Athletic Greens vs 8 Greens: Which One is Best?

Each brand benefits from great exposure and a cult-like following, so if you’re trying to figure out which product is the one you should buy, you may be having a hard time.

However, there’s no need to panic and spend hours researching each product in great depth, because I’ve done all of the research for you! This review is going to compare both products in every important category and tell you which is the best choice out of the two.

So, dive right in! Take a look at my Athletic Greens Vs 8 Greens comparison below, so you can find out which product will give you all the green goodness you’re looking for.

What Is Athletic Greens?

Athletic Greens is one of the most well-known super greens formulas on the market, with an array of athletes, celebrities, and influencers advocating for the brand and promoting the product.

Founded in 2008, the brand has grown into one of the biggest super greens supplement producers in the world, with an estimated revenue between $20 – $50 million. It’s safe to say, this is a successful brand – but is the product actually the best on the market?

The Athletic Greens formula certainly looks like it packs a punch at an initial glance. The formula is packed with over 70 potent ingredients including prebiotics, probiotics, enzymes, adaptogens, and of course, whole food super greens.

Take a look at the Pros and Cons below of the Athletic Greens formula, before we move on to take a look at 8 Greens.

Read my Athletic Greens review.

What Is 8 Greens?

8 Greens, founded in 2015 by aristocrat and cancer-survivor, Dawn Russel, is an incredibly popular super greens brand. The entire selling point of 8 Greens is that rather than having to force down a grassy tasting formula, all of the green nutrition is packed into effervescent tablets.

8 Greens’ main marketing point is that the tablets are suitable for everyone, even for children that don’t want to eat their greens, because it’s a simple and tasty way to get a nutrition boost!

Due to the fact that Dawn Russel has a long list of impressive social connections, the 8 Greens tablets are reviewed and endorsed by some of the world’s favorite celebrities, such as Zac Efron, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Andy Cohen.

The 8 Greens tablets are made from 8 ‘real’ greens (which the brand is eager to shout about), such as kale, spinach, and wheatgrass. However, the formula also contains 10 other ingredients, 6 of which are used to flavor the tablets.

Although the brand claims that the formula contains “as much vitamin C as 6 oranges, vitamin B6 as 6 cups of spinach, vitamin B5 as 15 cups of broccoli, vitamin B12 and 7 cups of milk and zinc as 3 cups of peas”, the ingredients exist within a proprietary blend.

Read my 8 Greens review.

Athletic Greens Vs. 8 Greens Benefits

Athletic Greens

Athletic Greens has chosen to dedicate an entire page on its website to informing the consumer about each ingredient in the formula, as well as showing them the specific health benefits that derive from them.

With over 70 ingredients, this really shows that the brand is committed to sharing knowledge with consumers, as well as showing potential customers that the formula is packed full of impressive health benefits.

In comparison to 8 Greens, Athletic Greens definitely has a more comprehensive and detailed list of health benefits that will automatically impress potential customers.

8 Greens

8 Greens provides much less information about the tablet’s benefits than Athletic Greens does about the formula. In fact, other than saying that the formula will provide the same amount of minerals as certain vegetables, the benefits list is really small.

I think where the brand has gone wrong here is that rather than explaining specific health benefits from minerals and vitamins, they have just mentioned that the minerals and vitamins are present due to the ingredients.

For example, when looking at the benefits of spinach, the brand says, “Rich in antioxidants, vitamin A, calcium, iron”, but should’ve gone into more detail about what this can do for the consumer. For example, the brand could have said “spinach pushes toxins from the body and protects the cells from radical damage”, rather than just “rich in antioxidants”.

However, overall, the brand claims that the tablets will boost energy levels, support immunity, help with losing weight, promote the natural healing process, and boost overall wellness.

I have to say that I definitely prefer the way that Athletic Greens has shared the health benefits of the product with the consumer.

Athletic Greens Vs 8 Greens Ingredients

Athletic Greens

Athletic Greens contains 75 ingredients in total, including whole super greens ingredients, prebiotics, probiotics, adaptogens, and enzymes. The formula is vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free, keto-friendly, paleo-friendly, and non-GMO, making it suitable for a wide range of people.

The recommended serving size is 12g, which is really generous in comparison to other super greens formulas, but it has to be to fit in all of those ingredients!

Although there’s obviously a large selection of potent ingredients, all of the ingredients exist in proprietary blends. This is a real shame for a brand that seems to tick all of the other boxes.

Proprietary blends make it impossible for the consumer to figure out how much of each ingredient they’re consuming, and it’s impossible to figure out if the formula will actually work or not.

Although it may not be the case with this formula, normally when brands use proprietary blends, a selection of the ingredients in the formula won’t actually provide health benefits because the amount of them isn’t sufficient.

The only good news and hope that’s given with this formula are that the proprietary blends are really heavily weighted, and therefore hopefully the right amount of each ingredient exists!

8 Greens

The 8 Greens ingredient list is much much shorter than the Athletic Greens one, with only 18 ingredients in total, and 8 of them being real greens (hence the brand name).

The 8 Greens tablets are also vegan friendly, dairy-free, gluten-free, and non-GMO.

The serving size of 8 Greens is much smaller than the Athletic Greens formula, with one tablet weighing only 4.6g. However, the brand is loose with recommending a specific daily serving, saying adults can take up to 3 tablets maximum.

Unfortunately, there’s the exact same issue as there is with Athletic Greens – 8 Greens is also made using a proprietary blend. So, the same problems apply to this formula.

It’s impossible to figure out how much of each ingredient you’re consuming, and you can’t figure out whether there’s enough of each ingredient for health benefits to actually derive from consuming it.

It seems very strange to me that 8 Greens is so obsessed with shouting about how the formula contains the same amount of minerals and vitamins that are in certain servings of vegetables, but the amounts of each ingredient aren’t shown.

Most multivitamins could same exactly the same!

I can tell, just by looking at this formula, that there’s not a sufficient amount of each ingredient within the Proprietary Greens Blend. For example, the recommended daily dosage of spirulina is between 1-3g, and in 8 Greens, it only sits in a blend of 685mg.

This means it’s impossible for the correct amount of spirulina, and an array of other greens ingredients, to actually reside in the 8 Greens formula.

Athletic Greens Vs 8 Greens Taste

Athletic Greens

The Athletic Greens formula has actually been rated as one of my favorite products in the past when it comes down purely to taste.

The Athletic Greens formula definitely outshines a lot of other brands when it comes to taste, and this is probably why so many people actually enjoy drinking it!

Athletic Greens is naturally sweetened using stevia extract and it’s also flavored using papaya, broccoli powder, cherry powder, carrot, natural pineapple flavor, and natural vanilla flavor.

All of this natural flavoring doesn’t necessarily disguise the taste of the greens, but it just adds a refreshing and pleasant taste to the formula.

8 Greens

In comparison, 8 Greens is available in either Lemon Lime flavor, Melon flavor, or Blood Orange flavor. To flavor the tablets, the brand uses citric acid, sorbitol, natural flavors, corn starch, safflower oil, and stevia leaf extract.

The brand uses all kinds of natural flavoring but unfortunately ruins it by using sorbitol. Sorbitol is a sugar alcohol that provides around 60% of the sweetness of regular sugar, but with 60% fewer calories.

It seems incredibly strange to me that a brand that claims to be producing the highest quality supplement made from the healthiest and most natural ingredients possible, would use sorbitol.

Nonetheless, the customer reviews when it comes to the taste of 8 Greens are widely debatable – some people like the sweetness, some can still taste the greens ingredients, and others can’t stand it.

Athletic Greens Vs 8 Greens Cost

Athletic Greens

One of the biggest cons apart from the proprietary blends, of the Athletic Greens formula is the expensive price tag.

A 30-day servings pouch of Athletic Greens costs $97, which works out at a cost per serving of $3.23. This is much more expensive than other super greens formulas on the market, especially when it contains proprietary blends.

If you are set on having this formula, you can choose to subscribe to the product and save 21%. If you did this, the cost per serving would go down to $2.56 which immediately seems more reasonable.

8 Greens

8 Greens is much cheaper than Athletic Greens, but you’d hope it would be considering the serving size is so much smaller.

One tub of 8 Greens, containing 10 tablets, costs $14. This works out at a cost per serving of $1.40.

The more you buy, the more you save with 8 Greens. For example, if you chose to order 6 tubes of tablets and you subscribed, you can expect to pay $1 per serving.

Athletic Greens Vs 8 Greens: Which is Better?

To me, after comparing the Athletic Greens formula with 8 Greens tablets, I actually feel like it’s incredibly easy to pick the better formula. Although, I do have to say that I’m not really crazy about either of them due to the fact they contain proprietary blends.

However, putting the issue of proprietary blends aside for a minute, I can see that the clear winner of this comparison is Athletic Greens. The 8 Greens tablets only beat the Athletic Greens in one category for me, and that’s the price.

Apart from that, Athletic Greens provides a wider range of potent ingredients, it has a much larger serving size, it tastes better, it’s more well-received by normal people as well as celebrities, and the 8 Greens formula definitely doesn’t contain the right amount of certain ingredients.

I personally wouldn’t choose to buy either of these products, as I know how important fully disclosed labeling is, but if I have to compare the two, Athletic Greens takes it.

LifeHacker Guy Greens Recommendation

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Read Review