Contents 6 sections
What is your main goal?
How do you digest dairy?
What matters most to you?
Summarise this article with:
💡 The essentials
A whey will not build mass on its own: it brings protein, not calories. When bulking, pick it on cost per serving and composition, then find your calories on your plate or in a mass gainer.
- Best whey protein for bulking: the Whey Isolate Native from Nutripure, 26 g of protein per shake, from €1.43 a serving.
- Cheapest per serving: Scitec 100% Whey Protein Professional in the 4 kg tub, about €1 for a 30 g serving.
- If you are short on calories: a homemade gainer (about 585 kcal) or a shop-bought gainer such as the Pure Gainer from Nutripure.
You are bulking and looking for the best whey protein for bulking? The right criterion is not the one the brands push: what counts is how much you pay for each serving of protein, and where the extra calories you need are going to come from. We compared three wheys and two gainers on those criteria.
🚨 Our pick for quality: Nutripure, a very pure native isolate at a cost per serving close to the mainstream wheys. The brand ships from France.
🏆 The best wheys for bulking: the comparison
🔬 Our method
We compared the official product sheets, with no laboratory testing: protein and calories per serving, ingredients list and prices checked in October 2026. The cost per serving is worked out from the price per kilo (or from the per-shake price shown by the brand), then brought back to 20 g of protein so we can compare products that are not equally concentrated. The homemade gainer calories come from the ANSES Ciqual table.
| Product | Serving | Protein | Calories | Cost per serving | Cost for 20 g of protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nutripure Whey Isolate Native | 30 g | 26 g | 115 kcal | from €1.43 | about €1.10 |
| Scitec 100% Whey Protein Professional (4 kg) | 30 g | 22 g | 114 kcal | about €1.01 | about €0.92 |
| MyProtein Impact Whey (on offer) | 30 g | 22 g | 114 kcal | about €1.14 | about €1.04 |
| Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard | 31 g | 24 g | 116 kcal | about €1.33 | about €1.11 |
| Nutripure Pure Gainer | 80 g | 28 g | 316 kcal | from €1.79 | about €1.28 |
| Optimum Nutrition Serious Mass | 335 g | 50 g | 1,260 kcal | not recorded | not recorded |
For the same protein, the gap between the cheapest whey and the purest one is no more than about twenty cents a shake. That is why the price per kilo misleads you: a whey with 72 g of protein per 100 g looks far cheaper than an isolate with 87 g, but you are also buying less protein per kilo.
| Product | Protein per serving | Cost | Composition | Calorie contribution | Ideal for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nutripure Whey Isolate Native | ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★★ | ★☆☆☆☆ | Clean bulking, sensitive digestion |
| Scitec 100% Whey Pro | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★★ | ★★☆☆☆ | ★☆☆☆☆ | Small budget |
| MyProtein Impact Whey | ★★★★☆ | ★★★★☆ | ★★★☆☆ | ★☆☆☆☆ | Choice of flavours |
| Nutripure Pure Gainer | ★★★★★ | ★★★☆☆ | ★★★★☆ | ★★★☆☆ | Moderate surplus, snack |
| ON Serious Mass | ★★★★★ | not scored | ★★☆☆☆ | ★★★★★ | Big appetite that has stalled, very lean builds |
1. Nutripure Whey Isolate Native: the best whey for clean bulking
Judged on protein content, composition and cost per serving, the best whey for bulking is the one from Nutripure. In the unflavoured version it contains nothing but French milk isolate and sunflower lecithin: 26 g of protein and 115 kcal per 30 g serving, with 0.9 g of carbohydrate. Compare labels on the same basis (product as sold): the Nutripure Whey Isolate shows 86.8 g of protein per 100 g (94% on a dry matter basis).
Its appeal when bulking: you keep control of your calories, since almost everything it brings is protein. The unflavoured version slips easily into porridge or a homemade gainer.
2. Scitec 100% Whey Protein Professional: the cheapest per serving
In the 4 kg tub (€133.90, 133 servings), this is the cheapest whey in our comparison: about €1 for a 30 g serving. It brings 22 g of protein and 114 kcal per serving (73 g of protein per 100 g). The trade-off is a long ingredients list: two sweeteners (acesulfame K and sucralose), added amino acids (taurine, glutamine, arginine), enzymes and, depending on the flavour, colourings. Save it for people who digest a whey concentrate well.
3. MyProtein Impact Whey: the good compromise on price and flavours
Around €38 per kilo on offer (checked in October 2026), which is about €1.14 for a 30 g serving for 22 g of protein and 114 kcal. It is a whey concentrate sweetened with sucralose, with a very wide choice of flavours: a good call if you take two shakes a day and flavour fatigue is creeping up on you. Outside of a sale, the price climbs sharply.
4. Nutripure Pure Gainer: a moderate gainer to top up your calories
An 80 g serving brings 316 kcal, 28 g of protein and 35 g of carbohydrate of which only 2.7 g is sugar (unflavoured version). The base is whey, organic oats and collagen, for a cost from €1.79 a serving according to the brand. It is a “light” gainer: it suits a bulking snack, not someone who has to add 1,000 kcal a day.
5. Optimum Nutrition Serious Mass: the very high calorie gainer
The recommended serving (335 g of powder) brings 1,260 kcal, 50 g of protein and 250 g of carbohydrate. The first ingredient is corn maltodextrin, with sucralose, vitamins, minerals and creatine. It is the option for very lean builds who cannot manage to eat enough; for everyone else, a serving that size replaces a real meal and puts fat on fast. We were unable to record its price on the official site.
⚖️ Whey or mass gainer when bulking?
Take a whey if your problem is eating enough protein, a gainer if your problem is eating enough full stop. Most lifters mainly need a moderate, steady calorie surplus: a whey added to slightly bigger meals is enough. Our guide to whey or mass gainer covers both options, and whey or gainer for bulking explains how to size the surplus.
A homemade gainer often beats a shop-bought one. With 300 ml of semi-skimmed milk, 60 g of porridge oats, a banana of about 120 g and 30 g of whey isolate, you get about 585 kcal and 45 g of protein (calculated from the ANSES Ciqual table and the Nutripure label), with carbohydrate coming from whole foods. For other recipes, see our mass gain shake without whey.
🥩 How much protein when bulking?
There is no point overdoing it: 1.4 to 2.0 g of protein per kilo per day is enough for most athletes (ISSN position stand, 2017), and a meta-analysis of 49 studies sees no further lean mass gain beyond roughly 1.6 g/kg/day. For a 75 kg lifter that works out at about 105 to 150 g a day, and whey should only cover part of it. The detailed calculation is in our guide to how much whey protein per day.
What makes you gain weight or build muscle is the calorie surplus and the training, not the powder. Our guide to whey protein for mass gain explains how to fit it into your programme, and our page on whey protein and creatine shows how to combine them: creatine is the most studied supplement for strength, at about 3 g a day.
🛒 The other brands worth a look
All these brands sell wheys that suit bulking; compare them with the same method (protein per serving and cost for 20 g of protein):
- MYPROTEIN
- DECATHLON (see our review of Decathlon whey)
- NUTRIPURE
- YAM NUTRITION
- BULK (see our review of Bulk whey)
For an all-categories ranking, our comparison of the best whey proteins looks at nine products. If you are cutting rather than bulking, read our ranking of the best whey protein for weight loss.
💬 Our verdict
When bulking, we recommend a simple whey (Nutripure if your budget allows, Scitec or MyProtein otherwise) and calories coming from real food. The cost per serving of these wheys sits within a few tens of cents of each other; the real difference is composition and digestion. A shop-bought gainer only makes sense if you genuinely cannot eat more.
This comparison is not for you if you are after a product that “makes you big” with no effort: no powder replaces training and a calorie surplus held for several months. And if you are starting out, begin with our pick of the best whey protein for beginners.
⚠️ Watch out
ANSES has logged adverse effects above all with supplements sold for mass gain or weight loss: avoid stacking several products and favour those that comply with the NF V94-001 standard (now EN 17444). Ask a doctor for advice if you have kidney, liver or heart disease, if you are pregnant, or for a teenager.
❓ Frequently asked questions
Does whey protein help you gain mass?
Not on its own: whey helps you build muscle if you train and if your protein intake was too low. A 30 g serving only brings about 115 kcal. Weight gain depends on the calorie surplus across your whole diet.
What is the best product for gaining muscle mass?
The best “product” is still progressive training paired with a diet in a slight surplus. On the supplement side, a whey covers the protein, creatine is the most studied for strength, and a gainer is only useful if you cannot manage to eat enough.
Whey isolate or concentrate for bulking?
Both work: choose the isolate if milk bloats you, the concentrate if you want to pay less. Brought back to 20 g of protein, the price gap between the two stays small in our comparison.
How many shakes a day when bulking?
One to two shakes a day is enough in the vast majority of cases. ANSES recommends that two thirds of the protein come from food in strength athletes, and that you do not exceed 2.5 g per kilo per day.
📚 Sources
- ISSN position stand on protein and exercise (Jäger et al., 2017)
- Meta-analysis by Morton et al. (2018) on protein supplementation and resistance training
- ANSES: protein intake, requirements and recommendations (2007) (in French)
- ANSES: food supplements for athletes, risks to health and uncertain benefits
- Ciqual food composition table (ANSES) (in French)
