The Truth About What Products Are Cheapest At Costco

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When Costco first burst upon the scene, back in Ye Olde Ancient 1980s, everyone was still like, "What the what? Why should I pay to shop in your store?" After all, Sam's Club was also in its infancy at the time, and BJ's was still but a gleam in some entrepreneur's eye. As time went on, though, Costco and the rest of the warehouse babies grew up to prove the odd truth that consumers really do place a higher value on something they must pay for. After all, any old riffraff can shop at Safeway or Kroger, but in order to shop at Costco you need to join an exclusive "club" and undergo an esoteric initiation ritual that involves ponying up $60 each year.

And of course once you fork over the big bucks, it's totally got to be worth it, right? Numerous bloggers and online reviewers really, really want you to believe it's so, possibly so they can justify taking a tax deduction for the cost of their own membership fees. But are all of Costco's amaaaaazing products and services really all that? Maybe so, maybe no. We're not saying any of the following items are necessarily worth the price of admission if you're not already a Costco member, but if you've already joined the cult, er, club, you might want to check some of these out next time you're strolling the aisles prowling for free samples. Other items? They might be best to avoid.

A former favorite of many Costco shoppers was the Kirkland Signature vanilla extract. Today picked it as one of Costco's top 10 items, something the staff said they'd "never stop buying." Well, sometimes "never" comes a little sooner than we think, since Costco evidently stopped making the Kirkland brand vanilla.

Costco now offers a different, unbranded type of vanilla extract as the store's generic, but some disappointed bakers feel it to be a very poor substitute. Money still recommends Costco's vanilla as "worth seeking out," but only for its relatively low price — around $35 for a whopping 16 ounces (definitely a steal compared to favorite Nielsen-Massey which runs $16 for just 2 ounces). When it came to the quality though, they had nothing to say.

If you're really, really into vanilla, or DIY, or just dropping a whole lot of money, you can always make your own extract using Costco's Gourmet Vanilla Beans, unbranded, but prominently billed as being a product of Papua, New Guinea. They cost $21.99 for a whole five beans, but this isn't such a bargain. You can buy those exact same beans on Amazon for around $16. Although, to be perfectly fair, joining Prime costs nearly twice as much as a Costco membership, and doesn't come with any free food samples.

Although in the prohibition-prone U.S. it often seems like the government is trying to restrict access to alcohol, 14 states have made it illegal to require a membership to purchase booze. What's this got to do with the price of riesling? Well, if you live in one of these states, you can shop Costco's liquor department without a card. If you live in the other 36 states, and you want to know whether Costco's liquor selection alone is worth a membership, it depends on what you're looking for.

When it comes to name brands, Costco does typically beat the prices at your local discount Boozemart. Where the real bargains are to be found, though, is with Costco's Kirkland Signature-branded wines and spirits and, as it turns out, these may be pretty darn good. Tastings, the website "powered by the Beverage Testing Institute since 1981" (if that means anything to you), has rated 17 different Kirkland Signature wines and five different spirits as Gold Medal Exceptional at 90+ points (we think that means they got an A). 

What's more, Vice interviewed a number of bartenders who all claimed a secret (or not-so-secret) passion for Costco-branded booze, one even advising the readers to "...take off your pants and pour yourself a tall glass" of the stuff. Umm, okay, but please close the curtains before you do the pants thing, okay? We don't need to see those Costco undies on display

Yet another area of Costco you may be able to visit even without a membership is the pharmacy, although it's a bit unclear as to whether this practice is allowed throughout the U.S. According to Costco's website, their pharmacies are "open to non-members where required by state law." As no one seems to have published a handy list of those states, it's probably best to call your local Costco pharmacy to check whether your state might be among the lucky ones.

As to whether Costco meds are such a great deal, well... maybe. If your prescriptions are covered by insurance, your copay will be what it'll be. If you have to pay retail for your prescriptions, whether Costco is your best option may depend upon your time frame. A 2018 Consumer Reports study revealed that Costco did tend to have the lowest prescription prices of any brick-and-mortar pharmacy. If you have time to use an online pharmacy and wait a few days for delivery, though, meds from Healthwarehouse.com were quite a bit cheaper than those from Costco. The five meds Consumer Reports shopped for (generics of Actos, Celebrex, Cymbalta, Lipitor, and Plavix) averaged a total of $105 at Costco, whereas the same drugs from HealthWarehouse.com came to only $66. For comparison, though, at both CVS and Target the drugs cost a whopping $928 so, yeah, it pays to shop around.

If a cake made of cheese isn't your thing, Costco is also known for the standard type of sheet cake. In fact, these cakes are so basic, they only come in two flavors. None of your trendy elderflower/lemon, champagne/strawberry, or passionfruit/guava flavor combos at Costco — here you get chocolate or vanilla, straight up. Not even anything so wacky as marble. What these cakes lack in flavor variety, though, they make up in size, weighing in at a whopping 9.5 pounds (Costco is sure to note that the industry standard is only 6 pounds), 2 pounds of which is filling (vanilla cheesecake for the vanilla cake, and chocolate truffle mousse for the chocolate). Needless to say, when it comes to cost, Costco blows competitors out of the water. Taste of Home reports that a half sheet cake from Costco (which feeds 48) is about the same price as a quarter sheet cake from Walmart.

According to the order sheet (which you cannot complete online, since Costco actually makes you go and fill out an order form in person), you can choose to have your sheet cake decorated with any of 27 different designs. These include balloons, flowers, flags, sports equipment, and a dinosaur which totally isn't at all satanic despite being the subject of a 2014 viral hoax.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Costco products? Maybe something slightly obscene, like a monster tub o' mac and cheese? Well, prepare to be shocked when you find out that Costco is also one of the nation's top retailers of oh-so-healthy organic foods. By 2015, Costco's organics sales figures showed them outselling even Whole Foods, a company which is admittedly more closely associated with all things organic.

So how did Costco go organic while keeping its prices relatively low? For one thing, it sure helps to be competing against Whole Paycheck, where organic berries would have to be sold singly in order to be considered even remotely affordable. In one comparison by The Kitchn in 2018, Costco consistently beat Whole Foods on the price of organic produce, from a few coins to a dollar or more per pound.

Costco, though, is being pretty proactive — perhaps even aggressively so — in pursuit of a continuing supply of organic produce. They've been buying up land to convert into their own organic farms, since owning the farms where it gets its produce should not only save them some money, but could, presumably, save them the embarrassment of having to recall imported organic produce linked to disease outbreaks. Any future infected produce will at least be domestically grown.