What does 25 g of protein actually cost?

Last reviewed 2026-08-30. Every figure below was read from the certifier's own listing or report on that date, and each links its source.

Protein powder is priced per pound and consumed per scoop, and the two have very little to do with each other. A tub can be cheap per kilo and expensive per gram of protein — the scoop is large, the protein per scoop is modest, or the tub holds fewer servings than the front of the label suggests. One number settles it.

cost per 25 g protein = price ÷ (protein grams per serving × servings per container) × 25

Every input is printed on the tub: the price, the Protein line of the supplement facts, and Servings Per Container. 25 g is the unit because it is close to one scoop of most powders, so the answer reads as what a serving-sized dose costs regardless of how each brand sizes its own scoop.

A worked example

Garden of Life Sport, Organic Plant-Based Protein, Vanilla carries 30 g of protein per serving and 19 servings, so 30 × 19 = 570 g of protein in the container. At 41.99 USD, that is 41.99 ÷ 570 × 25 = 1.84 USD per 25 g of protein.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you — commission never changes a ranking or a verdict (how this site is funded).

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Prices on this site's protein pages are read from iHerb's US storefront. One caution if you shop from elsewhere: this ranking was first built in Norwegian kroner, and re-reading the same products in dollars changed the order. iHerb prices each storefront separately rather than converting a single number, so converting these figures into your own currency will not reproduce your ranking — re-read the prices where you actually shop.

Three things that move the answer more than the price does

• Servings per container is usually approximate. Labels say “about 15”. Your cost per 25 g is approximate in the same proportion, so read two products within a few percent of each other as a tie.
• Two-scoop servings. Some labels print two columns — one per scoop, one per serving — where the serving is two scoops. One product we checked shows 15 g of protein in the first column and 30 g in the second; take the wrong one and the answer is out by half. Check which column Servings Per Container belongs to.
• Protein per serving varies more than price. Across the products checked here it runs from 20 g to 30 g a serving, a 50% spread — wider than most of the price differences on the shelf.

Worked out for you: the products we verified

Every one of these matched an independent certifier's own listing on brand, flavour, package size, serving size and protein per serving. The size shown is the package the certificate covers — worth checking against whatever you are actually offered, because retailers stock sizes the certificate does not always include.

• Garden of Life Sport, Organic Plant-Based Protein, Vanilla — certified at 855 g, 30 g protein a serving — about $1.84 per 25 g of protein at iHerb Amazon →
• Garden of Life Sport, Certified Grass Fed Whey, Vanilla — certified at 660 g, 24 g protein a serving — about $2.19 per 25 g of protein at iHerb Amazon →
• Thorne Whey Protein Isolate, Chocolate — certified at 906 g, 21 g protein a serving — about $2.58 per 25 g of protein at iHerb Amazon →
• Thorne Plant Protein, Chocolate — certified at 676 g, 22 g protein a serving — about $2.78 per 25 g of protein at iHerb Amazon →
• Thorne Plant Protein, Vanilla — certified at 630 g, 22 g protein a serving — about $2.78 per 25 g of protein at iHerb Amazon →
• Garden of Life Sport, Grass Fed Whey+, Vanilla — certified at 457.5 g, 20 g protein a serving — about $3.56 per 25 g of protein at iHerb Amazon →
• Garden of Life Sport, Organic Plant-Based Protein, Chocolate — certified at 912 g, 30 g protein a serving Amazon →

Some of those are affiliate links: as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you, and which products appear here was settled by the certifier's records before any link was attached. Full disclosure.

What this number does not tell you

Cost per 25 g is a price comparison and nothing else. It says nothing about how a powder tastes or mixes, nothing about amino acid profile, and nothing about whether the product was tested at all. A tub with no public test evidence and one with an independent certification sit side by side in the arithmetic, and the arithmetic cannot tell them apart. For that, start with what “third-party tested” actually means, and with what those certifications leave out.

This page restates published testing records with attribution. It makes no health, benefit or treatment claim, and says nothing about whether any product is safe or good for you. A certification record describes tested lots, not a permanent grade.

Some links on this page are affiliate links: as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. Which products appear here was settled by the certifier's records before any link was attached, and products we could not verify are linked under a plainly different button. Full disclosure.

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