By Sebastian Madlangbayan, founder of Cleonse: the world's cleanest 3-ingredient organic electrolyte.
Cleonse has three ingredients: organic fruit powder, organic cane sugar, French grey sea salt — 500mg sodium and 85+ trace minerals per stick. Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier has fifteen, including dextrose, silicon dioxide, stevia leaf extract, and four added B vitamins. Similar sodium. Very different labels.
Read both labels first
I'd rather you look at the panels than take my word for anything. Both are public. Both were verified in July 2026.
Cleonse (Organic Lemonade) — 3 ingredients:
Organic Lemon Powder, Organic Cane Sugar, French Grey Sea Salt
Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier — 15 ingredients:
Cane Sugar, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Salt, Potassium Citrate, Sodium Citrate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Silicon Dioxide, Stevia Leaf Extract (Rebaudioside A), Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), Natural Flavors, Vitamin B3 (Niacinamide), Vitamin B5 (Calcium D-Pantothenate), Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin)
Fifteen line items. Two of them are sugars, one is a high-intensity sweetener, one is an anti-caking agent, five are vitamins, and one is "natural flavors," which is a category rather than an ingredient.
Liquid I.V. also sells a Sugar-Free Hydration Multiplier with a different sixteen-item label built on allulose, L-glutamine, L-alanine, and stevia. Same story, different sweetener system.
Side by side
| Cleonse | Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier | |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | 3 | 15 |
| Sodium | 500mg | ~520mg |
| Potassium | — | ~370mg |
| Trace minerals | 85+ from French grey sea salt | — |
| Calories | 100 | ~50 |
| Total carbohydrate | 26g | ~13g |
| Sugar | 24g organic cane sugar | ~11g (cane sugar + dextrose) |
| Sweeteners | Organic cane sugar only | Cane sugar, dextrose, stevia leaf extract |
| Added vitamins | None | Vitamin C, B3, B5, B6, B12 |
| Anti-caking agent | None | Silicon dioxide |
| Artificial flavors | None | None ("natural flavors") |
| Dyes | None | None |
| Organic | Yes | No |
| Stick size | 30g | ~16g |
| Guarantee | 30-day | Varies by retailer |
| Shipping | Free on all orders | Varies |
Sodium is close — 500mg versus roughly 520mg. That's the honest headline: on the electrolyte that matters most, these two products are in the same territory. The difference is everything else on the panel.
The twelve ingredients you're paying for that Cleonse doesn't have
Let's go through them rather than gesture at the count.
Dextrose. A second sugar. Dextrose is glucose, typically corn-derived, cheaper than cane sugar and used to hit a specific carbohydrate profile and sweetness curve. It isn't dangerous. It's also just... more sugar, in a form that lets the front of the pack lead with "cane sugar." We use one sugar and we name it.
Citric acid. Tartness and shelf stability. Commercially produced by fermenting a mold culture on a sugar substrate, not extracted from citrus. Fine ingredient. We get tartness from organic lemon powder because we're already putting fruit in the stick.
Potassium citrate, sodium citrate, dipotassium phosphate. Three isolated mineral salts. They're doing real work — potassium delivery, pH buffering, sodium contribution. They're also the difference between "salt" and "a formulation." Cleonse gets its sodium from one ingredient: unrefined French grey sea salt.
Silicon dioxide. An anti-caking agent. Its entire job is stopping powder from clumping in the stick. This is a manufacturing convenience, and you're drinking it.
Stevia leaf extract (Rebaudioside A). Here's the one worth pausing on: Liquid I.V. contains cane sugar, dextrose, AND stevia. It's a product with 11 grams of sugar that still needs a high-intensity sweetener on top. That tells you the formulation is chasing a sweetness level that the sugar alone doesn't hit.
Rebaudioside A is the stevia fraction chosen specifically because it has less bitterness than others — but plenty of people still register the finish. If you've ever noticed a Liquid I.V. getting cloyingly sweet toward the bottom of the bottle, that's the stevia carrying past the sugar.
Natural flavors. A legally protected umbrella term. A "natural flavor" can be a proprietary blend of dozens of compounds and the manufacturer isn't required to itemize them. You cannot audit this ingredient. Ours is organic fruit powder, which you can.
Vitamin C, B3, B5, B6, B12. Five of the fifteen ingredients are vitamins, dosed high — Vitamin C around 80% DV, niacin around 160%, B6 around 150%, B12 in the 300%+ range on the labels we pulled.
This looks impressive on a panel. Physiologically, B vitamins are water-soluble, most people eating normally aren't deficient, and a hydration drink is a strange delivery vehicle for them. It's a marketing decision that makes the Supplement Facts box look dense. If you want B vitamins, take B vitamins.
About "Cellular Transport Technology"
Liquid I.V.'s central marketing claim is CTT — Cellular Transport Technology — presented as a proprietary system that delivers hydration faster than water alone. The brand also markets "3x the electrolytes of the leading sports drink."
Here's the plain-spoken version.
The science underneath CTT is real and it is also very old: sodium and glucose are co-transported across the wall of the small intestine, and water follows. This is the mechanism behind oral rehydration solutions, which the World Health Organization has recommended for decades and which cost pennies. It is not proprietary. It is not new. It is the reason every sports drink on earth contains sugar and salt.
"Cellular Transport Technology" is a trademarked name for sugar and salt in a ratio.
Cleonse uses the same mechanism, because there's only one mechanism. Organic cane sugar plus French grey sea salt. We just didn't trademark it, and we're not going to imply we invented intestinal physiology.
On "3x the electrolytes of the leading sports drink" — that's a comparison to Gatorade Thirst Quencher, which has roughly 150mg sodium per serving. It's arithmetically defensible and rhetorically generous. Cleonse's 500mg beats the same benchmark by more than 3x, and we still wouldn't put it on the front of the pack that way.
Where Liquid I.V. genuinely wins
Availability. Liquid I.V. is in Costco, Target, CVS, every gas station and airport. If you need electrolytes in an unfamiliar city at 10pm, they're there. We're direct-to-consumer.
Potassium. Liquid I.V. delivers roughly 370mg of potassium per stick from potassium citrate and dipotassium phosphate. Cleonse's potassium comes only as a trace mineral in grey sea salt and is not a comparable dose. If dosed potassium is what you're after, they have it and we don't.
Lower sugar per stick. About 11g versus our 24g. For general daily hydration rather than training, that's a fair advantage — though note they get there partly by using stevia to make up the sweetness.
Flavor range. They have a lot. We have two.
Price per stick. In bulk at a warehouse club, Liquid I.V. undercuts us. That's real and I'm not going to argue it.
Where Cleonse wins
Three ingredients instead of fifteen. Every one of them is food, and every one has a job: fruit for flavor and color, cane sugar for fuel, grey sea salt for sodium.
No stevia. No high-intensity sweetener, no aftertaste, no sweetness that keeps climbing while you drink.
No anti-caking agents, no fillers, no isolated mineral salts, no added vitamins. Nothing on our label is solving a factory problem.
Organic. Certified organic fruit powder and certified organic cane sugar. Liquid I.V. is not an organic product.
One sugar, named honestly, positioned as fuel. We're not using two sugars plus stevia and calling it a hydration multiplier. 24g of organic cane sugar per stick, 100 calories, 26g carbohydrate. It's fuel for training and we say so on the front.
Unrefined salt. French grey sea salt, hand-harvested from Atlantic clay ponds, retaining 85+ trace minerals rather than being processed down to sodium chloride and rebuilt with citrates and phosphates.
Vegan, gluten-free, and no preservatives or gums.
Price
Free shipping on every Cleonse order, 30-day guarantee:
| Pack | One-time | Subscribe & Save 10% |
|---|---|---|
| 10-pack | $33 | $29 + free glass bottle |
| 30-pack | $66 | $59 + free glass bottle |
| 60-pack | $110 | $99 + free glass bottle |
The Duo Assortment 10-pack — five Organic Lemonade, five Organic Strawberry — is the low-risk way in.
We are not the cheapest option in this comparison and I'm not going to pretend we are. Three organic ingredients cost more than fifteen cheap ones. That's the trade.
Who should buy which
Buy Liquid I.V. if: you want dosed potassium and B vitamins, you buy in bulk at a warehouse club, you need something available in any store, or lower sugar per serving matters more to you than ingredient count.
Buy Cleonse if: fifteen ingredients is twelve too many, stevia aftertaste bothers you, you want organic, or you want a training drink where the sugar is honestly labeled as fuel instead of dressed up as technology.
Frequently asked questions
How many ingredients are in Liquid I.V.?
Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier lists fifteen ingredients: cane sugar, dextrose, citric acid, salt, potassium citrate, sodium citrate, dipotassium phosphate, silicon dioxide, stevia leaf extract, vitamin C, natural flavors, and vitamins B3, B5, B6 and B12. Cleonse has three.
Does Liquid I.V. have stevia?
Yes. Both the standard Hydration Multiplier and the Sugar-Free version list stevia leaf extract (Rebaudioside A). Notably, the standard version contains cane sugar, dextrose, and stevia together. Cleonse contains no stevia.
Is Cleonse better than Liquid I.V.?
They're built differently. Cleonse wins on ingredient simplicity (3 vs 15), no sweetener beyond real organic cane sugar, organic sourcing, and unrefined salt. Liquid I.V. wins on dosed potassium, added B vitamins, retail availability, and lower sugar per stick. Sodium is comparable at roughly 500mg versus 520mg.
What is Cellular Transport Technology, really?
CTT is Liquid I.V.'s trademarked name for the sodium-glucose co-transport mechanism — sugar and salt together helping the small intestine absorb water. It's the same well-established principle behind oral rehydration solutions and every sports drink. Cleonse uses the same mechanism with organic cane sugar and French grey sea salt; we just don't brand it.
Does Cleonse have B vitamins like Liquid I.V.?
No. Cleonse contains no added vitamins. Our three ingredients are organic fruit powder, organic cane sugar, and French grey sea salt. If you want supplemental B vitamins, a dedicated supplement is a more sensible route than a hydration drink.
Which has more sugar, Cleonse or Liquid I.V.?
Cleonse has more: 24g of organic cane sugar per 30g stick versus roughly 11g in a Liquid I.V. stick. Cleonse's sugar is positioned as training fuel and comes from a single organic source; Liquid I.V. uses cane sugar plus dextrose plus stevia.
Try The World's Cleanest Electrolyte™
Three ingredients. 500mg sodium. Nothing artificial. Free shipping and a 30-day guarantee.
Shop CleonseKeep reading
- Best Liquid I.V. alternatives (2026)
- Cleonse vs DripDrop: ORS heritage vs 3-ingredient simplicity
- What is the cleanest electrolyte? A no-BS ingredient guide
Written by Sebastian Madlangbayan, founder of Cleonse and a state champion tennis player. Not medical advice.
Editor's note on sourcing: Liquid I.V. figures were verified in July 2026. The fifteen-ingredient Hydration Multiplier statement was taken from the CVS Pharmacy published ingredient listing for Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier Electrolyte Drink Mix (Variety Pack), which matches the statement Liquid I.V. supplies to retailers. Nutrition figures (≈50 cal, ≈13g carb, ≈11g sugar, 520mg sodium, 370mg potassium, 62mg vitamin C per stick) are from the H-E-B product listing for Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier Strawberry. The Sugar-Free formulation (allulose, L-glutamine, L-alanine, stevia; 20 cal, 530mg sodium, 380mg potassium, 0g sugar) is from the Hartzell's Pharmacy listing. "Cellular Transport Technology," "Hydration Multiplier," and "3x the electrolytes of the leading sports drink" are Liquid I.V.'s own marketing language from liquid-iv.com. Values vary slightly by flavor. Cleonse figures are from our own label. Formulations change without notice — read the current panel.