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If you’re looking for ways to save money on groceries, there’s a little-known secret you need to know. Unit price just may be the most underrated way to discover the best deals when you’re shopping, particularly at the grocery store.
Unit pricing isn’t the flashiest of money-saving concepts, but it is one of the most important.
In fact, understanding unit price is so important to saving money that money expert Clark Howard started teaching his kids early about the concept.
“I started talking to my kids around the third grade about unit pricing because I wanted them to understand the tricks. I wanted them to know when something’s a deal and when it’s not.”
Unit pricing tells you how much you’re paying per basic unit of whatever it is you’re buying. So for paper towels, it’s the price per square foot. For toilet paper, it might be the price per sheet. For canned goods, it might be the price per ounce.
Once you understand this, you can begin to get a better understanding of the pricing and value of everything you buy.
Let’s say your grocery store has a sale on small individual packages of paper towels. The packages may cost 1.5 cents per square foot at the sale price. But a larger package that’s not on sale may have a unit price of just a penny per square foot.
In this example, the bigger package that’s not on sale actually offers more value for your dollar than the smaller package. Why? Because you’re paying less per square foot (1.0 cents) for the bigger package that’s not on sale versus the smaller sale-priced package (1.5 cents).
Look for the unit price of an item just below it, on the tag on the grocery shelf. Not sure exactly what you’re looking for on the tag itself? Take a look at the example below. We’ve highlighted in green the unit prices on the shelf tags.
So let’s say you’re buying vinegar. You have a choice between Alessi balsamic vinegar (8.5 ounces) and Colavita balsamic vinegar (17 ounces). Which one offers the best bang for your buck?
| Brand | Size | Price per ounce (unit price) | Cash register price |
| Alessi | 8.5 ounces | 36.35 cents per ounce | $3.09 |
| Colavita | 17 ounces | 31.71 cents per ounce | $5.39 |
You might be tempted to say the Alessi because it’s the cheapest. But the real answer here is the Colavita brand. You get more ounces (17 versus 8.5) and pay a cheaper price per ounce ($0.31).
Not every store in every state displays unit pricing. But thanks to technology, it’s pretty easy to find the unit price of just about anything you’re shopping for.
Both the App Store and Google Play have apps that will crunch unit pricing for you. And best of all, these apps are free!
Unit pricing is regulated at the state level. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology maintains a list of states where unit pricing is supposed to be disclosed.
Residents of states other than these may be pleasantly surprised to find that some retailers in their area still list unit prices. This is often true if you’re shopping at a large national chain store. But that decision is entirely at the retailer’s discretion.
Unit price is an important yet often overlooked way to help you save money when you’re shopping. And with the advent of free apps to do the math for you, now there’s no reason why everyone can’t start making smarter buying decisions using this information.
Of course, this is only one of many strategies you can use to save money when you’re shopping at the grocery store or elsewhere. Want some other ways? Check out our complete rundown of 20+ ways to save money on groceries.
This post was last modified on April 18, 2023 4:34 pm
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