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Does Amazon 'Subscribe and Save' really save?

Amazon 'Subscribe and Save' ships household goods like toilet paper and shampoo directly to your home. It's a huge time saver, but the money savings are probably no better than your average wholesale club.

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Rick Wilking/Reuters/File
A box from Amazon.com sits on the porch of a house in Golden, Colorado. After shopping the numbers, Hamm found that savings for goods delivered through Amazon's Subscribe and Save program were decent, but usually not better than a wholesale club.

When I buy household products, I look at the cost per unit before everything else. I try to figure out the cost per ounce, the cost per bag, and so on whenever I examine an item.

Usually, my comparisons end up looking at the cost of the item at our local warehouse club versus the cost of the item when it鈥檚 on sale at our local grocery stores. Usually, the warehouse club is cheaper on most household goods, but sometimes a great sale at the grocery store can bump that cost lower.

Lately, though, I鈥檝e been looking at the Subscribe and Save program offered by Amazon. This is a program where you can choose to 鈥渟ubscribe鈥 to household goods and, then, once a month they鈥檒l package them up and ship them to you based on your subscription.

So, let鈥檚 say you 鈥渟ubscribe鈥 to diapers on a monthly basis, shampoo every other month, and toothpaste every three months. On the first, fifth, seventh, and eleventh months of the year, you鈥檇 just get diapers. On the second, fourth, eighth, and tenth months of the year, you鈥檇 get diapers and shampoo. On the third and ninth months of the year, you鈥檇 get diapers and toothpaste, and on the sixth and twelfth month, you鈥檇 get all three items. Their system handles all of this scheduling for you 鈥 all you have to do is subscribe to the individual item you want.

If you subscribe to just one item, you get a 5% discount off of the price. If you subscribe to five or more items, you鈥檒l get a 15% discount off the price. It鈥檚 at that 15% discount rate that the price of these items becomes really comparable to what I can get around here.

So, to see what I could pick up that would actually beat my warehouse club at the 15% discount level.

I just moved through our list of household supplies that we buy regularly 鈥 shampoo, toothpaste, garbage bags, and so on 鈥 and I compared them directly with the price at our local warehouse club. If I couldn鈥檛 find an exact match, I鈥檇 calculate cost per unit using the calculator.

As I looked, I couldn鈥檛 help but notice that most of the items were cheaper at my warehouse club even at the 15% discount level 鈥 but not all of them. The problem is that it takes five items to reach that level 鈥 and without that 15% discount, I couldn鈥檛 find any items that I couldn鈥檛 get at a lower price locally.

Another challenge is the need for refills. What if you run out of something in the middle of the month? You can request that they ship the item early, but then you have to pay for shipping on that faster item. To avoid that, the best route is to simply get them a bit more frequently than you鈥檇 use them, but then you build up a bit as they arrive faster than your consumption rate, meaning eventually you鈥檒l have to de-subscribe.

Still, after a long period of searching, I did find five items that we use regularly that are less expensive on Amazon with the Subscribe and Save discount than I could find locally, so I subscribed.

Once the subscription was in place, it was really convenient. The items arrived like clockwork, so I had no need to pick them up at the grocery store. I did end up building a backlog of some of the items, so I had to change the delivery schedule, but that was easy enough.

Overall, I saved money, but on occasion, I would see local sales that would trump the value of the 鈥渟chedule and save鈥 system. I would have saved money waiting for those sales. On the other hand, watching for those sales takes time, as you have to watch flyers every week to catch those sales.

So, what鈥檚 a person to do? The most time-effective route (while still bringing down your bills) is to just do a big comparison of prices between 鈥淪ubscribe and Save鈥 and your local warehouse club or grocery store, then subscribe to anything that鈥檚 cheaper than the regular price and not sweat the sales. However, you can certainly invest more time into the plan by comparing weekly flyers 鈥 you will absolutely save more money, but it won鈥檛 be a lot of money and it will require some time (the amount of which is really up to you).

In the end, I think 鈥淪ubscribe and Save鈥 really comes down to time. It鈥檚 an extremely fast way to get a pretty good price on household items and just have them show up on your doorstep. However, the prices are generally trumped by a warehouse club and, sometimes, by sales at your local grocery store.

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