Put in the product you actually use and the workout you use it for. The calculator turns those five numbers into your carbohydrate rate, the price of that fuel, and what the setup costs over a year – and it updates as you type, with nothing waiting behind a Calculate button.

Fuel Setup

This is where your training and your product meet: how long a typical fueled session runs, how many of those sessions happen in a week, and the price, carbohydrate content, and serving count of whatever you use. The four preset buttons fill the product price, carbohydrate content, and carb-source setting with example values for a few common products – GU, Maurten, and Honey Stinger are all built on two carbohydrate sources rather than one, so each of them switches the toggle to Multiple transportable. Preset prices are example retail prices checked in August 2026, not a fixed manufacturer price – actual prices vary by retailer, package size, and region.

That toggle only matters for sessions this calculator treats as very long – above about two and a half hours, the length boundary used in this reference model, not a physiological switch that flips at that exact minute. A single carbohydrate source such as plain maltodextrin is generally oxidized at up to around 60 grams per hour; a glucose-fructose blend may allow higher intakes on very long efforts for athletes who tolerate it well. Below that length, the reference range is 30-60 g/hour either way, so the toggle has nothing to change yet.

What your setup delivers

Your five inputs feed everything below: four numbers right here – carbohydrate per hour, cost per workout, cost per gram of carbohydrate, and cost per hour of training – plus the fueling status, price status, and monthly/annual totals further down the page. A 90-minute tempo run fueled with one $1.85 gel containing 21 grams of carbohydrate works out to about 14 grams per hour – under the 30-60 gram range for a session that length – at roughly $0.088 per gram of carbohydrate.

The fueling check

This compares your actual grams per hour against the reference range for your session length: Under, Adequate, Above reference, or No target set. Whether Under or Above reference is actually a problem depends on things this calculator does not know, like exercise intensity, prior fueling, and your own gut tolerance – it only reports where your number sits against the range used here. Above reference means your intake is higher than that band; for a single carbohydrate source, intakes above about 60 g/hour can exceed the rate at which that source is typically oxidized, and higher intakes generally raise the odds of GI discomfort on longer efforts. The bar shows exactly where your number falls, and the row underneath, Change the dose, replays the same math assuming 1, 2, 3, or 4 servings are spread across the same workout, so you can see where your current amount sits without changing anything yourself.

The price check

This looks at the other side of the setup: not how much carbohydrate you get, but what you pay for each gram of it. It places your rate against three checked reference points – bulk maltodextrin powder, the range most commercial gels and chews fall into, and premium hydrogel products – marked on a $0.00-$0.20+ scale. Some prices land between those bands rather than fitting neatly into one, and the calculator says so instead of forcing a label that doesn’t quite match.

The bill

This turns your setup into money over time – per workout, per month, per year – using your actual session frequency. The toggle underneath adds a bulk maltodextrin comparison for the same total carbohydrate. If your current setup already costs the same or less than that bulk reference, the calculator says so directly instead of showing a meaningless zero; otherwise it shows the bulk price gap as a range, since bulk powder and a branded gel are not identical products even when the carbohydrate math matches.

Reset returns every field to the defaults shown when the page loads. Copy summary puts the full breakdown – product, carbohydrate rate, cost per gram, monthly and annual spend, and the bulk comparison – on your clipboard as plain text.