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Going to Costco is a grocery pilgrimage. The whole family goes. You get a dirt-cheap hotdog beforehand. You mark up catalogs with everything you’re getting before you go in, or you freewheel it and let the aisles lead the way. That said, some purchases require more forethought than the severely discounted electric toothbrushes or absolutely-must-buy side-sleeper pillows. I’m talking about protein bars.
Take it from a Costco lifer, the protein bars selection at Costco has seen a major glow-up in recent years. Where previously only a few options were available, now you’ll regularly find loads of options across the nutritional and price spectrum. But which are the best? Above all, there are four that stand out—but our favorite is Pure Protein’s bars (available with a slight markup on Amazon as well), which are sold at just over $1.20 a bar and taste better than they have any right to. For more options, read on.
Our Experience
I am a longtime Costco obsessive. I spend hours in Costco and on Costco’s website looking for the best ways to save money on food. I also spend an inordinate amount of time eating, reading about, and hunting down new protein bars to stuff my face with so that, when hunger strikes between meals, I have something relatively good for me to reach for. I’ve scoured my local Costco and Costcos up and down the East Coast in my time as a member, and now I’m divulging my knowledge of the cultish grocery warehouse’s protein bar inventory for you.
Choosing the Bars
There are a lot of protein bars available at Costco, but for the purposes of this guide, I’m disregarding “protein bars” with less than 15g of protein. There is a whole subcategory of bars at Costco and elsewhere marketed as protein-heavy that in fact carry about as much protein as two ounces of cashews, and are often extremely high in sugar and fat to boot. If that’s the kind of protein bar you’re after, you may as well just enjoy a Snickers instead.
The bars selected for this guide are generally at least 20g of protein per serving and harbor very little sugar and fat content. They’re typically high in fiber as well, making them a great snack for keeping your stomach content on busy days, or when you’re trying to drop a few pounds. If protein bars don’t sit well in your stomach, try something like protein gummies in their stead.
PROTEIN 101
The Best Protein Bars at Costco
Pure Protein Bar
Best overall protein bar at Costco
Though it’s often expected that Kirkland—Costco’s in-house brand—represents the best combination of value and quality in a Costco warehouse, it’s not the case here. Pure Protein’s bars are right in the middle of the pack in calories and carbs, and slightly above average in protein and fat levels (that is, they are less fatty than most competition). Critically, the total sugar count is also a paltry 3g, which is significantly lower than the vast majority of protein bars.
They’re also more than palatable. Where many low-cal, high-protein bars are too gritty or pasty and thus require a certain gumption to force down your gullet, I return to this big box of Pure bars regularly and chow down throughout the week in between meals. The chocolate peanut butter flavor is especially good, which is nice considering this 23-count box contains 10 of them. The other two flavors—chewy chocolate chip and chocolate deluxe—are also good, but more in line with regular protein bars in terms of texture and taste. And before you ask: no, I do not know why Pure Protein chose to package these bars in a 23-count variety box with 10, 7, and 6 bars of each respective flavor. Yes, I think it’s bizarre.
Pure Protein bars are of course available outside of Costco as well, and can be found on the usual sites like Amazon and Walmart, though with a slight markup per bar.
Cost per bar: $1.22
Protein: 20g
Carbs: 18g
Fat: 5g
Sugar: 3g
Calories: 200
Kirkland Signature Protein Bar
Most affordable protein bar at Costco
Behold, the Kirkland Signature protein bar. It is cheap. Its macros are incredible. It tastes, well—it tastes OK.
Kirkland Signature products typically deliver in this manner. Whether it’s a shirt or a bottle of vodka, you’re typically getting a product that ticks the boxes and saves you a few bucks. This is the essence of Costco, and exactly what its protein bar does. It tastes like almost every other protein bar you’ve had—slightly gritty, a bit too chewy, and generally a reminder that you are eating “healthy” rather than well. That said, I expect only those who are very bothered by off textures to have serious issues with the bar.
In any case, the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor is, by some distance, the best available flavor and one I’d recommend. Lastly, and maybe most importantly for some shoppers, these things pack a whopping 10g of dietary fiber per bar, which is great for a number of reasons but chiefly satiation—AKA you’ll feel fuller, longer.
Cost per bar: $1.20
Protein: 21g
Carbs: 22g
Fat: 7g
Sugar: 2g
Calories: 190
CLIF Builders Protein Bar
Best-tasting protein bar at Costco
By my very unscientific measure, Clif Builder’s Bars are the best-tasting protein bars at Costco.
They’re also, predictably, the most sinful bar in this guide. Clif Builder’s Bars are significantly higher in fat, sugar, and calories than the other protein bars on this list. It turns out, to make a genuinely delightful bar full of protein, you need some of the good—and bad for you—stuff to carry the load.
They’re crunchy, chocolatey, rich, and go down quickly and easily. It still has a definitive “this is a protein bar” vibe in that it’s not sickly sweet, but I genuinely look forward to having one. That said, at about half the sugar payload as a can of Coke, it’s not a protein bar I would reach for on a daily basis unless I were training very hard to compensate, or not overconsuming sugar elsewhere in my diet. And yes, you can get them on Amazon, too.
Cost per bar: $1.44
Protein: 20g
Carbs: 31g
Fat: 9g
Sugar: 17g
Calories: 280
Robert Irvine's Fit Crunch High Protein Bar
Best protein bar that’s like a candy bar
You may know Robert Irvine as the jacked chef from Dinner: Impossible and later Restaurant: Impossible, but I know him as the mug on a very odd, but very good, protein bar.
Unlike other protein bars, Irvine’s is intentionally very soft—almost like an underbaked cookie covered in chocolate chips and other goodness. If you hate the occasionally tacky or sticky texture of most protein bars, you’ll probably enjoy the Irvine bar much more (I’d describe it as slightly crumbly in texture).
From a macros perspective, it’s a little lighter than Costco’s best protein bars, but with a serviceable 16g of protein and extremely low 3g of total sugars (with 8g of sugar alcohols, which are less impactful on the body). The bars are available on Amazon and elsewhere, too.
Cost per bar: $1.28
Protein: 16g
Carbs: 16g
Fat: 8g
Sugar: 3g
Calories: 190
