Cloth Diapers vs Disposables: Cost Calculator
Blog posts give you someone else's totals. This calculator uses your prices — diapers per day by age, your disposable price, your cloth stash and laundry costs — and shows the real total for each path, the break-even month, and what reusing cloth for a second child changes. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
How much diapering?
Disposable path
Cloth path
Result
What this calculator assumes
A month is counted as 30.4 days. Babies use the higher changes-per-day rate for their first 6 months, then the lower rate until the months-in-diapers figure you set. The cloth path is your stash bought once upfront plus laundry at your cost per load, every week you're diapering. With the second-child toggle on, the whole schedule (newborn phase included) repeats for child two: disposables are bought all over again, while cloth reuses the same stash and only adds laundry.
What's not counted?
Wipes, creams and accessories (roughly equal for both paths), cloth extras like liners or wet bags, replacement cloth diapers if elastics wear out, resale value of used cloth (often 30–50% back), diaper services, and your time. Disposable prices also vary by size — bigger sizes cost more per diaper — so treat your per-diaper price as an average.
Are these numbers accurate for me?
They're estimates built from the numbers you enter, not advice. Real costs vary a lot with brand, sales, utility rates and how long your child is in diapers. The dollar signs are just labels — the math works in any currency.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The page is fully client-side; your numbers never leave your browser.