Do cloth nappies actually save money once you count washing?

How many disposable nappies does a baby use from birth to potty?

Every savings claim starts with this number, and councils quote anywhere between 4,000 (Edinburgh, Warrington) and 6,000 (Southend, Havering, the North London Waste Authority). The spread comes from how often the baby is changed and how long they stay in nappies. The NHS gives 10 to 12 changes a day for young babies and six to eight for older ones; Lisburn and Castlereagh's cloth nappy guide notes most children potty train after 30 months. We build the baseline from those.

What do disposables cost from birth to potty at today's prices?

We priced the baseline three ways from live UK retailer pages on the same day: supermarket own brand at Aldi's unit prices, a branded nappy at the promotional prices Morrisons showed for Pampers Baby-Dry, and the same branded nappy at the retailer's stated ordinary price. The pack sizes behind these are in the nappy prices guide linked below.

The right-hand columns are where council savings claims come from: against a branded nappy at its ordinary price, almost any reusable kit wins by hundreds of pounds. Against Aldi's own brand bought full-time, the whole nappy period costs about £335, which sets a high bar for cloth.

What does a reusable kit cost up front?

The low-cost kit guide linked below prices two routes from UK retailers on 9 September 2026: a flats-and-wraps kit (20 flats, four or five wraps, liners, boosters, laundry bag, mesh bag, two wet bags) at about £115 to £145, and a birth-to-potty pocket kit of 20 with the same accessories at about £250 to £340. We use the midpoints, £130 and £300, and add £20 for a hired or borrowed newborn kit. A new sized system from a premium brand (Little Lamb's complete kit was £415 on sale, list £594) sits well above either.

How much do electricity and detergent add per wash and over the whole period?

This is the number councils rarely show and the one that decides the answer. Washing every other day for 913 days is 456 nappy washes, each priced on electricity, detergent and water.

Two things reduce the real figure: adding small family laundry to fill the drum, as Clean Cloth Nappies' routine suggests, means part of that 46p is washing you would have done anyway; and a 40°C main wash, which the NLWA and Nappy Network allow over three months, uses less energy than 60°C. One thing increases it sharply: a tumble dryer, costed below.

So do cloth nappies save money? The worked totals

Read across the flats row and the headline answer is clear. A cheap reusable kit washed without a dryer costs about the same as the cheapest supermarket nappies for the whole period, within £25 either way, which is inside the noise of these assumptions. A new pocket kit costs around £200 more than own brand. Both save hundreds against branded disposables, and both flip firmly into profit on a second child, when the kit is paid for and the only cost is washing.

The £500 to £1,000 figures on council pages compare against branded disposables at ordinary prices, often across more than one child and sometimes before washing costs. If your alternative is Aldi or Nutmeg bought full-time, the saving is much smaller and can be negative.

What if I use cloth part-time alongside supermarket disposables?

Most UK cloth users are part-time: cloth at home in the day, disposables overnight, at nursery or on days out. The NLWA and Nappy Alliance both encourage this. Assume cloth covers 55% of changes, the kit shrinks to 12 flats and accessories at about £90, and with fewer nappies you wash every third day (304 washes).

Part-time cloth does not beat full-time own-brand disposables for a first baby, but it costs only a few pounds a month more and halves the disposables bought, which is why councils fund it. It also fits a nursery that will not take cloth and keeps the kit small enough to dry indoors.

When do cloth nappies not save money?

The tables already show the two biggest cases: comparing against the cheapest own brand, and tumble drying. Here is the full list.

• Your alternative is a supermarket own brand bought full-time. At about 6p a nappy the whole period costs around £335, which a new pocket kit cannot beat on one child.
• You tumble dry. At 2 kWh a load and 26.11p a unit, drying adds about £240, more than the entire detergent bill and enough to erase the flats kit's break-even.
• You buy a premium kit new. A £415 to £594 sized system needs two children to pay back against any disposable.
• You buy a newborn kit and a birth-to-potty kit. Two kits for one child adds £100 to £160 for ten weeks of use; hire or borrow instead.
• The baby potty trains early. At 24 months the own-brand total falls to about £270 and washing to about £170, so the flats route loses by about £50 and the pocket route by about £220.
• You replace the kit midway. Leaks that lead to a second design, or elastics failing from radiator drying and soaking, add a second kit cost.
• You use branded detergent. Persil at 60 washes for £12.50 roughly doubles the detergent line to about £143.
• You count your time. Roughly 456 loads to hang, stuff and fold is labour none of these tables price.

How do I run this calculation for my own household?

The tables use our assumptions. Yours will differ in five places, and each is a one-line substitution.

1. 1
   Count your changes Count actual changes for two days and multiply by the days left to potty training (913 from birth, fewer if starting later). This replaces our 5,568.
2. 2
   Price your disposable alternative Take the pence-per-nappy figure from the shelf-edge label, or divide pack price by count, for the brand and size you actually buy, and multiply by your change count. Own brand runs 3p to 10p by size; branded 12p to 30p depending on promotion.
3. 3
   Price the kit you would really buy Use a retailer's current price for 20 nappies of the design that fits your baby, plus £30 to £50 of accessories, minus any council voucher, plus £10 to £20 if you will hire for the newborn weeks.
4. 4
   Price a wash Take your electricity unit rate from your bill or Ofgem's price cap page (26.11p to 30 September 2026, 26.32p from 1 October), multiply by your machine's kWh per cycle from its energy label, and add your detergent's price per wash times 1.5. Add 2 kWh if you will tumble dry. Multiply by 913 divided by your wash interval in days.
5. 5
   Compare, then test the result Add kit, hire and washing; subtract the disposable total. Then change one assumption at a time (dryer, second child, part-time, early potty training) and see which flip the sign. If the result only turns positive with a second child, that is your honest answer.

In shortIn short: on prices and rates checked 9 September 2026, cloth nappies washed without a dryer cost about the same as the cheapest supermarket disposables for one child (a flats kit within £25; a pocket kit about £200 more), save £250 to £450 against branded disposables on promotion, around £1,000 against branded at ordinary prices, and save on every child after the first. Whether that counts as saving depends on which nappies you would otherwise buy, so run the five steps with your own numbers.