Where to Buy Energy Gels Online in the US in 2023: Top Retailers Reviewed
Whether you buy energy gels once a year before a big race, or you’re a gel fanatic fueling with them year-round, this post is for you. As an energy gel review site, we are always on the lookout for the best deals, but as small business owners ourselves, we also love to support smaller retailers that are not named Amazon.
In this post, we delve into the top online shops for energy gels in the US in 2023, looking at price, selection, delivery time, return policy, and customer satisfaction, and more. While we are usually on a mission for a new PB and to find the best fuel sources to help us achieve it, today, we are on a quest to uncover the ultimate sources of energy gels online.
The online shops we considered for our ultimate showdown
Since we are frequent gel purchasers here at Runivore, we are already familiar with many of the best online energy gel retailers. But we live in a fast paced world with new shops and good deals popping up all over the place. So we wanted to survey the landscape to see if any new online shopping places exist.
We started creating our shortlist for consideration of best online shops of energy gels by doing a quick google search for “best online shops of energy gels.” The result was a little surprising.
Our favorite places to browse for energy gels, like thefeed.com and runningwarehouse.com didn’t crack the top 5 spots in the search results. Congratulations to the SEO teams at the big online retailers like Target, Walmart and Amazon for beating out obviously better choices.
We next took a look at the prices, selection, delivery options, and returns to determine who the top choices are. Since we’re focusing on the US in this blog we had to exclude two quite good shops which although do offer shipping to US, are too expensive to compete for a top retailer spot once you include the extra shipping costs.
With that said the following shops made it into the showdown (spoiler alert – they are listed in the order we would rank them – but keep reading for some details about each experience):
- Thefeed.com – awesome selection, decent prices, membership options to save $$$.
- Runningwarehouse.com – great selection, decent prices, size options.
- Amazon.com – decent selection, great prices, good shipping if you already shop with them.
- Target.com – good for basics, inexpensive and quick pick up options.
- Walmart.com – same as Target.
Thefeed.com and runningwarehouse.com dominate as the best online shops for energy gels
It was a tough choice between these two retailers, while thefeed.com was the top place to buy energy gels online due to their endless selection of gels. Runningwarehouse.com was actually a little bit cheaper for the standard gels like GU or Honey Stinger. We therefore are calling it a tie.
Both brands catered to the needs of the full spectrum of runners. Ultrarunners who may want to fuel with fat-based gels for example. Or those runners who insist on using only real food.
The brands we spotted at thefeed.com with some reference prices: GU every flavor ($1.60 for singles / $37.99 for 24 packs) GU Roctane ($2.59 for singles / $62.40 for 24 pack), Honey Stinger ($1.75 / $9.99 for 6 pack), SIS, Maurten, SIS Go, Spring Energy, Huma almost all the flavors, Untapped, Precision fuel, Ucan Edge, Neversecond, Tap, Enervit, Clif Shot and Bloks, GU Liquid, Muir, Tap, First Endurance, Trail butter, RX Nut butter, Chargel, Split, Fast Food, Hammer, Nooty, and even a trial pack of gels.
Really helpful filter at thefeed.com to help you navigate their products:
Runningwarehouse.com had a similar, but a little bit smaller selection with slightly lower prices for the most popular gels. The GU was $31.95 for 24 pack vs. $37.99 at thefeed.com. Similar differences were seen across other top energy gel brands. One thing to note is that thefeed.com did offer a membership/subscription program which brought the prices to a similar level.
They also had a helpful filter to help you get to the products you need:
Here’s a breakdown of our two winners side by side with some key stats:
thefeed.com
Best overall selection- Almost endless selection of brands, flavors, sizes of energy gels.
- Free shipping for orders over $65, otherwise standard post office fees.
- 30 day satisfaction policy, they promise to: “Make it right and make you happy”
runningwarehouse.com
Good selection & price- Great selection and a price that matched prices at Amazon and other discount stores.
- Free shipping with 1-5 day delivery. Faster delivery 1-2 days with orders over $50.
- Free 90 day returns.
The other shops - Amazon, Target, and Walmart
So if you love a big selection of products and flavors – see section above. However, it’s worth saying a word or two about the remaining online shops for energy gels.
Buying energy gels at Amazon.com
Amazon.com did have a decent selection. We found the following brands represented:
Huma, Clif Shot Energy Gel, Clif Bloks, GLUKOS, PowerGel, Skratch energy chews, Boom nutrition, SIS, Spring Energy, Transcend, Gatorade Endurance.
The prices were also pretty good with GU energy going for $36.00 and Honey Stinger for $33.35 for 24 pack orders.
They also offer free shipping for orders over $25, and free shipping to their prime members.
