How Much Creatine Per Day? A UK Guide to Dose and Loading
For most people, 3g to 5g of creatine monohydrate a day. That is the range nearly all the research uses, and it is the range the International Society of Sports Nutrition settled on.
You do not need to take more than that. You also do not need a loading phase, though you can use one if you want to get there faster.
Here is what the numbers actually mean, and what the products on sale in the UK give you per serving.
The daily amount, and where it comes from
Creatine works by building up in your muscles. Once the store is full, extra creatine does not make it fuller. It just leaves in your urine.
So the daily dose is a topping-up amount, not a dose in the way a medicine is.
| Approach | Amount | How long | Time to full stores |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight maintenance | 3g to 5g a day | Ongoing | About 3 to 4 weeks |
| Loading, then maintenance | About 0.3g per kg of bodyweight a day, split into four doses | 5 to 7 days, then drop to 3g to 5g | About 1 week |
Figures follow the International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand on creatine supplementation. This is what studies use, not personal advice.
For a 70kg person, a loading dose works out at about 21g a day, taken as four separate 5g servings. That is a lot of powder and it is the main reason people give up on loading.
Both routes end up in the same place. Loading is faster, not better.
Do you need to load?
No. It is optional and always has been.
The case for it is speed. If you want your stores full in a week rather than a month, load. Athletes with a competition date sometimes do.
The case against it is that it is fiddly and it costs more powder. It is also the most common reason people report stomach discomfort with creatine. Twenty grams a day is a lot to ask of your gut.
If you are taking creatine because you are in your forties and want to hold on to strength, there is no reason to rush. Take 3g to 5g a day and let it fill up.
THE SHORT VERSION
4g a day, in something you will actually drink
The hardest part of creatine is not the dose. It is remembering it every day for a month. Collagen Greens puts 4g of creatine monohydrate into a morning drink you are already having, alongside 4g of bovine collagen peptides.
4g creatine monohydrate 4g bovine collagen peptides Raw wholefood greens 33 servings
Does bodyweight change the number?
A little, but less than you would think.
Bigger people carry more muscle, so they have a bigger store to fill and lose slightly more each day. That is why loading is calculated per kilo while maintenance usually is not.
In practice, most guidance lands on 3g to 5g for almost everyone. A smaller person might sit at the lower end and a large athlete at the upper end. The difference is not worth agonising over.
What matters far more is whether you take it at all, on the days you cannot be bothered.
What UK products actually give you
Serving sizes vary more than the labels make obvious. These are per-serving amounts, checked in August 2026.
| Product | Creatine per serving | Pack | Cost per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holland & Barrett Creatine Monohydrate 210g | 5g | 42 servings | About £0.24 |
| Applied Nutrition Creatine Monohydrate 250g | 5g | 50 servings | About £0.24 |
| Collagen Greens | 4g | 33 servings | £1.33, with collagen and greens |
| Myprotein THE Performance Superfoods | 3.4g Creapure® | — | About £1.15, with greens |
| Wellthy by Boots Skin Glow sachets | 3g | 30 sachets | £0.60, with collagen |
Checked August 2026. Prices and formulas change, so read the label.
Two things worth noticing.
Plain creatine is very cheap. About 24p a day. If all you want is creatine, buy a tub of monohydrate and be done. We are not going to pretend otherwise.
The combined products all sit at 3g to 4g rather than 5g. That is a space problem, not a shortcut. A scoop only holds so much, and anything above 3g is inside the studied range anyway.
Which form should you buy?
Creatine monohydrate. It is the form used in the overwhelming majority of the research, and it is the cheapest.
You will see other forms sold at a premium, such as hydrochloride or ethyl ester. None has been shown to beat monohydrate for the thing you are buying it for.
Creapure is worth a word, because it comes up a lot. It is not a different molecule. It is branded creatine monohydrate made in Germany to a particular purity standard. If purity assurance matters to you, it is a fair reason to pay a little more. Myprotein uses it. Ours is standard monohydrate.
When should you take it?
Whenever you will remember.
Because creatine works by accumulating, the hour you take it barely matters. Daily consistency is the whole game. Attaching it to something you already do every morning is the most reliable trick there is.
That is a large part of why we put ours in a greens drink rather than selling a separate tub.
If you are also taking collagen, you can have both in the same drink. We cover that in can you take creatine and collagen together.
And if you want the wider view on creatine in midlife, there is our guide to creatine for women over 40.
READY TO CHOOSE
Creatine, collagen and greens, in one scoop
4g of creatine monohydrate, 4g of hydrolysed bovine collagen peptides, and a digestive enzyme complex, in a raw wholefood greens base. No synthetic vitamins added. Made in the UK.
4g creatine monohydrate 4g bovine collagen peptides Raw wholefood greens Made in the UK
Questions people ask
Is 3g of creatine a day enough?
It sits inside the range used in most research, which is 3g to 5g a day. Larger people and those training hard tend to use the upper end. Consistency matters more than the exact figure.
What happens if you take too much creatine?
Once your muscle stores are full, the extra is simply excreted. The main effect of a very large dose is stomach discomfort, which is why loading phases are the most common cause of it.
How long before creatine does anything?
Three to four weeks at 3g to 5g a day, or about a week if you load first. Your muscle stores have to fill up before there is anything to notice.
Is Creapure better than ordinary creatine monohydrate?
It is the same molecule. Creapure is branded monohydrate made in Germany to a specific purity standard. If purity assurance matters to you, paying a little extra is reasonable. It is not a different or stronger ingredient.
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How Much Creatine Per Day? A UK Guide to Dose and Loading
3g to 5g a day for most people, and no, you do not need to load. What the dosing evidence says, whether bodyweight changes it, and what UK products actually give you per serving.