How Much Does MOTS-c Cost? Real Price Ranges

MOTS-c, sold as a lyophilized reference material for laboratory use, runs roughly $28–$95 per 10 mg vial at single-unit retail across US suppliers, with credible listings clustering between $45 and $75. That is $4.50–$7.50 per gross milligram. 5 mg vials typically list at $22–$50 — a worse per-milligram rate almost every time. Ten-vial kits commonly land at $380–$650, or about $3.80–$6.50 per milligram. Gram-scale custom synthesis quotes generally fall between $1,800 and $4,500 per gram, depending on purity specification and turnaround. Every one of those numbers describes gross vial weight, not net peptide content — a distinction that moves your real cost by 10–25% and is the single most expensive thing most buyers never check.

What the milligram number actually excludes

MOTS-c is a 16-residue mitochondrial-derived peptide (MRWQEMGYIFYPRKLR), molecular weight approximately 2,174 Da. It is manufactured by standard Fmoc solid-phase synthesis, cleaved, purified by preparative reversed-phase HPLC, and lyophilized. Two things ride along into the vial that are not peptide:

Counterion mass. Preparative HPLC almost universally uses trifluoroacetic acid as the ion-pairing agent. Residual TFA salt typically accounts for 5–20% of gross lyophilized weight on a basic, arginine- and lysine-containing sequence like this one. An acetate salt exchange removes that but adds $150–$400 to a lot and is rarely offered at retail.
Residual water. Lyophilized peptide is hygroscopic. Loss-on-drying or Karl Fischer values of 3–8% are routine, and higher if the lot was filled in an uncontrolled humidity environment.

Stack those and a nominal "10 mg" vial may contain 7.5–8.7 mg of actual peptide. Net peptide content is determined by amino acid analysis or nitrogen determination and costs roughly $120–$250 per lot to measure. Very few research-grade suppliers run it, and almost none publish it. If your work needs mass balance to better than ±10%, that unmeasured fraction is the difference between a valid quantitation and a wasted study.

Price per milligram is a marketing number. Price per verified milligram of net peptide is the number your budget actually spends.

Why identical listings range from $28 to $95

Three real cost drivers separate the low end from the high end, and one fake one.

Purity specification. A ≥95% HPLC lot and a ≥99% lot are not the same product. Pushing from 95% to 98–99% typically costs 20–40% more per gram at the synthesis stage because it means narrower fraction cutting on the preparative column and lower recovery — often 8–15% yield loss on the final purification pass.
Analytical depth. A single-page HPLC chromatogram is cheap. HPLC purity plus ESI-MS or MALDI-TOF identity confirmation plus a documented gradient method and sample injection record costs a supplier $150–$400 per lot in third-party fees. Amortized across a 100-vial lot, that is $1.50–$4.00 per vial — real, but small next to the retail spread.
Lot size and batch amortization. A 5 g synthesis batch might cost $2,200 all-in; a 50 g batch of the same sequence rarely costs ten times that. Suppliers running small, frequent batches carry structurally higher per-milligram costs.
The fake driver: branding. A $95 vial and a $48 vial are sometimes the same contract-manufactured lot with different labels. The only way to tell is the certificate of analysis — the lot number, the analysis date, and the name of the lab that ran it. Our approach to that documentation is described on the quality page.

The cost of verifying what you bought

Independent verification is the line item buyers underestimate. Sending a sample to a third-party analytical lab for HPLC purity and mass confirmation typically costs $140–$300 per sample, with 5–15 business day turnaround. If you verify one vial from every lot you purchase, and you buy 10 vials at a time, verification adds $14–$30 per vial — potentially half again the price of the peptide itself.

Running it in-house is cheaper per sample but not free. A C18 analytical column suitable for a 16-mer peptide separation runs $550–$900, with practical column lifetime of roughly 800–1,500 injections under acidic mobile phase before efficiency degrades. That is $0.40–$1.10 per injection in column consumption alone, before solvent, standards, or instrument time. A typical 25-minute gradient at 1 mL/min consumes about 25 mL of mobile phase; HPLC-grade acetonitrile at $120–$220 per 4 L puts solvent cost near $1–$2 per run.

The practical answer for most labs: verify the first lot from a new supplier, then spot-check every third or fourth lot. Verifying every vial of every order is a defensible policy only if your downstream work is expensive enough that a bad lot costs more than the testing program.

Storage, stability, and the cost of a dead vial

Cost per milligram is meaningless if the material degrades before it is consumed. Published stability practice for lyophilized peptides of this class:

Lyophilized, sealed, −20 °C: commonly specified as stable for 24 months; many suppliers state 12–24 months conservatively.
Lyophilized, −80 °C: used for long-hold reference standards, generally 36+ months.
Lyophilized, 2–8 °C: acceptable for short holds measured in weeks to a few months, not years.
Ambient shipping exposure: lyophilized peptide tolerates 3–7 days in transit without meaningful loss, which is why most suppliers ship without cold chain. Cold-chain shipping with gel packs and insulated packaging adds $25–$60 per shipment.
Methionine at position 5 and tryptophan at position 3 are both oxidation-prone residues. Repeated freeze-thaw and light exposure are the realistic degradation pathways, and they show up as late-eluting shoulder peaks on a re-run chromatogram, not as anything visible in the vial.

A −20 °C laboratory freezer costs $800–$3,500. If a lab does not already have controlled cold storage, buying a 10-vial kit to save $1.50 per milligram and then holding it at room temperature for eight months is a net loss.

Wholesale, MOQs, and where the price actually breaks

Volume pricing on peptides is real but flatter than buyers expect. Typical break structure:

1–4 vials: full retail, $45–$75 per 10 mg.
5–9 vials: roughly 8–15% off.
10–24 vials: roughly 20–30% off, landing near $3.80–$5.50 per milligram.
Custom synthesis, 1 g minimum: $1,800–$4,500 per gram, with 4–8 week lead times and typically 50% deposit terms.

The curve flattens hard past 25 vials because the marginal cost is no longer synthesis — it is vialing, labeling, QC release, and inventory carrying. Institutional and repeat-volume terms are handled through wholesale; transit times and packaging are detailed on shipping.

When buying MOTS-c is not worth it

This section will cost sales. It is still the honest answer.

You have no cold storage and no plan to get any. Buy 5 mg, use it inside 60 days, or do not buy. A 10-vial kit sitting in a desk drawer is a $500 write-off with a chromatogram that will not reproduce.
You need GMP or clinical-grade material. Research-grade reference material is not that, and no amount of price comparison bridges the gap. GMP peptide runs 10–50× the research-grade price and comes with a quality agreement, validated methods, and change control. If your protocol requires it, every number on this page is irrelevant to you. See research use only.
Your assay tolerance is tighter than ±10% on mass. Without net peptide content on the COA, you cannot close mass balance. Either pay for amino acid analysis or use a supplier that already publishes it. Buying the cheapest vial and hoping is not a method.
You are buying below roughly $2.50 per gross milligram. At that price something has been cut — purity spec, analytical work, fill accuracy, or identity. Fill tolerance alone commonly runs ±5–10% on small-vial lyophilization lines, and cheap lines run wider.
You need it in under a week and the supplier quotes "in stock" without a lot number. In-stock claims without a specific lot and analysis date are unverifiable. Ask for the lot before the purchase order, not after.
The COA has no third-party lab name, no analysis date, or a purity figure with no chromatogram attached. A number typed on a template is not analytical data. Comparative notes on how suppliers document lots are collected in high purity peptides review and quality research chemicals suppliers.

Building a landed-cost figure you can defend

A realistic budget line for a lab consuming 100 mg over a year, at mid-market pricing:

Material: 10 × 10 mg vials at $52 = $520
Shipping: $15–$45 standard, or $60 with cold chain
Third-party verification, one sample per lot, two lots: $280–$600
Net peptide content by AAA, one sample: $120–$250 (optional, but it is what converts gross milligrams into real ones)
Cold storage amortization: $100–$400/year if the freezer is dedicated

Landed total: roughly $1,035–$1,815 for 100 gross milligrams, or $10–$18 per gross milligram — two to four times the sticker price. Adjust for net content at, say, 82% peptide, and the defensible figure is closer to $12–$22 per net milligram.

That is the number to put in a grant line or a purchasing request. The $52 vial price is the number to put in a comparison spreadsheet, and it is the least informative figure in the whole exercise. Lot documentation questions can be sent through contact before an order is placed; asking for a redacted COA from the current lot is a normal request and a supplier's response to it is itself a data point.

Supplied strictly for in-vitro laboratory research by qualified researchers and institutions. Not a drug, food, cosmetic or dietary supplement. Not for human or veterinary consumption. Not evaluated by the FDA.