/fit/ Protein Rankings

In my attempts to get swole as a broke college student, I've made a spreadsheet of the unit cost of some of the top whey protein powders. Since so many nutrition companies play games with serving size and fillers it's difficult to know which protein powder is actually the cheapest - there's even a lot of variation between the protein contents of same-size tubs. Buying cheap protein is one of the best areas to save money as a lifter since we tend to go through so much protein powder.

Here's a list of different protein powders, ordered by cost per 100 grams of protein:

Body Fortress Whey Protein Powder, 4 lb $31.16, 1320g protein ($2.36/100g)
Jarrow Formulas 100% Natural Whey Protein, 2 lb $20.69, 702g protein ($2.95/100g)
Six Star Elite Series Whey Protein Powder, 2 lb $18.97, 630g protein ($3.01/100g)
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey, 10 lb $111.99, 3576g protein ($3.13/100g)
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey, 5 lb $57.99, 1776g protein ($3.27/100g)
Pure Protein Whey Protein, 2 lb $18.89, 550g protein, ($3.43/100g)
EAS Whey Protein, 2 lb $20.78, 598g protein, ($3.47/100g)
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey, 2 lb $29.99, 672g protein, ($4.46/100g)
BSN SYNTHA-6 Protein, 5 lb $49.99, 1056g protein, ($4.73/100g)
Optimum Nutrition 100% Natural Oats and Whey, 3 lb $31.97, 624g protein, ($5.12/100g)


Judging from this list, the Body Fortress Protein Powder would appear to be the best, however if you take /u/physicistjedi's study on the content of protein powders into account, the results change. He found that the Body Fortress Powder only contains 53% of the protein it claims to. I applied his findings to get a better idea of which protein powder to buy.

Here's a list of those protein powders with his results applied:

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey, 10 lb $3.48/100g
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey, 5 lb $3.63/100g
Jarrow Formulas 100% Natural Whey Protein, 2 lb $3.78/100g
Six Star Elite Series Whey Protein Powder, 2 lb $3.91/100g
Pure Protein Whey Protein, 2 lb $4.40/100g
Body Fortress Whey Protein Powder, 4 lb $4.45/100g
EAS Whey Protein, 2 lb $4.63/100g
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey, 2 lb $4.96/100g

The BSN and ON Oats & Whey protein powders were not included since they were not tested for protein content. It's important to understand that the data on protein content is not conclusive, but it can be used as a guideline - it certainly points to buying either the 10 lb or the 5 lb Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard as being your best choice. Optimum Nutrition is also generally known as one of the more trusted and better tasting protein brands, so I'm comfortable with these findings.

Protein content spreadsheet