Comparison

Grüns vs AG1 (2026): Cost, Formula and the Habit Test

Disclosure: If you buy Grüns through my links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

What is the actual difference between Grüns and AG1?

They are chasing the same customer with opposite bets.

AG1 is a powder. One scoop into water, once a day. Because a scoop has room, AG1 loads it: 75 ingredients, including 21 vitamins and minerals plus whole-food nutrients, probiotics and adaptogens, sweetened with stevia.

Grüns is a gummy in single-serve sachets. Twenty-eight packs per pouch, one pack a day, chewed in about fifteen seconds. It fits 60+ whole-food ingredients and 20 vitamins and minerals into that format, and it comes in a Sugar-Free version with zero added sugar and 20 calories.

So AG1 bets that you will do the ritual every morning. Grüns bets that you will not, and deletes the ritual.

Having failed the ritual with roughly every supplement I ever bought, I know which of those two bets describes me.

Which one costs more per day?

Grüns takes the price line at every tier. On subscription that is $1.96 a day against $2.63, which over a full year works out to roughly $717 versus $961 (cost per day × 365, so the 28-day pouch and the 30-day tub compare on the same basis).

Call it $244 a year, for a product you take in fifteen seconds instead of four minutes at the sink.

AG1's 90-day guarantee is clearly more generous, but the 30-day Grüns window still covers essentially a full 28-day pouch, which is enough to evaluate the taste, convenience and whether the routine works for you.

One caution that applies to both brands equally: the attractive number is the subscription number. Neither headline price is what you pay to simply try the thing once.

Which has the stronger formula?

AG1 on raw dose, and I am not going to spin it.

A powder is not limited by taste the way a chewable is, so AG1 can carry larger amounts of more things. Lay the two labels side by side, judge on quantity alone, and the powder wins.

But quantity is not the only axis, and this is where Grüns does something that surprised me. Look at which forms it uses:

• Folate as L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate, the already-active form, rather than folic acid
• B12 as methylcobalamin, rather than the cheap cyanocobalamin default
• B6 as pyridoxal-5-phosphate, active again rather than plain pyridoxine
• K2 as MK-7 at 120 mcg, the long-acting menaquinone

Thirteen nutrients land at 100% of daily value or better, in those forms. Those swaps cost the manufacturer money on every batch and win no marketing points, because nobody ever sold a gummy on the word "methyltetrahydrofolate". You only find them by reading the panel.

And the sugar argument that used to favour AG1 is gone. The Grüns Sugar-Free version carries 0 g of added sugar, 20 calories and 1 g of net carbs, sweetened with allulose and Reb M. On that line the two products now tie.

Where Grüns genuinely runs short is minerals, which sit around 25% DV. If you need a therapeutic iron dose, neither of these is your answer, but AG1 has more room to work with.

Which one proves what is actually in the pack?

It splits, and the split is more interesting than a winner.

AG1 is NSF Certified for Sport. That is a real credential, and it is worth knowing exactly what it covers: the program screens for substances banned in competitive sport, but it also verifies that the contents match the label and screens for contaminants, tested lot by lot. If you compete under drug testing, that certification carries obvious extra value. For everyone else, it is still a meaningful quality credential, but the banned-substance screening specifically is unlikely to be the deciding factor.

Grüns says every production lot undergoes safety and quality testing, including heavy-metal and microbial screening. The company also reports regular third-party laboratory testing across 70 pesticides, 4 heavy metals, 16 other contaminants and 9 microbial contaminants, manufacturing in NSF, GMP and FDA-registered facilities.

Both are serious, and both are better than most of this shelf manages. But they are not the same claim. A registered facility describes where a product is made. A certified product describes the product itself. AG1 has the stronger formal product certification there, and if a formal certification is the hill you buy on, that decides it.

Where Grüns hits back is transparency, and it is not close. It publishes independent lab screening element by element, and the results are not marginal:

Independent ICP-MS screening published through Oasis in October 2025 goes further and gives the actual figures: arsenic, cadmium and mercury all undetectable in a full 20 g serving, and lead at 0.166 micrograms, roughly 1.7% of the cited 10 microgram guideline.

So the honest scoreboard on this round is a split. A certification tells you a product passed. Published numbers let you check for yourself. AG1 gives you the badge, Grüns gives you the figures, and most of this category gives you neither. If you compete under drug testing, take the badge. For everyone else, I would rather read the numbers.

Which one will you still be taking in month three?

This is the round that settled it in my kitchen, and I think it settles it for most people who are honest with themselves.

A supplement's real dose is the label dose multiplied by the days you actually take it. AG1 can hold more and still deliver less, if it gets taken half as often. That is not a clever debating trick, it is arithmetic, and the half-empty tubs at the back of a million cupboards are the proof.

I took Grüns for 30 consecutive days, including two trips. Packing it meant dropping one sachet per day into a toiletry bag and forgetting about it. No tub, no scoop, no decision. Every supplement I tried before died on exactly that friction, and travel was almost always the murder weapon.

Now picture the same two trips with AG1. A tub in your carry-on, a scoop, and finding clean water and something to stir it in, in a hotel room, every morning, while you are already late.

If your mornings are stable and you genuinely like the ritual of mixing a drink, this round means nothing to you and AG1 is a fine product. If your history is a graveyard of good intentions, this is the only round that matters. I wrote up the full month in my Grüns review, and the format question in general in greens gummies vs greens powder.

So which should you buy?

My pick is Grüns, and I would still say it without a commission attached, because I paid for a month of it before I ever wrote a word.

AG1 is the bigger product on paper. But bigger on paper is not the same as better in your life, and a supplement only works on the days you actually take it. For someone like me who has repeatedly abandoned supplement routines, Grüns is the one I am far more likely to still be taking in month three, it costs $244 a year less to get there, and it publishes the lab numbers to back it up. In a category where nothing works if you stop, that is not a small advantage. It is the whole thing.

A note on health claims. Both products are wellness supplements, not medicines or medical devices. Neither treats, cures or prevents anything, and nothing here is medical advice. I am not a doctor or a nutritionist. Talk to a professional before starting a supplement, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication or managing a health condition.

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