How Much Money You'll Save On Groceries When You Spend $100 Dollars At Costco Instead Of Walmart

Thanks to persistent inflation, skyrocketing egg prices, and the introduction of tariffs that consumers will ultimately pay for, grocery shopping can be more contentious than ever. In fact, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, food prices in the U.S. rose by a whopping 23.6% between 2020 and 2024. This increase even outpaced the all-items Consumer Price Index, which jumped 21.2% over the same period. All of this is to say, consumers are facing significantly higher food prices than they were a few years ago — despite not receiving wage increases that would offset this.

This leaves many consumers not only paying more attention than ever to their grocery bills but also considering money-saving grocery strategies and even the possibility of switching to bargain grocery stores from their normal markets. With that said, March 2025 price comparison research from GOBankingRates compared prices on six staple grocery items between two consumer favorite retailers, Costco and Walmart. They compared these staple items in order to determine which retailer had the cheapest options for consumers. More specifically, when looking at what a consumer could purchase with $100, Costco came out on top – and it wasn't even close. All told, the GOBankingRates shopping cart total for all six items came out to $103.44 at Costco and $172.28 at Walmart.

It's worth noting that the primary reason Costco is able to offer a more affordable price than Walmart is due to the company's bulk-buying strategy. The company is able to leverage significant buying power to bulk-buy products at a cheaper rate — thereby allowing it to offer products to consumers for cheaper than other retailers. Then, in addition to those savings, consumers are able to save even more when they themselves buy Costco products in bulk. These savings applied to both the in-house Costco brands and brand names compared in GOBankingRates price comparison.

With that said, according to GOBankingRates calculations, brand name bulk items like a 10-pound bag of Quaker Oats Old Fashioned Oatmeal was listed for over 65% more at Walmart, where it is priced at $19.85 –- compared to $11.99 at Costco. Similarly, a 12-pack of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner Cups was 60% more at Walmart, listed for $19.99, compared to Costco's price of $12.49. Meanwhile a 2-pound bag of Peet's Coffee Major Dickason's Blend Coffee beans was almost 35% more at Walmart, where it was listed at $25.58 compared to Costco's price of $18.99. This already brings the cart difference between these three items to almost $22 when comparing Walmart's cart total of $65.42 to Costco's cart price of $43.47.

Other Costco-specific items that GOBankingRates compared included Kirkland Signature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Kirkland Signature's Thai Hom Mali Jasmine Rice, and Kirkland Signature Organic Applesauce. However, it's worth noting that purchasing Costco branded items outside of a Costco warehouse like say, on Amazon, or at Walmart is almost a guarantee that you'll end up paying more money for the exact same product. This is largely because third-party vendors purchase these items for resale, thereby passing on their operations costs and profit margins directly on to your product prices. Similarly, the in-house nature of the Kirkland Signature brand allows Costco to offer products for cheap, making the price discrepancy between these grocery items even more significant.

Case in point, Walmart lists Kirkland Signature's olive oil for $40.90, which is over 60% more than Costco's website price of $24.99. The Kirkland Signature applesauce is similarly listed for 85% more, at $24.06 compared to Costco's $12.99, and the rice is an astonishing 90% more on the Walmart website, listed for $41.90 compared to Costco's $21.99. Plus it's worth noting that most Costco products can be found for even lower prices in-store than on the website, meaning the in-warehouse price for these three products is probably even cheaper than the website lists them for. This makes the Walmart cart total a significant 67% more than Costco.