The Supplement Scam: Why AG1, Four Sigmatic, and “Premium” Brands Are Robbing You Blind
You’re being played. When you see a $100 AG1 price tag, even a "cheap" $20 Four Sigmatic coffee, or a $90 micro-serving tub from Perfect Amino, you’re told it’s about “quality” and “some other stuff.” It isn’t.
It’s Halloween, so let’s skip costumes and go straight to the jump scare. The supplement industry is failed. The “health and performance” industry is failed. Most services orbiting them are, too. The trick is price theater. The treat is margin. And you’re the candy.
Here’s what’s really happening: you’re paying for greenwashed marketing, influencer kickbacks, and deliberate price inflation to protect large companies while designed to make you think expensive means effective. Meanwhile, brands like ours sell something better with twice the active dose for $69, and people doubt it because they’ve been conditioned to equate price with quality. Not even that, brand's like that simply cannot service without such high prices due to their formulation cost of business and risks, if they priced as low as we do, they'd die!
Let’s run the dirty math that bleeds your wallet.
The Markup Game: Fuzzy Formulas, Real Cash Grabs
AG1’s “Proprietary Blend” Trick
AG1 charges $99–$130 per month for a greens powder. The label leans on “proprietary blends,” which is code for hiding how little of each ingredient you’re getting. Seventy-five ingredients looks impressive until you realize many are sprinkled in at micro-levels. The high-value actives add up to roughly $8–$12 in bulk cost per bag.
They aren’t selling a formula. They’re selling a feeling wrapped in a sleek pouch and a celebrity ad read with lots more left over to cover margin losses and then some more to enjoy heavy profits.
Four Sigmatic: $3 Mushroom Coffee Sold for $20-45
Instant coffee from bulk beans is $1.5 and pennies per serving. Bulk lion’s mane or chaga extracts are also cheap and under-dosed. A typical bag costs ~$4–$6 to produce and retails at $20–$40. That’s an 800%+ markup. You’re paying $1.50 a cup for what costs them about $0.12 to make. The spread funds ads, influencer seeding, and shelf fees. Once again, the top brand's have margins are not fair for your health or wallet.
Perfect Amino: The Amino Acid Grift
Eight essential amino acids, about $90 per bottle, positioned as elite. The markup we estimated runs about ~400%. It’s a decent product but at roughly half the value and servings amounts of FundAminos. They built brand gravity; then it went corporate and you pay the premium.
Our $69 Formula Is “Too Expensive”? — That’s Insane
We’re not undercutting on quality. We’re refusing to rob you.
"The problem is belief and market standards of what has been slipping for years. There is no accountability in the supplement market. And it has many trained a nice website and pretty pictures means the product works, or so it seems."
The Dirty Secret: High Prices Justify Themselves
Price Theater
The playbook is simple: pick a trending keyword, mirror the category price, keep cost-of-goods near 30–40%, list to fit the lane, then burn ad spend until you rank. No one asks what it’s worth — only what the market will tolerate and what the math's and investor valuations says will make money.
The Influencer Bribe Economy
Why every podcast shills, affiliates pull 20–40% per sale, single video sponsorships run five figures for ONE campaign, and product seeding flows nonstop. Millions per month go to payola and loss mitigation just for the company to keep up illusions and you are funding it! That money comes from your subscription, not from superior nutrition.
Why We Just Don’t
You’d get ripped off; we’d be forced to torch budget on ads; the product wouldn’t improve. Our stance is simple: build the best formula at the fairest price and keep customers for life because it actually works.
The Takeaway: Stop Falling for the Supplement Scam
When you see a triple-digit price, or even a double digit one, ask three things. Is the formula transparent or hidden behind "feel good" vibes. Are doses clinical and serving sizes price comparable, did you look and understand the label vs. the price value (really do you?) or is it pixie-dust across dozens of ingredients. Is the company financing influencers or letting results speak. Does they company actually put it's money where the mouth is? If the honest answers embarrass the brand, the price is theater.
All big brands appear to steal your money and probably make your health and performance worse, too, with inferior formulations you just don't need. They’re expensive because they trained you to equate price with quality, they shovel revenue into ads and influencers, risk management, logistics, and they laugh about the mark up 5–8×. Scary!
We sell for almost half of what our products are truly worth.
Truth is we don’t even run an ads budget for almost our entire company career, while others torch millions monthly just to stay alive. That alone should tell you everything about PureClean Performance. We are still here!
At the end of the day, PureClean Performance is ours and yours. We don’t make much from each sale, because this isn’t about squeezing customers. It’s about going against the grain and building something that makes the world better for as many people as possible.
We’ll keep doing this as long as we can. It isn’t easy, but that’s our promise. And we'll keep fighting for you.
If you think this sounds like hype, or if our prices feel “too expensive,” that’s conditioning talking — not reality, or you just don't value your health and performance goals enough.
If you do value what we’re doing, the best way to support us is simple: share our products and PureClean with your friends. It helps more than you know!
Pay For What Works. No Fear or Scares Halloween for Your Health & Performance!
Transparent formulas. Clinical doses. No markup games.