Best Plant-Based Protein Powder: 5 Popular Picks Compared

There are a lot of plant-based protein powders, and most of them look alike from the front of the bag. The differences show up on the back: how much protein you get, what it's sweetened with, how long the ingredient list is, and what independent testing has found.

We compared five popular vanilla plant-based protein powders on exactly those things. One of them is ours, fitppl Optimal Plant Protein, so keep that in mind as you read. To keep it fair, every number below comes from the brand's own label or an independent lab, with sources at the end, and we've included the places where Optimal doesn't come out on top.

The short answer

• Fewest ingredients: fitppl Optimal Plant Protein. 26g of protein from four organic ingredients, no gums and no stevia.
• Also simple, with lower lead in independent tests: Truvani Plant Based Protein. Five organic ingredients and monk fruit, with 20g of protein.
• Most protein per serving: Garden of Life Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein. 30g of protein and NSF Certified for Sport, but it had the highest lead of the five in Consumer Reports' testing.
• Lowest price per serving: Orgain Organic Protein, at about $1.90.
• Greens in the scoop: Vega Protein + Supergreens, with 25g of protein plus spinach, kale and broccoli powders.

Side-by-side comparison

Figures are per serving, from each brand's label.¹²³⁴⁵ Ingredient counts treat each item in a blend as its own ingredient. Prices are list prices for the standard size, checked in November 2026, and they change often.¹²¹³

The five protein powders, compared

fitppl Optimal Plant Protein

Optimal is made from four ingredients: organic pea protein, organic brown rice protein, organic vanilla and organic monk fruit. Each serving has 26g of protein, 150 calories and 0g sugar.¹ There are no gums, no stevia and no erythritol.

It's USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, certified gluten-free and certified vegan. We publish the full heavy metal results for each tested batch on the product page (more on that below).

Good fit if: you want the shortest ingredient list with a solid amount of protein.
Trade-offs: it costs more per serving than Orgain, and its lead results were higher than Truvani's in both tests we found.

Truvani Plant Based Protein

Truvani is the closest to Optimal in approach: five organic ingredients (pea protein, vanilla, pumpkin seed, monk fruit and chia seed protein) with no gums. A serving has 20g of protein, 130 calories and 2g of sugar, none of it added.²

Good fit if: you want a simple, monk fruit-sweetened powder and don't need as much protein per scoop.
Trade-offs: 6g less protein per serving than Optimal, and Truvani doesn't share its heavy metal test results.

Orgain Organic Protein

Orgain blends organic pea, brown rice and chia seed protein for 21g of protein and 150 calories per two-scoop serving.³ It's the least expensive of the five. The ingredient list is much longer, with a creamer base, three gums, and a sweetener blend of erythritol and stevia.³

Good fit if: price matters most and you're fine with erythritol and stevia.
Trade-offs: the longest ingredient list of the five, and two scoops per serving.
Read our full Orgain review.

Vega Protein + Supergreens

Vega's pea protein powder has 25g of protein per serving and adds spinach, kale, alfalfa grass and broccoli powders.⁴ It's sweetened with stevia and uses acacia, guar and xanthan gums. Unlike the others here, it isn't certified organic overall.

Good fit if: you like the idea of greens in your shake and want a high-protein scoop.
Trade-offs: the highest price per serving, the most calories at 180, and no organic certification.
Read our full Vega review.

Garden of Life Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein

Garden of Life Sport has the most protein here, 30g per serving from pea and sprouted bean, lentil and garbanzo proteins, plus a fruit "recovery blend" and a probiotic.⁵¹¹ It's NSF Certified for Sport, which matters to athletes who get drug tested.

Good fit if: you want the most protein per serving or need NSF Certified for Sport.
Trade-offs: it's sweetened with stevia, and it had the highest lead result in Consumer Reports' 2025 testing.⁷
Read our full Garden of Life review.

Heavy metals: what the testing shows

In October 2025, Consumer Reports tested 23 protein powders and shakes and found that plant-based products had the most lead on average.⁶ To put the numbers in context, we compare them with USP <2232>. USP <2232> is the U.S. Pharmacopeia's standard for heavy metals in dietary supplements. It sets daily limits of 5 micrograms (mcg) of lead, 5 mcg of cadmium, 15 mcg of inorganic arsenic and 15 mcg of mercury. Following it is voluntary, but it's a common benchmark for testing supplements.¹⁵ Here is the most recent testing we could find for each of the five:

A few things to keep in mind:

• This is a snapshot, not a ranking. These results come from different labs, different batches and different years. Heavy metals vary from batch to batch, because plants take them up from the soil.
• Vega Protein + Supergreens wasn't tested. Consumer Reports tested Vega's sport protein in chocolate, which Vega has since renamed Vega Protein + Recovery.
• We converted Truvani's vanilla results from parts per billion to a 29g serving so they line up with the others.
• Optimal's lead was higher than Truvani's, Orgain's and Vega's in these tests, and lower than Garden of Life's. Every product in the table was under the USP <2232> limits. Our cadmium result, 3.35 mcg per serving, was about two-thirds of the USP limit, and Vega's sport protein was higher at 4.36 mcg.¹⁷

What you can do: look for brands that publish batch results, not just a promise to test. We post the full results for each tested batch on the Optimal product page, including every metal that was detected. Truvani says it tests every lot of every product, but it doesn't share the results.¹⁰¹⁴ For more results and how to read a test report, see our guide to lead in protein powder.

How to choose a plant-based protein powder

• Protein per serving. Most people look for 20 to 30g. Check whether a "serving" is one scoop or two.
• Sweetener. If you'd rather skip stevia or erythritol, monk fruit-sweetened options like Optimal and Truvani are the ones to look at.
• Ingredient list. Gums and creamer bases improve texture but make the list longer. Whether that matters is up to you.
• Certifications. USDA Organic covers how ingredients are grown. Certified gluten-free matters if you have celiac disease. NSF Certified for Sport matters for tested athletes.
• Testing. Look for published heavy metal results tied to a batch and a date.
• Price per serving. Divide the price by the number of servings, not by the size of the tub.

The bottom line

There isn't one best plant-based protein powder for everyone. If you want the most protein per scoop or need NSF Certified for Sport, Garden of Life Sport is the pick. If price comes first, Orgain is hard to beat. If you want greens in the same scoop, look at Vega.

If you want the shortest ingredient list, Optimal and Truvani are the two to compare. Optimal gives you more protein per serving (26g vs. 20g) and publishes its heavy metal results. Truvani had lower lead in both independent tests we found, and its cadmium ranged from lower than ours to about the same. Either way, read the back of the bag, and ask the brand for its test results.