The Ordinary vs NIOD Copper Peptides: Same Company, Different Answers
Share
We sell a competing product and this comparison does not include it, because this is the decision most people in this category are actually weighing and it deserves a straight answer.
Both brands belong to DECIEM. Both disclose more than most of the market. They are aimed at different buyers.
Side by side
| The Ordinary | NIOD CAIS3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Multi-Peptide + Copper Peptides 1% Serum | Copper Amino Isolate Serum 3 |
| Stated concentration | 1%, referent ambiguous | 1% GHK-Cu, plus 1% GHK |
| Formulation pH | 6.0 to 7.0 | 5.7 to 6.7 |
| Ingredients | 49 | 20 |
| Copper peptide position | 4th of 49 | 4th of 20 |
| INCI name used | Copper Tripeptide-1 | Tripeptide-1 Copper Acetate |
| Price | $32 / 30ml | $62 / 15ml, $93 / 30ml |
| Price per ml | About $1.07 | About $4.13 or $3.10 |
Checked 24 August 2026 against both brand pages and independently re-verified. NIOD showed out of stock in both sizes at time of check.
The three real differences
1. Price per ml, roughly threefold
$1.07 against $3.10 to $4.13. That is the headline and it is not close. On a per-ml basis The Ordinary is one of the cheapest disclosed copper peptide products available.
2. Disclosure precision
The Ordinary puts 1% in the product name but does not resolve whether it attaches to GHK-Cu specifically or to a broader copper complex. NIOD splits it: 1% GHK-Cu plus a separate 1% GHK. That is the most granular disclosure we found anywhere in the category, including our own.
If knowing exactly what you are buying matters to you, NIOD wins that outright.
3. Formula philosophy
49 ingredients versus 20. The Ordinary's is a broad multi-peptide formula in which copper is one component. NIOD's is a focused copper peptide formula.
Neither approach is wrong. If you want one product doing several jobs, the longer formula is the point. If you want to control your own stack and add a copper peptide as a discrete input, the shorter one is.
The INCI trap worth knowing
NIOD lists its copper peptide as Tripeptide-1 Copper Acetate, not Copper Tripeptide-1. If you search a database or use a scanner app looking for the exact string "Copper Tripeptide-1", NIOD will not match, and people have wrongly concluded from this that CAIS contains no copper peptide.
It does. Different INCI name, 4th of 20.
Which to buy
The Ordinary if price per ml is your binding constraint, or if you want a broad peptide formula rather than a single-active one. At roughly a dollar per ml with a published pH in the right band, the value case is genuinely strong.
NIOD CAIS3 if you want the most precisely documented copper peptide product on the market and cost is not the constraint. You are paying roughly three times per ml for a shorter, more specific formula and a more detailed disclosure.
Both publish a pH, which puts them in the top four of the 23 products we checked. Whatever else you make of DECIEM, they document better than most of this category.
Where we come in, briefly
Since you will reasonably ask: our serum is $60 for 30ml, so $2.00 per ml, sitting between the two. We state 1% GHK-Cu unambiguously and a single pH of 6.0 rather than a range. We are not the cheapest and we are not the most documented.
The full picture, with our products scored on the same criteria as everyone else: the disclosure index.
Related
- The Ordinary in detail.
- NIOD CAIS in detail, including how CAIL differs.
- What percentage actually matters.
Corrections to support@amide.skin.