Creatine Monohydrate vs HCl: Scoop and Cost

The gram line is the difference

Creatine monohydrate vs HCl is a label comparison. On the two unflavored powders below, one serving is 5 g of creatine monohydrate. On the Kaged creatine hydrochloride panels quoted here, one serving lists 750 mg of that salt. If you are not already using another creatine product, the Vitacost label directions for those tubs say 2 servings before a workout and 2 after, and 4 servings at once on waking on a non-training day. A 5 g monohydrate scoop and a 750 mg hydrochloride scoop are not the same weight of powder, and they are not the same weight of creatine.

Divide a tub price by the printed serving count and you get a price per labeled serving. That number is useful only after you have written down the grams in the serving. These notes come from public labels and brand pages. Supplements are not meant to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent a disease.

Creatine monohydrate vs HCl: the fields on the panel

Field	Micro Ingredients 1 kg, B09YFHGK3F	NatureBell 500 g, B09VCTVH98	Kaged creatine hydrochloride
Form on the label	Creatine monohydrate, micronized	Creatine monohydrate, micronized	Creatine hydrochloride
Serving size	1 scoop (5 g)	5 g (5,000 mg)	Unflavored: 1 scoop (750 mg). Lemon lime: 1 scoop (1.02 g)
Named compound in that serving	5,000 mg	5,000 mg	750 mg on both panels
Servings per container	200	About 100	About 75
Other ingredients	None	None listed	Unflavored: none. Lemon lime: natural flavors, stevia, sucralose; sulfites under 10 ppm
Container weight used here	1 kg (1,000 g)	500 g	Unflavored 56.25 g. Lemon lime 76.42 g

The monohydrate rows are the public Supplement Facts already on record for those two ASINs: the iHerb panel for the Micro Ingredients 1 kg bag, and the Amazon listing plus the NatureBell product page for the 500 g jar. “Micronized” on those titles is a milling word for the same monohydrate. What that word does and does not change is how to compare creatine powders.

The hydrochloride rows are two Vitacost reprints opened on Oct 25, 2026: Kaged Creatine HCl, unflavored, 1.98 oz (56.25 g), and Kaged Creatine HCl, lemon lime, 2.7 oz (76.42 g). Kaged’s own site, the same day, describes Creatine HCl as 750 mg of creatine hydrochloride per serving and 75 servings. Amazon lists an unflavored powder as ASIN B0C7YGBKT4, titled as 75 servings, with bullets that say 750 mg. This page does not treat the Vitacost panel and that ASIN as one photographed label.

What a gram of each form contains

PubChem lists creatine at 131.13 g/mol, creatine monohydrate at 149.15 g/mol, and creatine hydrochloride at 167.59 g/mol. Divide 131.13 by 149.15 and monohydrate is 87.9% creatine by weight. Divide 131.13 by 167.59 and the hydrochloride is 78.2% creatine by weight. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements prints the monohydrate share as 88% and calls that form the most widely used and studied. The 87.9% and the 88% are the same figure at two rounding points. That ODS sentence does not give a hydrochloride percentage.

On the scoops in the table:

• 5 g of monohydrate is about 4.40 g of creatine (5 × 131.13 / 149.15).
• 750 mg of creatine hydrochloride is about 0.59 g of creatine (0.750 × 131.13 / 167.59).
• Four of those servings, 3 g of the salt, are about 2.35 g of creatine.
• The creatine in one 5 g monohydrate scoop matches about 5.62 g of creatine hydrochloride, or about 7.5 scoops of 750 mg.

The 5.62 g line is stoichiometry. It is not an instruction to measure 7.5 scoops.

Creatine HCl vs monohydrate dosage on the label

The monohydrate directions on record are one sentence each. The Micro Ingredients bag and the NatureBell jar both say to mix 5 g with 8–12 oz of water. The serving line and that mix line are the same 5 g.

The Vitacost label for Kaged Creatine HCl, unflavored, and for the lemon lime tub puts one serving in about 4–6 oz of water. If other creatine sources are not in use, the same directions say 2 servings before a workout and 2 after, in 6–8 oz of water, and on non-training days 4 servings at once on waking, in 8–12 oz of water. Two plus two is 4 servings, which is 3 g of creatine hydrochloride at 750 mg per serving.

Follow the label on the tub you buy, and ask a clinician if you have a medical question.

The place to find a serving line on a Supplement Facts panel, and why 5,000 mg is the same quantity as 5 g, is how to compare creatine powders. Water ounces on a directions line are a mixing question: how to compare creatine powders.

Servings in the tub, and a gram that is not a count

When the powder is a single ingredient, net weight divided by the serving weight should land on the serving count.

• Micro Ingredients: 1,000 g / 5 g = 200. The panel says 200.
• NatureBell: 500 g / 5 g = 100. The listing says about 100.
• Kaged unflavored: 56.25 g / 0.750 g = 75. The panel says about 75. The scoop and the creatine hydrochloride line are both 750 mg, and the other-ingredient line says none.
• Kaged lemon lime: the scoop is 1.02 g and the creatine hydrochloride line is still 750 mg. The other 0.27 g is flavor and sweetener. 76.42 g / 1.02 g is about 74.9, inside “about 75.” Dividing 76.42 g by 0.750 g gives about 102. The panel does not say 102 servings.

Both Vitacost pages put a “key info” line that reads “Total servings” and then prints the gram weight of the tub, 56.25 g or 76.42 g. That slot is the net weight. The serving count is the “about 75” line on Supplement Facts.

Cost per labeled serving

The as-of date sits in the price cell. The cost columns divide that same price.

Price surface	Price	Servings used	Price per labeled serving	Price per gram of the named salt
Micro Ingredients 1 kg, Amazon one-time price	$23.95 (list $29.95) as of Oct 23, 2026	200	$23.95 / 200, about $0.12	$23.95 / 1,000 g, about $0.024
NatureBell 500 g, Amazon one-time price	$21.99 as of Oct 23, 2026	100	$21.99 / 100, about $0.22	$21.99 / 500 g, about $0.044
Kaged Creatine HCl, all four 75-serving options	$24.99 on kaged.com, as of Oct 25, 2026	75	$24.99 (as of Oct 25, 2026) / 75, about $0.33	$24.99 (as of Oct 25, 2026) / 56.25 g, about $0.44

Monohydrate dollars are the one-time Amazon prices recorded for B09YFHGK3F and B09VCTVH98 on Oct 23, 2026. The Kaged row is the only hydrochloride price on this page, and it covers all four 75-serving options. ASIN B0C7YGBKT4 is the unflavored Amazon listing; this page does not print a dollar figure for it.

Cost per labeled serving on that row is $24.99 (as of Oct 25, 2026) / 75, about $0.33. Cost per gram of creatine hydrochloride is $24.99 (as of Oct 25, 2026) / 56.25 g, about $0.44. The 56.25 g figure is the unflavored net weight, and it is also 75 × 750 mg of the salt. The lemon lime net weight is 76.42 g because the scoop is 1.02 g. At the same shelf price, $24.99 (as of Oct 25, 2026) / 76.42 g is about $0.33 per gram of that powder. Do not divide $24.99 (as of Oct 25, 2026) by 56.25 g and call the result a price per gram of the lemon lime powder.

A labeled serving on the 1 kg bag is 5 g. A labeled serving on these HCl panels is 750 mg of salt, inside a 1.02 g scoop when the powder is lemon lime. The per-serving prices in the table are prices for those labeled servings, not prices for an equal weight of creatine.

Which label to pick up

Take the Micro Ingredients bag or the NatureBell jar when you want unflavored creatine monohydrate and a serving line of 5 g, and you have checked which package you will finish. In the table, the 1 kg bag is the lower price per labeled serving and the lower price per gram of monohydrate. The 500 g jar is the smaller container.

Take Kaged Creatine HCl when you want a panel that says creatine hydrochloride at 750 mg of that salt per serving, about 75 servings, and you have read the directions printed on the tub in your hand. The Vitacost text on the unflavored tub and the lemon lime tub, for a person not using other creatine sources, is 2 servings before training and 2 after, and on a non-training day 4 servings at once on waking.

Leave all three when the label in front of you names a different form, a different gram line, or sweeteners you do not want. A flavored creatine monohydrate drink is a separate decision from this salt comparison. That routine check is how to compare creatine powders.

Creatine monohydrate vs HCl, on the labels above, is a 5 g monohydrate scoop set next to a 750 mg creatine hydrochloride serving. If other creatine sources are not in use, the unflavored and lemon lime Vitacost directions name 2 servings before a workout, 2 servings after it, and 4 servings at once on waking when there is no training. Match the form name, the scoop grams, the serving count, and the price surface before you compare cost. If your tub disagrees with a row here, the tub wins.