We Checked Every Nappy Price in Australia. Here's What Three Years of Disposables Actually Costs.
The team and I updated the nappy calculate the other week, the one that shows you what a disposable habit costs, and I nearly fell off my chair looking at the updated numbers. The numbers on our site at the time were way too low!
So I stopped updating one field and went and checked everything. Every major brand, every size, at Coles, Woolworths and ALDI, last week live, on the actual websites.
Here's what three years of disposable nappies costs a family right now, from newborn to potty trained.
The range is bigger than I expected
Coles CUB and Woolworths Little One's have landed on identical pricing. Both work out to $1,386 across the nappy years. That's the floor.
ALDI Mamia sits close behind at $1,606.
Rascals (rebranded from Rascal + Friends) lands in the middle at around $2,431.
Huggies and BabyLove both come in around $3,000 to $3,150, and Huggies specifically has gone up since we last checked. A Newborn box that was $0.35 a nappy is now $0.37 to $0.44 depending on which pack you grab. That's a real increase, not a rounding error.
A 24 nappy Designer Bums stash costs $719.10 once. Against the lowest priced supermarket nappies, that's $667 back in your pocket. Against Huggies or BabyLove, it's over $2,000. And the stash keeps going for nappy number two, three, however many are in your future, while the disposable number just keeps restarting from zero every time.
The bit that actually got me
Somewhere in doing this, I remembered that when I was pregnant, I expected to use disposables, no question about it - that's the "norm". I understand completely why people land there. I'm not writing this from some position of never having considered it.
What got me more though, was realising the true environmental cost (estimates range but the most common number seen is 1.5-2 billion) and not wanting to add to it. I did allow myself two weeks post c-section, to be "kind to myself", but the mess could not be contained... and we were accumulating the exact same type of laundry anyway! It was just clothes instead of nappies. I lasted not even a week.
Interestingly, some people in my circle were recently telling me about their "double nappy hack", two disposables at once, just for extra containment. I get the instinct. But run the maths on that for a second: if you're doubling up even some of the time, a $3,147 three year Huggies spend isn't your real number anymore. It's closer to double that, for something that's still binned within a few hours, every single time.
Why our own calculator was too low
Our number was deliberately conservative, averaged out between budget, mid range and premium disposables, because we didn't want to overstate it. Turns out we were understating it - by a whole lot. If your family buys Huggies or BabyLove, or doubles up even occasionally, your real number is well above what any calculator defaults to.
That's worth knowing before you do the maths on your own family, not after.
Where this leaves you
One stash, bought once, doing the job for years. Or a number that resets every single pack, for as long as your child is in nappies, sometimes doubled. I've sat on both sides of that decision. I know which one I'd tell a friend to make.
If you want to see exactly what your own family's disposable numbers could look like, our nappy calculator has been updated (although its still on the low side of average).
The full breakdown, if you want it
| Brand | Newborn | Infant | Crawler | Toddler | Walker |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huggies | $0.37 | $0.42 | $0.44 | $0.56 | $0.63 |
| BabyLove Cosifit | $0.36 | $0.40 | $0.42 | $0.55 | $0.62 |
| Rascals | $0.29 | $0.32 | $0.35 | $0.43 | $0.48 |
| ALDI Mamia | $0.17 | ~$0.20 | $0.21 | $0.36 | $0.26 |
| Coles CUB | $0.18 | $0.21 | $0.21 | $0.23 | $0.26 |
| Woolworths Little One's | $0.18 | $0.21 | $0.21 | $0.23 | $0.26 |
Price per nappy, checked live at Coles, Woolworths and ALDI, July 2026.
| Brand | Estimated total, newborn to toilet training |
|---|---|
| Coles CUB / Woolworths Little One's | $1,386 |
| ALDI Mamia | $1,606 |
| Rascals | $2,431 |
| BabyLove | $3,065 |
| Huggies | $3,147 |
| Designer Bums (24 nappy stash, one time) | $719.10 |
Based on roughly 6,200 nappy changes from birth to 36 months, usage estimates drawn from Pregnancy, Birth and Baby (healthdirect.gov.au) and Raising Children Network.
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