Is It Cheaper to Buy Toilet Paper on Amazon or at the Grocery Store? We Do the Math

How many times have you noticed you’re running low on a household item, like trash bags or deodorant, and you’ve just ordered it from Amazon instead of running out to the store? I’ve often thrown one of these items into my cart alongside a new shirt, a book and anything else I might need that day, and a few days later it arrives at my door (thank you, Prime membership).

Ordering items on Amazon is easy, and the retail giant’s prices often appear to be cheaper than those at your nearby Walmart or grocery store. You might tell yourself you’re saving money by ordering household items from Amazon, but is that actually true?

And if it is, how much? I did the math comparing the cost of 25 household items when purchased from Amazon, Walmart and grocery chain Kroger. And while Amazon was cheaper than Walmart, it turns out you can save the most money by buying your household items from Kroger with the rest of your groceries.

Here’s a full price breakdown. (For more price comparisons, check out how much you can save by shopping at Trader Joe’s, if it’s cheaper to buy meal kits than groceries and if shopping for groceries online is less expensive than in the store.)

Amazon vs. Walmart vs. Kroger



Bathroom items
Angel Soft toilet paper (8 rolls)	£7.30	£19.98	£7	Kroger
Colgate Total toothpaste (4-pack)	£13.34	£20.84	£14.98 (2 packs of 2)	Amazon
Softsoap Warm Vanilla and Coconut Milk	£2.48	£2.48	£3	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Purell Hand Sanitizer	£9	£3.47	£4	Walmart
Tampax Pearl Regular (50-count)	£9.04	£9.04	£11.49	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
U by Kotex (40-count)	£9.27	£9.27	£11.08	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Gillette Fusion 5 Razor Handle and 2 Blade Refills	£12.97	£12.97	£13	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Old Spice deodorant	£4	£3.47	£3.69	Walmart
Dove Invisible Solid (2-pack)	£11.88	£6.88	£6.88	Tie: Walmart/Kroger
Barbasol shaving cream (4 units)	£19	£7.36	£6.76	Kroger
Suave Milk and Honey Body Wash	£2.19	£1.88	£2	Walmart
TRESemme Rich Moisture Shampoo and Conditioner	£10.79	£9.98	£10.49	Walmart

Kitchen items
Bounty paper towels (6 rolls)	£28	£11.77	£11	Kroger
Cascade Platinum ActionPacs (62-count)	£19.67	£19.94	£22	Amazon
Dawn Platinum Dishwashing Liquid Dish Soap	£3.49	£3.24	£3.59	Walmart
Scotch-Brite blue sponges (6-count)	£5.79	£6.06	£6.79	Amazon
Melitta coffee filters (200-count)	£13.93	£9.75	£3.49	Kroger
Glad ForceFlex Tall Kitchen Trash Bags, 13 Gallon	£9.72	£9.72	£10	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Ziploc Sandwich and Snack Bags (90-count)	£4.89	£13.40	£5.49	Amazon

Other household products
Clorox Concentrated Formula Regular Disinfecting Bleach	£6.39	£5.58	£6	Walmart
Windex Original Glass Cleaner	£3.48	£3.48	£4	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Glade Cashmere Woods Air Freshener	£1	£0.97	£1.19	Walmart
Lysol Disinfectant Wipes (80-count)	£4.16	£4.16	£4.37	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Lysol Disinfectant spray (2-pack)	£11.97	£11.97	£14	Tie: Amazon/Walmart
Tide Pods with OXI (61-count)	£21.24	£33.55	£21.49	Amazon
Gain Fabric softener (240-count)	£9.94	£19.98	£11	Amazon

How I did the math

To figure out where Amazon falls on the price spectrum, I picked 25 essentials a household of two might need at any given time.

I looked at items my wife and I have around our house that we buy regularly to keep our home up and running. I came up with a list of these items, and then things got tricky. Some brands and quantities aren’t sold across all three stores.

Looking up “toilet paper” on Amazon will give you dozens of pages of results. You’ll see Scott, Charmin and the Whole Foods 365 brand toilet paper in varying sizes. Do this same experiment for Walmart and Kroger and you might find that one store carries Scott but not Charmin and vice versa, and each store also has their own brand of toilet paper.

If all three have the same brand of toilet paper, the quantities might be different between each store. I tried to find the same items with the same quantities across each store’s website to make this as fair as possible. There was one instance (Colgate toothpaste) for one store (Kroger) where I had to add the price of two packs together to make the quantities equal for all three stores.

Otherwise, I found each item in each online store. (A caveat: I looked up all these prices on the same day in November, but it’s possible that they will fluctuate over time.)

Shopping for groceries at Walmart can help you save, but not as much as you think.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Why compare Amazon, Walmart and Kroger?

Amazon, Walmart and Kroger lead the online grocery market in the US, according to Statista. Walmart represents nearly 28% of grocery e-commerce sales, Amazon has about 21% and Kroger has about 10%. Kroger has also proposed a merger with grocery chain Albertsons, which would help bolster Kroger’s online sales if it goes through.

Verdict: You can save more at Kroger despite not having the lowest prices on most items

The overall total for these 25 items at Kroger was £218.78.

The total at Amazon was £254.86, and the total at Walmart was £261.19. There were plenty of items that were cheaper on Amazon and Walmart, and the two tied for the lowest price of an item eight times. Kroger, by comparison, was only the cheapest option for four items, but Kroger maintained competitive prices for almost every other item.

Where Kroger was the most expensive option for a given item, it wasn’t significantly more expensive — and ultimately saved you when you added it all up. The prices for some Amazon and Walmart items, on the other hand, were considerably higher. A six-pack of Bounty paper towels, for example, costs £28 on Amazon compared to Walmart’s £11.77 and Kroger’s £11.

Similarly, eight rolls of Angel Soft toilet paper costs £19.98 at Walmart compared to Amazon’s £7.30 and Kroger’s £7.

What about the cost of membership programs?

I didn’t include the cost of membership programs above because you don’t need one to order these items from the three online stores. However, these memberships do offer fast shipping, and if you’re going to buy all your items from one online store, it might save you money on shipping over time. If we include the cost of Amazon Prime, Walmart Plus and Kroger Boost, Kroger stays the cheapest, but Walmart takes second place and Amazon becomes the most expensive option.