Duane Beckett
According to a new price comparison report, Costco is the cheapest destination for groceries. It comes in at a whopping 21.4% cheaper than Walmart. BJ’s Wholesale Club is right behind at 21.0% lower.
The findings came from Consumer Reports working with Strategic Resource Group. They used Walmart as the baseline and collected shelf prices in person across nine metro areas in late summer 2025.
Importantly, sale prices at the time and free loyalty-card discounts counted toward the data collection. However, coupons and app-only deals did not.
When breaking it down by metropolitan areas, Costco truly dominated in the Boston area, where prices were 37% lower than Walmart, which is far beyond the average of 21.4% mentioned above.
The club membership catch
Delish reported on the above data and highlighted the catch: you need a membership for Costco and BJ’s Wholesale Club. Plus, you usually need to buy in bulk to really see the benefit.
However, that model is built for lower pricing, and clearly the proof is in the data. Wholesale clubs, especially Costco in some areas, are cheaper by far.
Beyond the warehouse clubs, data from Consumer Reports shows only a handful of chains beat Walmart overall, and the margins tighten fast after the top two. The data shows:
- Lidl: 8.5% less than Walmart.
- Aldi: 8.3% less
- WinCo: 3.3% less
- H-E-B: 0.2% less
- Walmart: baseline
The more expensive destinations
At the other end of the spectrum, the most expensive store, Whole Foods, sits alone at the top, averaging 39.7% higher than Walmart.
Behind it were Shaw’s (31.9% higher) and El Rancho (30.1% higher), with plenty of familiar names also landing well above Walmart.
One thing that surprised me was that Trader Joe’s wasn’t considered cheap in this collected data. It averaged 24.6% higher than Walmart.
As Consumer Reports put it, the winning approach is often cherry-picking: buying different items at different stores instead of expecting one chain to be best at everything. That’s not a glamorous solution to shopping, but it works.