronising reduces the particle size so the powder disperses properly in water instead of sinking.
Neither step improves the biochemistry, which is a distinction we hold right across the range. What they change is whether you finish the glass, and whether you are still taking it in week three. That matters more than it sounds, because creatine only works by filling a store over three to four weeks. A creatine you quietly stop taking on day nine delivers nothing at all, and grit is the single most common reason people stop.
Three: what else is in the scoop
An unflavoured creatine is close to all creatine. A flavoured one is not, and it should not pretend to be, because flavour, sweetener and an anti-caking agent all take up room. The honest way to present that is to show the whole scoop.
How to read this. Drawn to scale, so the dark section really is that small a share of the scoop. The habit worth building is to check both numbers on any tub, scoop weight and grams of creatine per scoop. A label that gives you only one of them has told you something too.
What you are looking for in that second column is a short list you can read. A flavoured creatine with six named other ingredients is doing a specific job. A creatine with a long list, or a proprietary blend that tells you the names but not the amounts, is making itself harder to judge, and that is usually deliberate.
Blends are the other version of this. A creatine with small amounts of four or five other actives added often delivers too little of each to match what any research used, and it locks you into someone else's combination. A single ingredient at a full dose is easier to judge and easier to build around.
Four: sweeteners, and what you are actually paying for
If a creatine is flavoured, something is sweetening it, and this is where cost pressure shows up most reliably. Artificial sweeteners are considerably cheaper than natural ones. Sucralose costs a fraction of what stevia does, and at the volumes a manufacturer buys, that difference is real money.
This is a preference argument, not a safety one, and we are not going to dress it up as one. Approved artificial sweeteners are approved. What we would say is that a person buying a supplement to be healthier usually wants the ingredient list to match that intention, and that a brand willing to take the cheaper option here is often taking it elsewhere too.
Ours is sweetened with monk fruit extract and stevia leaf extract, flavoured naturally, and coloured with beta carotene. It is sugar free and vegan. It costs us more than the alternative and that is the entire reason it is worth mentioning.
Five: the arithmetic nobody does
Price per tub is close to meaningless, because tubs are not the same size and scoops are not the same strength. The number that compares two products is cost per gram of creatine, and it takes about ninety seconds to work out.
Three figures off the label: grams of creatine per serving, servings per container, and the price. Multiply the first two to get total creatine in the tub, then divide the price by that.
| Reading the label | Tub A | Tub B |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $40 |
$70 |
| Creatine per serving | 3g |
5g |
| Servings per container | 50 |
60 |
| Total creatine in the tub | 150g |
300g |
| Cost per gram of creatine | 26.7c |
23.3c |
| Servings at a full 5g dose | 30 |
60 |
These are round illustrative numbers, not real products. The point is the shape of the result: the cheaper tub is the more expensive creatine, and it runs out in half the time once you take a full serving. Under-dosing per scoop is the most common way a low price on the shelf stops being a low price in practice.
The second habit worth building is to compare at the dose you will actually take rather than the one on the label. If you are a larger adult and your bodyweight-adjusted serving is 8g, a 3g scoop is not a serving, it is a third of one.
Six: manufacturing and testing
Two things are worth checking and the rest is decoration.
Is it made in a GMP-certified facility? Good Manufacturing Practice certification covers how a facility runs: cleanliness, documentation, batch control, whether what the label says is what the tub contains.
Is every batch third-party tested, or just some of them? This is the question that separates the two, and it is worth pressing on, because vague wording here is usually doing a job. Testing occasionally is not the same as testing each batch, and a brand that cannot tell you the frequency has told you the answer.
What is not worth much: "premium", "pure", "lab tested" without a scope, and any implication that a regulator has endorsed a supplement. No regulator certifies or approves dietary supplements anywhere, so a brand hinting otherwise is either confused or counting on you being.
Ours is made in a GMP-certified facility and third-party tested every batch. We hold a certificate of analysis for each one.
What does not matter
A shorter list, and a useful one, because most of what is marketed as a differentiator is not.
Capsules versus powder. A convenience decision, nothing more, except that getting 5g from capsules usually means swallowing several of them.
Timing and "rapid uptake" formulations. Creatine works by filling a store over weeks. Nothing about the speed of a single dose changes where you end up.
Loading systems sold as a product. Loading is a schedule, not an ingredient. You can do it with any monohydrate.
Tub size, as a signal of value. See the arithmetic above.
Country of origin, as a proxy for quality. Raw materials in this category move globally and are of mixed origin almost everywhere, so a flag on a tub tells you about marketing rather than about the powder. The facility's certification and the testing frequency are the things that actually carry information, which is why they are the two we publish and the origin is not.
Running our own list against us
A buyer's guide written by a seller is worth nothing unless it scores the seller too, so here is ours against the six criteria, including where we come out badly.
Form. Monohydrate, which is the proven one. Pass, and it is also the easy call.
Processing. Water-washed and micronised OptiCreatine™. Pass, with the caveat we led the article with: it changes the drinking experience, not the result.
What else is in the scoop. Six other ingredients, all named above, adding 0.8g to a 5.8g scoop. An unflavoured competitor will beat us on that number, and if a bare scoop stirred into a protein shake is what you want, they should.
Sweeteners. Monk fruit and stevia, which cost us more. Pass on our own criteria, and openly a preference rather than a health claim.
The arithmetic. 5g per serve, 60 serves, 300g of creatine per tub. We are not the cheapest per gram in New Zealand and we do not try to be. A bulk unflavoured monohydrate will beat us on cost per gram, and that is the honest trade: you pay more here for processing and a flavour you will keep drinking.
Testing. GMP-certified facility, every batch third-party tested, certificate of analysis on file. Pass.
Where that leaves it: if price per gram is your only criterion, buy a plain bulk monohydrate and mix it into something. It will work. If the reason you have never stuck with creatine is that the last one was gritty and unpleasant, that is the specific problem this tub was built to solve.
Why we built ours the way we did
All of the above is downstream of a few decisions our co-founder Andrew made when we added a creatine to the range, and of what he turned down to make them.
There is generic cheap monohydrate we could have used. We paid a bit more for better mixability, because creatine is known to not mix too well.
Artificial flavours and sweeteners were the other obvious saving. Sucralose is much cheaper than stevia. But we are looking to target health-conscious people who want natural everything, so that was never really on the table.
There are heaps of unflavoured options. We wanted a nice afternoon flavoured drink that encourages people to drink more water. The five gram scoop is just generally a solid dose, and sixty servings because it is a good size container. We are not limiting people to a specific dose. If they want to take ten, twenty, thirty grams, that is up to them.
Note what is not in there: no claim that any of it makes the creatine work better. The scoop is 5g because 5g is a sensible daily serving, the tub holds sixty of them because that is a sensible amount of powder to own, and the processing is there so the drink is worth finishing. Read the rest of the cluster for what creatine actually does, starting with what it is and who it is for, or the evidence in women if that is the reason you are here.
Frequently asked questions
Is expensive creatine actually better?
Not automatically, and price alone tells you very little. What a higher price can buy is finer processing, a properly flavoured base, better sweeteners and a full 5g of creatine per scoop rather than a diluted one. It can also buy nothing at all except packaging. Run the arithmetic on the label before you decide: grams of creatine per serve, servings per tub, and cost per gram.
Is creatine monohydrate still the best form?
It is the form nearly every study on creatine was built on, which is the strongest argument any ingredient can have. Newer forms exist and are sold at higher prices, but their evidence bases are much thinner. Choosing monohydrate is not settling for the cheap option; it is choosing the one the research was actually done on.
Does micronised creatine work better?
No, and anyone saying otherwise is overselling it. Micronising reduces particle size so the powder dissolves properly instead of leaving grit in the bottom of the glass. That changes the experience of taking it, not the biochemistry. The practical benefit is that you actually drink the whole serving and are more likely to still be taking it in week three.
Why is the scoop heavier than the dose of creatine?
Because a flavoured creatine carries flavour, sweetener and an anti-caking agent alongside the creatine itself. Our scoop is 5.8g and holds 5g of creatine monohydrate, so the other 0.8g is citric acid, natural flavours, silicon dioxide, monk fruit extract, stevia leaf extract and beta carotene for colour. On an unflavoured powder the scoop and the dose are closer together. Check the label rather than assuming either way.
Do I need a creatine with added ingredients?
Generally no. Creatine works on its own, and blends that add small amounts of several other things often deliver too little of each to match what the research used. A single ingredient at a full dose is easier to judge and easier to combine with whatever else you take.
How do I know a creatine has been tested?
Look for two specific things: manufacturing in a GMP-certified facility, and third-party testing of every batch rather than occasionally. Vague words like premium, pure or pharmaceutical grade are not certifications and mean nothing on their own. If a brand cannot tell you how often it tests, treat that as the answer.