The cost of a real 5 g day

What your result means

The cost per day is what one real 5 g day of creatine monohydrate costs you in that form, and the year is that times 365. Capsules and gummies hold much less per piece than a scoop, so it can take several of them to reach 5 g, and that's usually where the difference comes from.

For a sense of scale, the same creatine from food would be about 2.4 lb of raw steak a day.

What to do next

1. Pick plain monohydrate with a third-party test mark, the form the trials used. The best creatine to buy has what to look for.
2. Count to 5 g if you buy capsules or gummies, from the creatine per piece on the label.
3. Get your dates from the dose calculator.

The math

Powder: the price times 5 g, over the grams in the tub. Capsules and gummies: the whole number of them that reaches 5 g of creatine monohydrate, times the price of one. At 0.75 g a capsule, 5 g is 7 capsules a day. A month is 30 days and a year 365.

Which form

Plain creatine monohydrate is 87.9% creatine, the highest of any form except anhydrous, and about 99% of what you swallow is taken up or passed. It's the form the trials used. HCl did no better than monohydrate in two trials, one of 40 young adults over 8 weeks of lifting and one of 31 elite athletes on 5 g a day.

Gummies

Gummies work if they hold what the label says. A 2026 trial with independently checked 5 g gummies improved jump height and sprint turns in 32 volleyball players. Its authors noted "substantial variability" in creatine content across commercial gummies, so look for a third-party test mark.