Competitive product intelligence · U.S. pre-workout market

Know what changed before the market reacts.

See what changed across the category, with the history and evidence behind it.

Explore the Record See a confirmed change

FormulaSignal record

Confirmed change

C4 OriginalOne living record

January 2024

Caffeine 150 mgBeta-alanine 1.6 g

February 2024

Caffeine 200 mgBeta-alanine 2 g

Dated statesSource-linkedReview recorded

Built into every record.

Research already done

The source work is already assembled.

History preserved

Prior product states stay visible.

Evidence attached

Every published change links to proof.

101: products
78: query-ready records
22: brands
322: dated states
2,042: ingredient lines

Coverage depth varies by product. See exactly what is ready.

Tracked on every covered product

One product. More than one thing that can change.

Caffeine is the headline. A change can be any of these, and the Record keeps them on the same dated states, which is what makes a move in one of them comparable years later.

FORMULA
Declared ingredients, and the amount of each per serving.
SERVING ECONOMICS
Price, serving count, and cost per serving on one basis.
CLAIMS
Benefit language and positioning on the product page.
CERTIFICATIONS
Third-party marks a dated state declares.
LAUNCH
New products and renames entering the covered set.
RETIREMENT
A listing pulled, with its dated states retained.

Confirmed Signals, 3 so far

The other categories publish the same way, once a pair of dated states supports one. Read the Signal archive.

From Signal to intelligence

What a confirmed change actually tells you.

You saw this one at the top of the page, in ten seconds. This is the rest of what the Record keeps around it: what moved, what held, what the two states cost per serving, and what a competitor still reading the old page would believe today.

PRODUCT

Cellucor / C4 Original

MAJORCONFIRMEDFORMULA

Observed Jan–Feb 2024

Both dated states, value by value

Caffeine (per serving): 150 mg200 mg
Beta-alanine (per serving): 1.6 g2 g
Servings per container: 3030
Observed price (basis not recorded): $29.99$34.99
Price per serving (basis not recorded): $1.00$1.17

The read

OBSERVED FACT

Two archived first-party pages, five weeks apart, show a move to a fifth-generation formula with the serving count held at 30.

COMMERCIAL CONTEXT

Caffeine increased 33.3% and beta-alanine increased 25%. The observed page price moved from $29.99 to $34.99 and price per serving from $1.00 to $1.17, but neither endpoint records a price basis, so this is a movement between two observed prices and not a measured list-price increase.

POSSIBLE IMPLICATION

A competitive comparison still carrying C4 Original at 150 mg and $29.99 is benchmarking against a state that stopped being current in February 2024.

CONFIRMEDArchived first-party pages · Jan 25, 2024 and Feb 26, 2024 · Reviewed by FormulaSignal, Jul 29, 2026

The window is based on nearest archived canonical states, not manufacture dates.

Method note

Shopify metadata points to a likely February 20 DTC publication, and the legacy formula later coexisted on a hidden live page. Flavor is not resolved on either endpoint. Both are canonical DTC page states whose declared actives are presented product-wide rather than per flavor, so the comparison is like for like on actives and says nothing about flavor-specific excipients. Both offer observations carry price_basis UNKNOWN: an archived page shows the price displayed that day, and nothing on file establishes whether either figure was a list price or a promotion, so no percentage price change is published from them.

View the permanent Signal

Method

Monitoring keeps the Record alive.

The Record is the permanent result, not an alert that disappears after it is read.

01
Capture
First-party labels and product pages, on a defined schedule.
02
Compare
Normalized against the latest verified state, so a rename does not read as a reformulation.
03
Verify
A person checks every material difference against the original evidence.
04
Alert
The confirmed change goes out with its before, after, observation date, and source.
05
Record
The published change joins the permanent ledger.

Why not just ask ChatGPT?

The market has no memory. We keep one.

Ask the same question. The difference is what exists before you ask it.

Ask ChatGPT

What changed in C4 Original?

Current-page summary

The answer depends on what the model can retrieve when you ask.

No preserved prior state is guaranteed.

Ask the FormulaSignal Record

What changed in C4 Original?

Dated comparison

January 2024 to February 2024

Caffeine150 mg200 mg

Beta-alanine1.6 g2 g

Source-linkedHuman reviewed before release

The oldest state in the file is from May 2017, and the file only gets longer. That research was finished before you asked.

Sample Category Ledger

The category record you would build if competitive research never fell behind.

FORMULASIGNAL / CATEGORY RECORD

Pre-Workout Category Ledger · July 2026

ILLUSTRATIVE SAMPLE

Every brand and finding below is a placeholder: the format of a delivered ledger, not anything observed. The real records are the confirmed Signals further up this page, and the current edition over the real Record is open at the Category Ledger.

SUMMARY

The month in 30 seconds

One covered formula removed a declared active.
Two products cut their serving count and held the price.
A new launch set a higher price-per-serving reference.

FORMULA

Formula changes

Product	Change	Before	After	Observed	Confidence
Brand A / Product One	FORMULADeclared active removed	1.5 g	Not declared	Jul 03	CONFIRMED
Brand B / Product Two	FORMULAL-citrulline per serving	8 g	6 g	Jul 10	CONFIRMED
Brand C / Product Three	FORMULACaffeine per serving	300 mg	250 mg	Jul 16	WATCHING

SERVING ECONOMICS

Serving economics

Standard list price per serving, July 2026

Brand A / Product One$1.20

Brand B / Product Two$1.60

Brand C / Product Three$1.80

Brand D / Product Four$2.15

Brand E / Product Five$2.50

LAUNCH · RETIREMENT

Launches and retirements

LAUNCHCONFIRMED

Brand D / Product Four

First-party listing July 05 · $2.15 per serving

RETIREMENTCONFIRMED

Brand E / Product Five

Removed from category navigation, archive retained · July 21

UNCONFIRMED

Watching

WATCHING

Brand F / Product Six

A revised image may show a lower serving count. The label view has not caught up.

On-demand intelligence

Ask a specific question. Get a verified answer.

The ledger is the monthly sweep. Sometimes you need one answer now, source-linked and researched by a person before it reaches you.

OPERATOR QUESTIONILLUSTRATIVE SAMPLE

QUESTION

Is the category moving away from 300 mg caffeine per serving?

CAPTURES REVIEWED

CONFIRMED CHANGES

WINDOW

Apr–Jul 2026

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Most covered products still declare 300 mg. Three cut their headline dose last quarter and two more show signals not yet confirmed on a first-party label. That is movement, but it is not a category-wide shift.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SHOWS

Three cut declared caffeine while holding price, one from 300 mg to 250 mg.
Most covered products held at 300 mg.
None increased declared caffeine.

CONFIDENCE AND LIMITS

Moderate. The three reductions sit on dated before-and-after captures. The two WATCHING items rest on product imagery the label view has not caught up to, so they could resolve either way. This shows what moved on public labels, not why.

READ

Track it, do not react to it yet. Three cuts is a pattern worth watching, not a category reset.

Illustrative data only. This shows the answer format.

On-demand questions are part of the pilot.

See what the pilot includes

Who it is for

Built for operators making commercial calls.

Four jobs this does inside a sports-nutrition company. For your own shelf, FormulaSignal for People is public and free to read.

FOUNDER OR GM

A competitor holds its shelf price and takes a gram out of the headline ingredient. You hear it from an alert with both labels attached, not from a distributor six months later.

HEAD OF PRODUCT

An ingredient starts appearing across covered labels, or starts leaving them. You see the pattern and the dates before you commit a formulation cycle.

BRAND LEAD

A competitor adds a claim or picks up a certification. You find out what they can say that you cannot, and when they started.

ECOMMERCE OR PRICING

Cost per serving across the covered set, normalized against serving count, so a price gap reads against what is in the tub.

NO PRODUCT OF OURS DOES THIS

Personalized health decisions
Dosing or treatment protocols
Formula generation
Regulatory or compliance advice
Medical advice
Sponsored or paid conclusions

Paid pilot

Start with the record, not another dashboard.

If you track competitors in spreadsheets, bookmarks and a Slack channel, this replaces that. Verified findings by email, no software to adopt.

ONE PLAN

Pre-Workout Intelligence Pilot

$149/month

Three-month paid pilot · Billed monthly · Cancel anytime · Limited to five companies

Verified material-change alerts
Monthly Pre-Workout Category Ledger
Formula and declared-dose history
Serving economics
Launch and retirement tracking
Claims and certification changes
On-demand questions
Source-linked evidence
Internal company use

Join the five-company pilot

Secure checkout by Stripe · $149 billed monthly · Cancel anytime

A private access link arrives by email after checkout. Complete the five-minute setup, then alerts and monthly ledgers arrive by email.

Read the sample first. Pay only if this would improve an actual product decision.

FAQ

Clear answers, without the pitch.

Why only 101 products and 3 confirmed changes?

Because 101 products held to this standard beat two hundred skimmed. A declared amount counts only once it is checked against the printed Supplement Facts panel, and a change counts only once dated evidence exists on both sides. A number counting unverified sightings would be larger and worth less. Pilot members nominate priority competitors, but the covered set stays shared, so this scales instead of becoming custom consulting.

Is there a consumer version?

Yes. FormulaSignal for People is public and free to read, one product at a time. An operator gets the covered set, alerts, and calculations. Both read the same records, and neither gives medical advice.

Does FormulaSignal test supplements?

No. We report declared label and public product information, and do not verify contents through laboratory testing.

How is AI used?

For extraction, normalization proposals, and drafting. Calculations are deterministic, every material fact links to captured evidence, and publication requires human review.

What happens if a source is wrong?

Confirmation status is shown, dated evidence retained, and material corrections stay visible.

How often are reports delivered?

An alert goes out when a change is confirmed, and the Category Ledger arrives monthly. Quiet weeks stay quiet rather than getting filled.

Disclosures

Method, limits, and terms.

What this service does, and where it stops.

Methodology

FormulaSignal observes publicly accessible first-party labels and product pages, normalizes declared product information, compares each state with the latest verified state, and manually reviews material changes before publication.

Limitations

FormulaSignal reports publicly declared information. It does not independently test products. Public sources may be incomplete, delayed, inconsistent, or changed without notice. An observation date is not necessarily the date a product was manufactured or internally changed.

Privacy

FormulaSignal collects only business contact information voluntarily provided by prospective or paying customers. It does not collect consumer health information. Payments are processed by Stripe; FormulaSignal does not receive full payment-card details. The current privacy notice and terms are at /privacy and /terms.

Terms

FormulaSignal provides commercial market intelligence. It does not provide medical, nutritional, legal, regulatory, or formulation advice. References to brands and products do not imply affiliation or endorsement. The paid pilot is $149 per month, billed monthly through Stripe, and may be canceled at any time before the next billing date by contacting FormulaSignal.

Corrections

To report a possible error, email hello@formulasignal.com. Material corrections will be investigated and displayed transparently.

These pilot terms describe the current scope and may evolve as the service scales.

The next signal

Stop discovering competitor changes in your own sales data.

See what a source-linked pre-workout category record looks like.

Read the sample ledger Join the five-company pilot