If you've spent any time shopping for supplements, you know the drill. You flip the bottle over looking for the ingredient panel and instead you get hit with "proprietary blend" and a single mystery number. No idea what's actually in there or how much.
Two brands built their entire identity around fixing that problem: Formulation Factory and Transparent Labs. Both promise full label transparency. Both skip the proprietary blends. Both lean on third-party testing to back it up. So how do you pick between them?
Here's a straightforward look at where they overlap and where they split.
The shared foundation
Formulation Factory and Transparent Labs both built their brand on the same core promise: every ingredient on the label, every dose disclosed, nothing hidden behind vague blend names. That's rare in this industry, and it's the reason both brands show up in the same conversation when people talk about "clean" or "honest" supplement companies.
Both also lean on third-party lab testing rather than asking you to just trust the label. It's a shared philosophy even though the two brands come at it from different angles.
Where they differ: what they're actually formulating for
This is the real dividing line. Transparent Labs is built for the gym. Their lineup runs through protein powders, pre-workouts, creatine, fat burners, and recovery formulas, aimed at people training hard and tracking macros. It's a performance nutrition brand first.
Formulation Factory covers a wider slice of daily life. Their categories span hormone and vitality support, energy and focus, sleep and stress, hair and skin, gut health, and metabolism. It reads less like a gym bag and more like a full wellness routine, whether or not you're lifting.
If your goal is fueling workouts and hitting protein targets, TL's lineup is built directly for that. If you're looking for support across sleep, stress, gut, hair, or hormone health as part of daily life, FF covers more of that ground.
Testing and verification
Transparent Labs backs its products with independent lab testing, and in some cases Informed Choice certification, which specifically screens for banned substances. That matters if you're a competitive athlete who needs assurance a supplement won't flag a drug test. They also publish Certificates of Analysis for individual products so you can look up your exact batch.
Formulation Factory runs every lot through third-party testing for purity and potency, and manufactures in a GMP-registered US facility under FDA-enforced standards. The emphasis is less about athletic banned-substance testing and more about verifying that what's on the label is actually what's in the capsule, batch after batch.
Both approaches hold up. Which one matters more to you depends on whether you need sport-specific certification or general purity assurance.
Price and positioning
Transparent Labs is generally positioned as a premium, gym-focused brand, and the pricing reflects that. You're paying for clinical dosing and testing rigor aimed at serious training.
Formulation Factory positions itself around full dosing without the inflated price tag that sometimes comes with "clean label" marketing, aiming to make transparency the standard rather than a luxury add-on.
The bottom line
Neither brand is hiding behind a proprietary blend, and that alone puts both ahead of a big chunk of the supplement industry. The real decision comes down to what you're optimizing for. If your world revolves around training splits and protein totals, Transparent Labs was built with you in mind. If you're trying to build out a broader routine that covers energy, sleep, stress, hair, and gut health without switching brands every time a new concern pops up, Formulation Factory is the more complete option.
Either way, you're finally getting a label you can actually read.