Cart vs Car
The math, in full

The trip is the cost.

Every comparison can charge the round-trip drive and your time to the store side. The store doesn’t put either on the receipt — but you pay for them either way. Put in your car and your commute; we’ll do the rest.

Compare a Publix or Target price with Amazon Subscribe & Save

Your car
Round-trip miles to your store
mi
Door-to-door trip time
min
Gas price
$/gal
What your hour is worth
$/hr
Store runs per month
trips
Your trip, on the receipt
Gas — 5 mi at 26 mpg$0.66
Your time — 30 min at $15/hr$7.50
Every single store run$8.16
× 4 runs a month$32.63
per year, before you buy anything
≈ $392
That’s the part of the bill the store never prints. Every receipt on this site charges it to the store side.
The formula
trip_cost = item + (item × tax_rate) + gas + time├ gas = round_trip_miles ÷ mpg × gas_price└ time = trip_minutes ÷ 60 × hourly_ratesavings = trip_cost − amazon_cost
Hourly rate
Conservative — most US workers value their time higher.
$15/hr
Gas price
Editable starting assumption — set your local pump price above.
$3.42/gal
MPG
A 2018 Honda Civic, basically.
26 mpg
Round-trip miles
About 5 miles if you went to the store just for this.
5 mi
Trip duration
Dedicated runs run 30–60 minutes door to door. 30 is the average we use.
30 min
What we don’t model (yet)
  • Impulse buys at checkout. Conservatively, you probably spend $7 on candy + magazines per trip.
  • Return hassles. Amazon returns are free and silent. Store returns are a second trip.
  • Childcare opportunity cost — if you’re solo with kids, the trip is structurally harder than the math says.

Questions we actually get

How much does a trip to the store actually cost?

If you went to the store just for this — 5 miles round trip at 26 mpg and $3.42/gal gas, plus 30–60 minutes of your time at $15/hr — that run costs $8–$16 (if you went to the store just for this) before you buy anything: $0.66 in gas and $7.50–$15.00 in time. Four dedicated runs a month is roughly $391.68–$751.68 a year. Plug in your own car above. This number stays off the pack-price winner.

Is Amazon Subscribe & Save actually worth it?

It depends on the exact pack and the recurring total Amazon displays for that delivery. Amazon says eligible subscriptions may save up to 15%, but we never assume the maximum, a coupon, or a card reward. Use the Subscribe & Save calculator with today’s shelf, Amazon one-time, and final subscription figures; subscribe only to an item you reliably re-buy.

Why do you value time at $15/hr?

It’s deliberately conservative — below the median US wage. If you earn more, your store runs cost more than our receipts show. Use the slider above to set your own rate, or tap "my time is free" to zero it out and see the gas-only math.

Why not use the IRS mileage rate?

The IRS business rate is 76¢/mile for July through December 2026 and bundles fixed and variable vehicle costs into every mile. We only charge the marginal cost you immediately feel on a grocery run: gas. That makes our trip cost an underestimate — the honest direction to be wrong in.

Do you count impulse buys?

No — and that makes the store side look better than it is. Checkout-lane research puts unplanned spend at several dollars per trip. If we charged a conservative $7 impulse line, almost every comparison on this site would swing further toward the cart.

Are your Amazon prices live?

A catalog price appears only when an approved Amazon feed supplies the required lowest-new evidence and it is no more than 24 hours old. Otherwise we show no stored amount: open the exact product, copy the current one-time and subscription totals, and calculate privately.