The bottom line
India's largest supplement platform publishes quarterly COAs for their house brand creatine. Good starting point — but the COA is self-published and the raw material source is opaque.
Nutrabay occupies a unique position in the Indian supplement market: they run both the marketplace and a house brand called Nutrabay Pure Series. For creatine, they publish a quarterly batch Certificate of Analysis on their website — which puts them ahead of most domestic brands that either publish no documentation or make it available only on request.
The quarterly COA is the product's main selling point beyond price. It shows creatine content, creatinine levels (the primary degradation byproduct), and heavy metal panels. The methodology used is HPLC — the correct analytical approach. These are real numbers, not marketing text. At ₹649 for 300g (₹10.8/dose), this is the lowest price for a domestic creatine with regularly updated public purity documentation.
The reservation: Nutrabay's COA is self-commissioned from a contract lab on behalf of their own product. This is materially different from AS-IT-IS (NABL-accredited lab with a publicly named testing body) or Creapure (in-house specification from AlzChem with a global purity track record). The transparency exists, but the independence layer is thinner. For most users buying for general training, this is an acceptable tradeoff at the price. For the systematically risk-averse buyer, AS-IT-IS remains the better choice on documentation quality.
The quarterly COA: what it actually shows
Nutrabay publishes a batch Certificate of Analysis for their Pure Series products on a quarterly cadence. The COA for creatine monohydrate typically includes the following parameters:
- Creatine content: expressed as a percentage of label claim. Recent COAs have shown values in the 97–101% range.
- Creatinine (degradation byproduct): the most important impurity in creatine monohydrate. Recent batches have shown <2%, which is within acceptable range though above the Creapure maximum of 60 ppm.
- Heavy metals panel: arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury. All below the limits specified in the COA.
- Moisture: low — important for shelf stability in Indian humidity.
Creatinine is the inert degradation product of creatine monohydrate. When creatine degrades — due to heat, moisture, or time — it converts to creatinine, which has no ergogenic effect. A creatinine level of <2% is broadly acceptable. Creapure sets its specification at ≤60 ppm (<0.006%) — two orders of magnitude stricter. This does not mean Nutrabay's product is ineffective; the dose of creatinine you would consume from a <2% batch is pharmacologically inert. But it is an indicator of raw material quality and storage stability under Indian supply chain conditions.
The lab conducting the Nutrabay COA testing is not publicly named in their product listing. This is our primary transparency concern. A NABL-accredited testing certificate carries a lab registration number you can verify against the NABL public directory. Nutrabay's COA does not provide this layer of verifiability — you are trusting that the lab is real and the numbers are accurate, without an independent confirmation mechanism.
Label and formulation
Nutrabay Pure Creatine Monohydrate is a single-ingredient product. The unflavoured 300g format contains: creatine monohydrate. No fillers, sweeteners, or anti-caking agents. This is correct for a commodity supplement where you want maximum purity of the active ingredient.
The label states "creatine monohydrate" without qualification of particle size or raw material origin. There is no Creapure certification mark, no Informed Sport badge, no FSSAI registration visible on the digital listing (though the physical product label likely carries FSSAI information — this is not always reproduced in e-commerce listings).
Nutrabay sells two creatine products: Pure Series and Gold Series. The Gold Series creatine (₹699/300g) is from the same house brand at a slightly higher price point and different packaging. The formulation is identical. We reviewed the Pure Series — if buying Gold Series, check the COA page on their website as the batch documentation is managed separately.
Dosing protocol
Nutrabay recommends 1 scoop (5g) daily with water or a beverage. This is the correct maintenance dose. The scoop is included and properly calibrated in the batches we inspected.
One practical consideration for the Nutrabay 300g format: at one scoop per day, this container lasts 60 days — two months of daily supplementation. This is long enough to span seasonal humidity transitions in India. Store the container in a cool, dry location and keep it tightly sealed between uses to prevent moisture ingress that accelerates creatinine conversion.
For users coming off an extended break from supplementation or beginning creatine for the first time, a loading protocol (20g/day split across 4 doses for 5–7 days) followed by 5g maintenance is a valid approach to reach saturation faster. It is not required — daily 5g maintenance reaches the same endpoint in roughly 28 days.
Value: the best price for public documentation
At ₹649/300g, Nutrabay Pure Creatine is the cheapest Indian-market creatine with regularly published batch documentation. This is genuinely meaningful context:
| Product | Price | Per dose | Documentation type |
|---|---|---|---|
| AS-IT-IS Creatine | ₹549 / 250g | ₹9.2 | NABL-accredited COA (named lab) |
| Nutrabay Pure Creatine | ₹649 / 300g | ₹10.8 | Quarterly COA (unnamed lab) |
| Myprotein Creatine (sale) | ₹999 / 500g | ₹10.0 | Informed Sport batch cert |
| MuscleBlaze CreaPRO | ₹899 / 300g | ₹15.0 | Creapure certified source |
| GNC Pro Performance | ₹1,299 / 300g | ₹21.7 | Creapure certified source |
The gap between Nutrabay (₹10.8/dose) and AS-IT-IS (₹9.2/dose) is ₹1.6 per dose — ₹96 per 60-day cycle. The difference in documentation quality is real: NABL-accredited testing is more verifiable than a self-commissioned COA. For most users, ₹96 over two months is a reasonable price to pay for cleaner documentation. But if budget is the primary constraint, Nutrabay provides a baseline of documentation that the majority of domestic brands at comparable prices do not.
Who this is for
Recommended if: You buy primarily on Nutrabay's platform and want a house brand with some documentation backing. The quarterly COA is more than most house brands offer at this price.
Recommended if: You are very cost-sensitive and want the cheapest option with any form of public purity documentation. Nutrabay Pure at ₹10.8/dose just barely edges AS-IT-IS, though the documentation quality differs.
Not recommended if: Documentation independence matters to you. The COA is self-published; the testing lab is not named. AS-IT-IS Creatine offers NABL-accredited testing with a named laboratory for ₹1.6/dose more.
Not recommended if: You are a competitive athlete under anti-doping testing. Nutrabay Pure has no banned substance screening certification. For athletes under NADA jurisdiction, Informed Sport or NSF Certified for Sport products are the appropriate choice.
Our score — rubric breakdown
Creatine monohydrate. The most-studied ingredient in sports nutrition. Effect on PCr resynthesis and training volume is among the most replicated findings across more than 1,000 trials. This dimension is ingredient-level and does not vary by brand.
Creatine monohydrate is the correct, gold-standard form. No alternate forms that add cost without adding evidence. Deduction because particle size is unstated — unknown whether this is micronised or standard grind. Standard monohydrate requires more stirring to dissolve; micronised mixes cleanly. This does not affect efficacy but is a formulation transparency gap.
Quarterly COA is published — a genuine positive relative to brands with no documentation. The deductions: the testing laboratory is unnamed (no NABL accreditation number visible), the raw material source is not disclosed, and the creatinine specification (~2%) is looser than Creapure. The purity floor exists but cannot be independently verified. Scores between "no documentation" (2–3) and "NABL/Creapure documented" (7–9).
₹10.8/dose is competitive — slightly more than AS-IT-IS but competitive with Myprotein at sale price. The value score is moderate because AS-IT-IS beats it on documentation quality at a marginally lower price. Within the budget tier, Nutrabay is a solid option if you buy from their platform directly. Does not compete with Creapure options on any dimension except price.
Single-ingredient label, correct dose, no inflated claims. The quarterly COA publication is an active transparency step — positive. Deductions for omitting raw material source and testing lab identity. The label accurately describes what is in the container; what is absent is the provenance documentation that would make those claims fully verifiable.
Score formula: (9.5 × 0.30) + (8.0 × 0.20) + (5.5 × 0.20) + (6.5 × 0.15) + (7.0 × 0.15) = 2.85 + 1.60 + 1.10 + 0.975 + 1.05 = 7.575 → 7.6 / 10
References
- 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;14:18.
- NABL — National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. Accredited laboratories list. nabl.gov.in. Accessed Jul 2026.
- Greenhaff PL, et al. Influence of oral creatine supplementation on muscle torque during repeated bouts of maximal voluntary exercise in man. Clin Sci (Lond). 1993;84(5):565–571.
- Wyss M, Kaddurah-Daouk R. Creatine and creatinine metabolism. Physiol Rev. 2000;80(3):1107–1213.
- Rawson ES, Volek JS. Effects of creatine supplementation and resistance training on muscle strength and weightlifting performance. J Strength Cond Res. 2003;17(4):822–831.