A Comparison of Sam's Club and Costco

When it comes to saving money, we often consider buying in bulk. Now most often buying in bulk will save you money in the end, it is important to compare your actual savings while remembering to add in the cost of the membership. The two warehouses available in my area are Sam's Club and Costco. At one time I had a membership to both. Now I belong to Sam's Club and my sister belongs to Costco. Since we each like products from both stores, this arrangement works for us.

Sam's Club
The membership fees are $35 for a Business Membership, $40 for an Advantage Membership, or $100 for either a Business Plus or Advantage Plus Membership. The biggest difference in the memberships other than one is personal and the other business is that the Sam's Club Business Members are offered extended Gold Key Shopping Hours. Gold Key Hours start at 7am Monday-Saturday, while regular hours begin at 9am or 10am depending on the store.

Sam's Club offers click and Pull shopping. You choose your store and do all of your shopping online. Print out the receipt and your order will be ready for pick up at the specified time.

The products at Sam's Club seem to be geared more towards the business owner. They offer a variety of restaurant supplies, office supplies, and a lot of shop supply items such as shop towels, oil dry, anti freeze, or cases of oil just to name a few.

The Sam's Club brand is Members Mark.

Costco
The membership fees are $50 for a Gold Star or Business Membership and $100 for the New Executive Gold Star or New Executive Gold Star Business Memberships. There are not many differences between the business account and the personal Costco account. The differences are between the regular accounts and the Executive Accounts. The Executive Accounts at Costco earn a 2% reward (up to $500) on all Costco purchases; have access to many financial benefits such as discount checks, mortgages, or car loans, and event or travel discounts.

Costco does not list their in store items online, but have a wide variety of online only products ranging from office supplies to home furnishings.

The Costco brand is Kirkland.

As with any shopping where you are looking to save money, breaking down the sizes and comparing is important at both Sam's Club and Costco. In my experience with both of the stores, I have found that there are items I prefer from one over the other. For example, Sam's Club sells Kraft cheese in 2-1 pound packages. Costco sells a 2 ½-pound package of comparable cheese. I prefer the 2-1 pound packages for convenience and noticed that the 2 ½-pound bag from Costco seem to go bad quickly after opening.

To be honest I believe it is all personal preference of choosing one store over the other. Costco has been cheaper on a few things but only by a few cents.