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What retailer has the cheapest diapers?

For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links from Amazon.com and Target.  This means if you click on a link and make a purchase, I make a small profit at no additional cost to you.    

Disposable diapers are a big expense that typically lasts at least a couple years.  If you’ve tried finding a good deal on diapers, you more than likely felt confused and overwhelmed, as there are so many things you can compare.  There’s lots of different brands, tons of different sizes of packages (20 pack, 32 pack, 44 pack, etc), and different sizes of diapers. 

All of these things make it really hard to know what a good price for a diaper is.  If you find yourself wishing that you could save a little more on diapers without spending countless hours clipping coupons or scavenging for the best deals, then this post is for you.  

This post is going to compare the cost of diapers (including several brands, various package sizes and sizes of diapers) from the major U.S. retailers, so you can easily see which retailer has the cheapest, everyday price for diapers.  At the end of this post – you will know the top stores you should be purchasing all your diapers from, without having to even think about finding a sale, and know that you got a great deal.

To save your time (and sanity), I did all the work you might be wishing you had time to do.  What did I do to help?  I collected a whole lot of data (because let’s face it, my Type A personality loves to crunch numbers!)  

Diapers in Price Comparison: 

I decided to compare the prices of 10 different brands of diapers, 4 common name brands (Pampers Baby Dry, Huggies Snug and Dry, Luvs, and Honest) and 6 store brands (Up & Up, Parent’s Choice, CVS, Kirkland, Member’s Mark, and Little Journey).  You can see the brands in the table below.

I selected a variety of name brand and store brand diapers at different price points.  For name brands, I chose Pampers Baby Dry, Huggies Snug and Dry, Luvs, and Honest.  Huggies, Luvs, and Pampers were selected because they are three of the most recognized brands of diapers. I chose Honest to represent a higher cost, eco-friendly diaper. Additionally I randomly selected one “style” from each of these brands, because I assumed that the observed price trends would be similar across all styles from that brand.

I chose to include 6 of the most popular store brands.  I tried to choose popular brands that were representative of different types of stores. Therefore I chose Walmart and Target to represent supercenters, Costco and Sam’s Club store brands to represent warehouse clubs, CVS to represent drugstore brand diapers and Aldi brand to represent discount grocery stores.  I included BuyBuy Baby to represent a baby related retail store and Amazon, because well, who doesn’t shop on Amazon?

Retailers in Price Comparison: 

I collected prices for the 4 name brand diapers at 7 retailers, including: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club, CVS, BuyBuy Baby and Costco.  I did not collect prices for the name brand at Aldi, as they don’t sell name brand diapers.  I only recorded regular prices for all brands of diapers, I did not account for any sale prices.  

These 6 retailers (7 if you include Aldi that only carries its store brand) represent a variety of different store types and I hoped a trend would emerge with one store (or store type) consistently having the lowest prices.  

To be clear, I only collected prices on the Walmart website for items that were currently in stock at the stores.  (Walmart has started a marketplace that allows other sellers to post items on their website.)

How I Compared Diaper Prices at Different Retailers:

I used each retailer’s website to look up their prices for various sizes of packages.  

I then calculated the cost per diaper (CPD) so that I could get a valid price comparison.  To do this I simply took the price for the package of diapers and divided it by the total number of diapers in the package.  

For example (see above image), if a package of 42 diapers costs $24.99, then you would take 24.99 divided by 42 to get the cost of each diaper, which in this case would be 59 cents (which is a lot!) Think about all the diaper changes and how many diapers last seconds because the tab tore off, or your child pooped right away (groan….)

I made a handy tool that you can use to easily calculate the price per diaper. 

Results – Diaper Price Comparison of Brand Name and Store Brand Diapers at Various Retailers:

As mentioned, I did a lot of research for this post.  I spent hours looking up prices at various retailers for all the sizes of name brand diapers, but I did this so you wouldn’t have to!  (As a mom, I am always short on time!)  I am going to summarize my findings for you, so you can reap all the benefits from this ONE article and reference it anytime you need to buy more diapers!  

(A table summarizing these results can be found at the bottom of this section.)

After crunching the numbers, I found the following X generalizations: 

(There were some exceptions to each of these, but a majority of prices followed these trends.)

1.  Package Size. As with most purchases, buying in bulk always yields lower diaper prices.  That being said, bulk basically means any package bigger than the Jumbo size.  To make it easy on you, Jumbo packages are the ones that are in the plastic bags.  NEVER BUY the plastic bag of of diapers, they always are the highest price per diaper.

2.  Retailers. Let’s talk about buying name brand diapers first.

When it came to buying name brand diapers, 5 stores had nearly identical prices: Amazon, Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco and BuyBuy Baby. 

I do want to make some very important clarifications here:

• Amazon does have a “Subscribe and Save” option (save 5% off) and commonly has some “click here” coupons available.
• Walmart does not typically run their diapers on sale.
• Target runs specials on their diapers commonly, where you can earn giftcards.  You can also use a Target credit card (Red Card) to get 5% off and free shipping.
• Sam’s Club and Costco did not carry all 4 name brands I researched in this post and did not necessarily carry them in store (they had some exclusively online). Remember though that you do have to pay the membership price to belong to Sam’s Club and Costco and you might have to pay shipping.
• BuyBuy Baby had nearly identical prices to the other 5 retailers mentioned above and they did have some exclusive sales, on Pamper’s for example ($15 off if you ordered $75 worth of Pamper’s.)  Just as an FYI, at this time, you cannot apply a 20% BuyBuy Baby coupon to diaper purchases.
• CVS had significantly higher prices, usually 25-50% higher than the 5 stores mentioned above. 
• Aldi doesn’t (typically?) carry name brand diapers.  

To make it easier to check in on these retailers, click each of the links below to see the price of Size 1 Huggies Snug and Dry currently at each of these retailers:

• Amazon
• Target
• Walmart
• Sam’s Club (LIttle Mover’s because they don’t have Snug and Dry)
• Costco (LIttle Mover’s because they don’t have Snug and Dry)
• BuyBuy Baby (Special Delivery is the name of these Huggies, because they don’t have Snug and Dry)

As you can see, some retailers not carrying all versions of one brand, makes it hard to compare prices.  Additionally, most retailers carry different sized packages, so you’ll have to use the equation above if you want to compare them.

Additionally, CVS had significantly higher prices for name brand diapers, usually 25-50% higher than the 5 stores mentioned above.  

For store brand diapers, I found that most of the prices were comparable.  I ultimately found that the absolute lowest prices for store brands diapers is at Walmart. 

I do want to make some very important clarifications here:

• Target and Aldi were within a penny of Walmart’s prices (for each diaper) and as discussed earlier, you can get 5% off at Target with a Red Card and they commonly have promotions where you can get giftcards with your purchase.
• The cost of each diaper was a few cents higher than the Walmart/Target/Aldi prices at Sam’s Club and Costco.  As a disclaimer, I’ve heard that sometimes Costco has cheaper prices in store in comparison to their online prices.

So the take home message: If you have an immediate need to buy diapers, I would suggest that you buy the biggest package at either Walmart, Target or Aldi (if you want their store brand).  If you can wait a few days, you could also buy from Amazon.  If you want to plan ahead, I would suggest going the Target route, signing up for their Red Card and making sure to stock up during one of their promotions where they offer a giftcard with your purchase.  I also have a few more tips for this, they can be found in this post which shares my tips for buying diapers.

Price Comparison Between Different Brands of Diapers:

Here are the results I’m sure you have been waiting for.  Here is the table that shows the lowest regular prices for all 10 kinds of diapers in this study, from the various retailers.  I won’t tell you which retailer had the “lowest price” but you can probably find it easily by reading the “Retailers” section above.

The punchline of this is entire post is: Don’t buy diapers unless the price per diaper (price of package divided by diaper count) is equal to or lower than this value.  (Last updated December 2020).  These are “good” everyday prices, not sale prices.  Many of the retailers I investigated do have sales or will price match.  

So in your head, note the brand and the size you want to buy, then refuse to pay more per diaper than this price!   To reference when you are out shopping, the table shown below and a SUPER convenient diaper calculator tool can be found on this page. (Don’t pay more than these prices per diaper, if you are trying to save money!

Great Everyday Prices for Diapers, Based on Brand and Size 

What do these numbers all mean?  Here’s some perspective!

Looking at the table above can be daunting.  But let me give you some perspective on how a small price difference can add up.  Let me start by telling you that a 1 cent difference in diaper prices translates into roughly $30 annually (a few pennies can add up to you having a couple more nice dinners out with your significant other!). 

Now I will show you how much the annual cost varies between the different brands over the time frame of a year.  To do this, let’s make the assumption that you use size 3 diapers for a year and on average your baby goes through 7 diapers a day.  This is what you will spend per year on diapers.

Annual Cost for Size 3 Diapers Based on Brand (Assuming 7 Diapers a Day for 365 days)

As you can see from the above chart, the Walmart store brand is the cheapest disposable diaper, based on everyday prices.  Luvs is the cheapest diaper in this study, based on everyday prices.  I would say with Target’s store brand, don’t forget that they commonly go on sale (giving giftcards with purchases) and you can also earn 5% off with you Red Card.  If you want to learn how I cut my annual diaper cost to approximately $200 a year, check out this post.

Summary:

As with anything you buy, it is very important to know what a good price is.  You can’t comprehend a good deal, if you don’t have a baseline price.  I hope you will use this post as a reference, so when you are out at the store and you see diapers on sale, you will easily be able to determine if they are worth buying.  As with anything you buy, it is very important to know what a good price is.  You can’t comprehend a good deal, if you don’t have a baseline price.  For your convenience, the table summarizing “great everyday prices for diapers, based on brand and size and a SUPER convenient diaper calculator tool can be found on this page.

Just as a reminder, diaper price is one factor to consider, but you also must choose what is right for your family.

I have summarized the most practical ways I have found to save money buying diapers. That post can be found here.

Additionally, I wrote an ebook that includes all the creative ways we stretched out money and lots of mom tips in general.  If you are interested, you can find that here!

Now go out there and rock your busy mom life!  (And save some money doing it :))

Super Savvy Sarah is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

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