Update: The $30 off $100 diaper sale is back on Amazon and Target, ends tonight! There are not even more diapers included in those sales for example earlier this week Pampers Swaddlers size 4 were not included, but now they are, and there are many more brands and sizes now in stock!
Originally posted 8/28/2021.
This article is authored by JJ, father of triplets and partner at DansDeals. Have more topics you’d like covered, leave a comment below!
A friend had his first baby last week and asked for help with purchasing diapers. I started to explain subscribe & save, ordering ahead, finding the brand you like, and more. He told me this is a whole world he didn’t know existed and while he has gotten some incredible deals on DansDeals, some basic help with diaper discounts will save him hundreds of dollars over the next few years.
Having had triplets a year ago, diapers have been a major expense for us. Below I will share some tips and tricks to save some money on your next diaper purchase!
1. Try out multiple diaper brands!
Everyone has a preference when it comes to diapers. Pampers Swaddlers are often the first diapers parents will try thanks to hospitals giving them out for free.
Pro tip, don’t be afraid to ask for extra diapers and wipes in the hospital, nurses are usually happy to bring more and you can go home with a great little stash to get you started!
Huggies Little Snugglers are another very popular option. Luvs and up & up diapers have generally cheaper prices and are definitely worth a try! The Honest Company is a newer brand which was founded just 10 years ago by Jessica Alba and offer unique prints on their diapers.
You may find some diapers are good at one stage and you like a different brand at a different stage. If you see one on sale, I’d suggest buying it and trying it out!
2. Not all diaper boxes are made the same!
Diapers should be calculated as price per diaper. Each brand has multiple size boxes that can range from 20 diapers/box to 250 diapers/box!
All you have to do is divide the price of the box by the amount of diapers it contains. For example this box of 198 Pampers Swaddlers diapers are selling for $54.29 from Amazon, which comes out to 27.4 cents per diaper. (I know, there are more saving options on the product page, more on that soon!)
3. Be sure to stock up when diapers go on sale.
Nothing is worse than running out of diapers in middle of the night and having to run out to your local 24 hour drugstore and pay retail! Generally speaking, the more diapers that come in the box the cheaper the price will be per diaper. So stock up on those 200 diaper boxes!
Also, if there is a sale, don’t just buy one box, buy a few, AND buy at least one or even few boxes for the next size up. Based on some rough estimates here is a list of how many diapers you can expect to need per size, please note this can vary drastically based on your Childs’ weight percentile and how fast they grow:
- Newborn (10 pounds and under): 250
- Size 1 (8 -14 pounds): 500+
- Size 2 (12-18 pounds): 700+
- Size 3 (16-28 pounds): 1,500+
- Size 4 (22-37 pounds): 750+
- Size 5-7: This depends on the size of the child and toilet training age.
The ideal sizes to stock up on are 2 and 3 as those will last the longest. Although size 4 can last a long time, some children go straight from size 4 to toilet training, which means you can end up being stuck with a lot of diapers.
4. Understanding and maximizing Amazon Subscribe & Save.
The story goes that years ago when Marc Lore was the head of diapers.com, Jeff Bezos offered a huge offer to purchase their parent brand Quidsi, but was rejected. Amazon then went after them by offering free diaper coupons. Those were the glory days for parents and readers back in 2010-2011 that got thousands of cases of diapers for free!
Finally diapers.com couldn’t hold off any longer and were forced to sell for a mere $545,000,000. 😉
To this day, Amazon is one of the best places to consistently save on diapers thanks to their 15% off subscribe & save discount.
Amazon offers 2 checkout options on most diapers, “One-time purchase” or “Subscribe & Save”.
With Subscribe & Save Amazon gives an additional discount of 5%-15% off.
Tips and tricks with subscribe & save:
- Maximizing Subscription Discounts. Don’t have 5 subscribe & save items? No problem! We have a list of filler items here that we update every couple months. For example if you are going to purchase a box of diapers for $50 and only have one subscription you will save 5% off for a total of $2.50 off, but you can easily add on 4 subscribe and save items for $0.75 each at a total cost of $3, and then you are eligible for the full 15% subscribe and save discount giving you an additional $7.50 discount.
- Don’t set up delivery for monthly. If you are using a discount on your first subscribe and save order the discount will only apply to the first delivery. Usually you will want to cancel that subscription after it is delivered, therefore when you set up your first delivery always select your delivery interval to every 6 months.
- Can’t get the traditional subscribe & save checkout, no problem! Some accounts will not be able to get to the subscribe & save checkout page, but will instead be redirected to the regular Amazon cart. There are a couple solutions to this. The simplest is to try again from a different device or browser. However that often won’t work, so here is a method that I came up with to get it:
- 1. Set up 5 subscribe and save orders, with recurring delivery every 1 month. You can choose a cheap item from this filler list.
- 2. Once those 5 orders are set up you should go into your orders and cancel them right away, thereby avoiding the first delivery which would be within the next 2 days usually via Prime.
- 3. The trick here is that once you have 5 subscribe and save items you unlock the 5%-15% discount and once that is unlocked you will always get the regular subscribe and save checkout cart.
- 4. You will now have approximately 3 weeks to add more items to your subscribe & save list. You can go here and see your “Last day to edit delivery” date. That is the date you will be able to go through your current subscribe & save items and decide what items you want to keep or remove. Don’t want any of the original 5 items you used to unlock the regular subscribe & save checkout, be sure to remove them by that date, but also make sure you still have a minimum of 5 subscriptions being delivered in order to maximize your discounts.
- The reason you need the regular subscribe & save checkout is because it is the only way to receive 15% on subscription items. If you only have the regular checkout the highest discount you will receive for your subscription is a 5% discount.
- Timing your order. Subscribe & Save orders can take up to a month to arrive, so be sure to order them ahead of time anticipating your needs. There have been reports of being charged a higher price with subscribe & save when someone changes the date of their delivery after ordering, therefore I would suggest only changing your delivery date before you make your orders.
5. Buying diapers on sale.
Every month or two Amazon will have coupons on different diapers or discounts for purchasing a certain amount.
Right now Amazon is offering $30 off $100+ diaper purchases, which we wrote about here.
- Subscribe to 2 boxes of 156 Huggies Snug & Dry Size 5 Diapers you will get 312 Diapers for $56.68, just 18.1 cents/diaper.
- Subscribe to 2 boxes of 156 Huggies Little Snuggleers Size 3 Diapers you will get 312 Diapers for $58.33, just 18.6 cents/diaper.
- Subscribe to 2 boxes of 198 Pampers Swaddlers Size 1 Diapers you will get 396 Diapers for $62.29, just 15.7 cents/diaper.
- Subscribe to 2 boxes of 186 Pampers Swaddlers Size 2 Diapers you will get 372 Diapers for $65.10, just 17.5 cents/diaper.
- Subscribe to 2 boxes of 234 Pampers Baby Dry Size 2 Diapers you will get 468 Diapers for $57.89, just 12.3 cents/diaper.
- Subscribe to 3 boxes of 234 Luvs Ultra Leakguard Size 3 Diapers you will get 702 Diapers for $71.85, just 10.2 cents/diaper.
- Subscribe to 4 boxes of 44 Ninjamas Girls Size S/M Nighttime Underwear you will get 176 for $65.06, just 36.9 cents/underwear.
Right now Target is offering a $30 gift card on $100+ diaper purchases here.
For example if you purchase 4 giant packs of size 2 diapers that’ll be 736 diapers and a $30 Target Gift Card for just $98.96 shipped! If you shop Target often and would consider the Gift Card like cash that comes to a total of just $68.96 for 736 diaper or a total of 14.4 cents/diaper.
I will update this post with more tips, but the sale posted above ends this week, and I figured people would like to know about it now!
What is your diaper cost saving strategy and what are your favorite diapers?
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42 Comments On "[Target & Amazon Sale End Tonight, Save Big On Diapers Plus More Sizes On Sale!] How To Save On Diapers Online!"
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Great article JJ!
Very well written. Ive been doing this s&s strategy for 2 years now, and it’s been saving me a lot of $$$
You may want to add that Costco recently started selling Pamper swaddlers ( in store only) , and it was on sale a few weeks back. Not all sizes were stocked at my local Costco, and was still a little cheaper when on sale at Amazon +s&s. But it’s a good backup option .
With your calculations, what do you estimate the lifetime cost of a single baby’s diapers. (Perhaps with low and high ranges)
Another trick I’ve learned is the “dead” SS items, these are items that went oos but still give me the discount on the months they were supposed to be delivered.
Thanks JJ! Can I combine an S&S item with a non S&S item to achieve the $30 off $100? If so, how?
There is also a 20% off for new baby registry. It can be stacked with the subscribe and save
so as long as I have 5 S&S even if will be delivered much later I can get 15-20 discount now on new S AND S and then cancel the later ones as needed?
meaning just pick any 5 s and s and schedule the for later delivery and then enjoy 15-20 on the rest of the S and S?
Thanks for this amazing article!
You can earn an additional 5% cash back with using the AmazonStoreCard.
Or more with Ink Cash.
https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-cards/chase-ink-cash-card-earning-5-ultimate-rewards-points-per-dollar-amazon-everyday-spending/
Right.
But I believe the AmazonStoreCard has an easier process to get approved then Chase ink, and you won’t need a business to apply for it.
Sole proprietorship hobby works for Ink Cash.
After sticking with Pampers Swaddlers for a while because nothing else worked…, we discovered that in our experience, the “new and improved” Parents Choice diapers from Walmart are nearly as good! At least in sizes 3+, which is when we made the switch. (Definitely worked better for us than Pampers Cruisers, Huggies Little Snugglers, and all the other name brands we tried.)
Their old diapers were terrible, but these new ones that were released a few months ago are fantastic. Make sure to buy in store and that the package reads “new and improved”. Otherwise you might still get the old ones.
A pack of 36 size 3 is 4.12, which equals 0.11 each. You don’t gain by buying the medium sized box, only the largest box would be cheaper. (Although online it comes out to be the same price, the price in store is less iirc.)
“The trick here is that once you have 5 subscribe and save items you unlock the 15%-20% discount and once that is unlocked you will always get the regular subscribe and save checkout cart” .
You need to mention that if you cancel your first order of the the 5 items, you would then pay the next month for the 5 items what the price will be at that point. The prices are not being locked only for the first order. So even if you do cancel some of the 5 dummy orders but keep some to get to the 5 subscription you never know what would will be charged for those until they ship it.
Up & Up (Target Brand) diapers are, IMO, the best balance between price/quality. Very good quality and great price.
I found that my kids developed rashes quicker with Target diapers. It probably depends on skin sensitivity.
Same with rashes
And my kid got rashes from the Pampers brand, but does fine with the Up & up. Basically, ymmv
I also like up&up best but find they only work for size 3 and above, Pampers swaddlers are better for newborn thru size 2. The cost savings for using up&up is incredible (plus Target sales like $20 off $100 or $30 off $100, and 5% off with red card)
Luvs size 1 has a 5.66 coupon which brings total down to 18.32 for a box of 252 diapers. 7.1 cents each.
Target red cart gets %5 off and free shipping
Great article JJ! Already saved $40 using this information!!!
is there a way to order size 1 and size 5 for my kids and get the 25% off first S&S order or will it only work on one
how do i get multiple sizes into the same order with S&S?
If anyone knows what someone like me can do long term for my special needs child with regards to diapers let me know. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on diapers. And will continue to for the foreseeable future. He’s now 4 and we use the Pampers Easy Ups 4T/5T
You can get a prescription from doctor and get it covered through the pharmacy.
Would the insurance cover it?
Thank you JJ for an amazing post!
Other topics I’d like to see covered:
How to get approved for Chase cards if you’re over 5/24? (Apparently Dan managed it)
What is the UPS method?
What is currently the best way to MS?
Thanks in advance 😉
“For example if you subscribe to 3 boxes of 228 Luvs Ultra Leakguard Size 2 Diapers you will get 684 Diapers for $51.02 after 20% off Amazon Family via Subscribe and save and $30 off $100. That is a total of 7.4 cents per diaper, which is an incredible price for any diapers”
32×3=96
How did you qualify for the $30 off? Do I need to buy 4 boxes and if yes, is it still worth it? Or go target route?
At the beginning we used Swaddlers only, but twa’s too pricy so we tried huggies, cuties, luvs & target, it just wasn’t doing what a diaper should be doing! So we tried Parent’s choice by Walmart, we stuck with it, it was great & abt .13 per diaper the only issue we had with Walmart is shipping, every now & then there’s no shipping on the item, which is weird, this week we bought from sam’s club I guess we”ll see wre that takes us!
Can’t beat Kirkland in quality and price
how do I get the $30 off promo if I do subscribe and save? the order only goes through in a month from now…?
I ordered last week but now there is additional clippable coupon. How can I get? Doesnt let me use the $30 off a second time
Do you see luvs size 3 or 4 available with the $30 off?
spoken like a true dad!
if you return a s&s item and that puts you under 5 items will they retroactively charge you for the discount?
Costco on sale
When’s the next sale?
Just wanted to say that your post and hack about the Amazon mama bear brand has not only been a good price, but a surprisingly better fit than the name brands, especially Kirkland.
If you use up and up try mama bear amazons brand you can get the best prices better then any brand I just paid $39.58 for 368 diapers thats 0.10-0.11 a piece
Sam’s club is still cheaper even with this sale!
Here’s my tried and true method on getting the absolute cheapest prices on diapers never seen anything beat it
1. Buy a target gift card when they’re 10% off – usually 2-3 times a year.
2. Use a discover credit card in the quater that gives 5% cashback on target purchases which include gift cards.
3. Buy diapers when it’s 20-30$ gift card when you spend 100$.
4. Up and up target brand diapers are the cheapest even cheaper than Costco.
5. Target and Amazon offer free baby samples when creating a baby registry
Parent’s choice from Walmart worked for us at some stages, and is by far the cheapest option, with no need to stock up, plus they recently added a 5% subscribe to save option.