Creatine Without Fillers: Single-Ingredient Labels, Ranked
Not medical advice. This reads the other-ingredients line on every standalone creatine label filed with the NIH and on the filings of the products we track, and summarizes the ISSN evidence on creatine forms. Excipients at these amounts are not a safety issue; this page is about paying for creatine, not what surrounds it.
Quick answer
Creatine without fillers is unflavored monohydrate powder, a 5 g scoop that is 5 g of creatine, and about a third of the shelf already is. Of the 406 standalone creatine labels filed with the NIH, 33.3% list no other ingredients. The split is by form, not by brand: 48.9% of powder labels are creatine and nothing else, against 1% of capsules and tablets, which need a shell and a flow agent to exist.
Buy unflavored powder, check that the other-ingredients line is empty, and rank by cost per 5 g. The cheapest single-ingredient creatine we track is NOW Sports Creatine Monohydrate Powder at $0.193 per dose; Naked Creatine, Micronized Monohydrate adds an NSF Certified mark at $0.220. See the ranking →
Choosing between monohydrate, HCl and the rest first? See creatine forms compared →
On this page
What “filler” means on a creatine label, and why it matters for the price
Creatine monohydrate is a single white powder with an effective dose of 3 to 5 g a day, and it does not need anything added to work: the International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position stand, reviewing several hundred trials, calls it the most effective ergogenic supplement available and safe at those doses over years of use (Kreider 2017, PMID 28615996). Everything else on a label is there for taste, for the machine that fills the capsule, or for the shelf: flavors and acids, a sweetener, silica or silicon dioxide against clumping, magnesium stearate for the capsule line, gelatin or cellulose for the shell. None of it is a health problem at these amounts. All of it is weight you pay for by the gram, and on a flavored tub the scoop that says 5 g may hold noticeably less creatine than a scoop of the plain powder.
The reason to want a one-ingredient product is arithmetic and verification. Cost per 5 g is only honest when the serving is 5 g of creatine, and a third-party test of a single-ingredient powder is a clean question: is it creatine monohydrate, at the stated weight, without contaminants. The gummy lab tests on this site show what happens at the other extreme, where creatine is a minority of the product by weight and ten of eighteen tested gummies missed their label.
We read 406 creatine labels: 33.3% list nothing but creatine
Original research1,197 on-market creatine labels retrieved from the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database and read in full on 2026-09-18; 516 have creatine in the product name, 9 pre-workout, protein and stack blends are excluded, and 101 flavored products whose other-ingredients line was not transcribed are set aside as unknown, leaving 406 standalone creatine labels from 172 brands.
135 labels (33.3%) list no other ingredients. Powders make up 67.5% of the standalone shelf and 48.9% of them are creatine alone; capsules and tablets are 25.4% of the shelf and 1% of them list nothing else, because a capsule is a shell and a flow agent by construction. 34.7% of labels are flavored and 33.3% list a sweetener. Where a label does list other ingredients the median count is 5, and the ingredients that appear most often are flavors (140 labels), sucralose (105 labels), citric acid (102 labels), silica (68 labels), magnesium stearate (65 labels). 57.6% of standalone labels declare monohydrate and no other creatine form; 8.9% name Creapure.
| Item | Value (%) |
|---|---|
| Powders | 48.9% |
| All standalone creatine labels | 33.3% |
| Capsules and tablets | 1% |
How we read the labels, and what did not hold
Method: 1,197 on-market labels from the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database read in full on 2026-09-18. “No other ingredients” means the filed label carries no other-ingredients line or one reading “None”; a flavored product with no line has not had the line transcribed and is excluded rather than counted as pure (101 labels). Filler frequencies are keyword matches on the other-ingredients line. Every figure was recomputed in two halves of the corpus split by label-id parity: 11 of 11 checks agreed within tolerance and only those are printed. Every check held. The census is published as open data at /creatine/without-fillers.json (CC BY 4.0). What it cannot tell you: whether a tub contains what its label says (that is what the NSF and Informed marks test), or how much of a flavored scoop is creatine, which labels rarely state.
Every creatine we track, ranked by cost per 5 g, with its own other-ingredients line
Cost per 5 g is price divided by total creatine in the tub, times 5. The other-ingredients column is read from each product’s own label as filed with the NIH, not from the marketing page. Cheapest first.
| Product | Per 5 g | Other ingredients (NIH filing) | Servings | Price | Certification | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOW Sports Creatine Monohydrate Powder | $0.193 | none listed | 120 | $23.12 | NPA GMP Certified | Check price |
| Nutricost Micronized Creatine Monohydrate | $0.215 | none listed | 100 | $21.50 | none stated | Check price |
| BulkSupplements Micronized Creatine Monohydrate | $0.220 | none listed | 100 | $21.97 | cGMP Facility, Third-Party Tested | Check price |
| Naked Creatine, Micronized Monohydrate | $0.220 | none listed | 100 | $21.99 | NSF Certified | Check price |
| Optimum Nutrition Micronized Creatine Monohydrate | $0.266 | none listed | 60 | $15.97 | Banned Substance Tested | Check price |
| Nutricost Creapure Creatine Monohydrate | $0.380 | no NIH filing found | 100 | $37.95 | Creapure (AlzChem) | Check price |
| Momentous Creatine Monohydrate | $0.478 | none listed | 90 | $42.99 | NSF Certified for Sport, Informed Sport | Check price |
| Thorne Creatine | $0.489 | silicon dioxide | 90 | $44.00 | NSF Certified for Sport | Check price |
| Transparent Labs Creatine HMB | $1.666 | citric acid, natural flavors, l-malic acid, stevia extract, beet, powder | 30 | $49.99 | Informed Choice Certified | Check price |
6 of the 9 products file a label with no other-ingredients line. Transparent Labs Creatine HMB is the exception by design, a flavored HMB blend whose scoop is (12.7g) for 5 g of creatine, which is why it costs 8.6× the cheapest plain powder per 5 g. Thorne Creatine’s most recent filing lists silicon dioxide, an anti-caking agent, where its earlier filings listed none; the price difference between the single-ingredient powders is the certificate and the brand, not the creatine.
Which creatine without fillers to buy
Product links go to Amazon and we may earn a commission if you buy. It never changes which product we pick or what we say about it. How we choose.
Forms are not fillers, and none beats monohydrate
“Micronized” is the same monohydrate ground finer to dissolve; it adds nothing. Creatine HCl, buffered (“Kre-Alkalyn”) creatine, creatine ethyl ester, creatine nitrate and magnesium creatine chelate are different molecules sold as improvements, and the review of their efficacy, safety and regulatory status found no evidence that any of them outperforms monohydrate at equal doses, while several carry less safety data (Jäger 2011, PMID 21424716). The common worries, water retention, kidney strain, hair loss, are addressed one by one in the ISSN’s review of misconceptions, which finds no support for them at recommended doses in healthy people (Antonio 2021, PMID 33557850). 57.6% of the standalone labels we read declare monohydrate alone, and the monohydrate vs HCl page runs the cost per effective dose for the main alternative.
Frequently asked questions
Which creatine has no fillers?
Unflavored creatine monohydrate powder. Of the 406 standalone creatine labels filed with the NIH that we read, 33.3% list no other ingredients at all, and almost all of those are powders: 48.9% of powder labels are creatine and nothing else, against 1% of capsules and tablets, which need a shell and a flow agent. Among products we track, NOW Sports Creatine Monohydrate Powder, Nutricost Micronized Creatine Monohydrate, BulkSupplements Micronized Creatine Monohydrate, Naked Creatine, Micronized Monohydrate, Optimum Nutrition Micronized Creatine Monohydrate, Momentous Creatine Monohydrate each file a label with no other-ingredients line; the cheapest is NOW Sports Creatine Monohydrate Powder at $0.193 per 5 g.
What fillers are in creatine?
On the labels that list other ingredients, the median count is 5, and the most common are flavors, sucralose, citric acid, silica, magnesium stearate, silicon dioxide. Flavored powders carry flavors, acids and a sweetener (33.3% of standalone labels list one, usually sucralose); capsules carry gelatin or cellulose plus magnesium stearate or silica. None of these is harmful at the amounts used; they are simply not creatine, and you pay by the gram.
Is creatine without fillers better?
It is not more effective: the ISSN position stand finds creatine monohydrate effective and safe across hundreds of trials regardless of the excipients around it. What single-ingredient buys you is a clean cost per gram (a 5 g scoop is 5 g of creatine), no sucralose or acids if you are avoiding them, and easier label verification, because a one-ingredient product is what third-party programs test most cleanly. 8.9% of standalone labels name Creapure, the German single-source monohydrate.
Is micronized creatine a filler?
No. Micronizing grinds the same creatine monohydrate finer so it dissolves better; it adds nothing. Creatine HCl, buffered creatine, creatine ethyl ester and creatine nitrate are different molecules, not fillers, and the review of novel forms found none of them more effective than monohydrate at matched doses; 57.6% of standalone labels declare monohydrate alone.
What is the cheapest creatine without fillers?
NOW Sports Creatine Monohydrate Powder at $0.193 per 5 g dose, $70 a year; its NIH filing lists no other ingredients. The cheapest single-ingredient creatine with a third-party sport certificate is Naked Creatine, Micronized Monohydrate at $0.220. Flavored and capsule creatines cost more per gram of creatine because you are paying for the non-creatine part.
Related guides
- Creatine: what to buy and how much
- Best creatine, ranked
- Creatine dosage guide
- Creatine forms compared
- Monohydrate vs HCl
- Creatine gummies: the lab tests
- Thorne vs Optimum Nutrition
Sources
- Kreider RB, et al. “International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine.” J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2017. PMID: 28615996
- Jäger R, et al. “Analysis of the efficacy, safety, and regulatory status of novel forms of creatine.” Amino Acids. 2011. PMID: 21424716
- Antonio J, et al. “Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation: what does the scientific evidence really show?” J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2021. PMID: 33557850
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Dietary Supplement Label Database. dsld.od.nih.gov (labels read in full 2026-09-18).