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Are cloth diapers worth it financially? An honest two-year cost breakdown

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Nulu

4. Oct 2026

On 4. Oct 2026

One of the questions I get asked most often is whether cloth diapers are really worth it financially. And honestly, I understand the question completely. When you look at the price of a cloth diaper set for the first time, €200–400 can feel like quite a lot, especially when the shop shelf next to it has a pack of disposables that costs maybe twenty euros at a time.

But there is one important difference here. With a disposable diaper you pay a small amount again and again, whereas with a cloth diaper you pay a bigger amount at the start and then use the same product over and over. That is why I put the two options side by side and calculated roughly what one child might cost over two years. Not to prove that cloth diapers are always the cheapest option in every situation, but so you can see where the money actually goes.

How much do disposable diapers cost over two years?

The number of diaper changes changes quite a lot as a child grows. A newborn may go through 8–12 diapers a day, an older child more like 4–6. If you take an average of about 4–6 diapers a day over the whole two years, that adds up to roughly 2,900–4,400 disposable diapers over 730 days. For example, the Environment Agency study assumed an average of just over four disposable diapers a day, so this range is realistic rather than exaggerated.

If you take 25–30 cents as the average price of one diaper, the diapers alone come to roughly €730–1,314 over two years. Of course this is a simplified example, because the real amount depends a lot on which brand you buy, which sizes you use, how much you can get on sale and how many diapers your child actually uses a day. On top of that come wet wipes, diaper bags and later, for example, pull-up pants.

So with disposable diapers the big cost is not one large expense, but the fact that you keep buying more all the time.

What about cloth diapers?

With cloth diapers the picture is the other way round, because the bigger expense comes at the start. A proper set can cost around €200–400, depending on which diapers you choose, how many you buy and whether you also need covers, inserts, wool pants, wet bags and other essentials. After that you start washing them and using them again. If you wash, say, every two to three days, that means somewhere around 250–365 wash loads over two years.

This is where it is hardest to give one universal number, because the cost of washing depends on so many things. How big is your washing machine and how full do you load it? What temperature do you wash at, how much do water and electricity cost in your home and what detergent do you use? Do you dry the diapers on a line or in a tumble dryer? All of this affects the end result, and that is why I don’t want to tell you that “washing cloth diapers costs exactly €120 over two years”, because that simply wouldn’t be honest.

What does matter, though, is that after the initial purchase you don’t have to keep buying new diapers every couple of days. You have the same diapers that you wash, dry and put back into use, and so on for the next couple of hundred times.

Disposable and cloth diapers side by side

	Disposable diapers	Cloth diapers
At the start	small cost	around €200–400
Over two years	around 2,900–4,400 diapers	the same set in repeated use
Washing	none	yes
Buying more diapers	constantly	usually little or as needed
Second child	you start again	the same set can often be reused

That is why cloth diapers are often worth it: the total spent on one child can turn out noticeably lower than when you keep buying disposables. Exactly how much you save depends on your own choices, and in my opinion that is actually good news. With cloth diapers you have quite a lot of influence over how big that final cost is.

Cloth diapers are most worth it with a second child

This is where the maths gets especially interesting. If you use disposable diapers, you start from zero again with the next child and buy pack after pack exactly as you did with the first. With cloth diapers, however, a large part of the initial investment has already been made.

If the diapers have been well cared for and are still in good condition, they can be used for the next child too. Of course you may need to replace a worn insert, cover or other part along the way, but you don’t have to buy the whole system again. This is one of the reasons why cloth diapers are especially worth it financially when they are used for more than one child. Well-kept diapers can also be sold on or passed along later, and that is something you simply can’t do with a disposable diaper.

Are cloth diapers still worth it once you count washing?

I get asked this very often too, and yes, washing costs money. Cloth diapers are not free and I would never claim otherwise. But the cost of washing isn’t only about running the machine every couple of days, because how you wash matters too. If the machine is full enough, you are not essentially washing just for a couple of diapers, and if you can dry the diapers outdoors or on a drying rack, you don’t have to add tumble dryer energy to every wash.

The Environment Agency’s 2008 life cycle study also identified washing and drying as one of the main factors affecting the environmental impact of reusable diapers. According to the study, full loads and line drying reduced their impact, and using them for a second child reduced it even further (Environment Agency, 2008). In other words, with cloth diapers the question is not only whether you wash, but how you wash.

Are cloth diapers better for the environment too?

Here I want to be especially honest, because “cloth diapers are eco-friendly” is actually too simple a sentence. Making a cloth diaper takes materials and energy, and washing it takes water, electricity and detergent. With a disposable diaper, however, a new diaper has to be made for every single use and the old one thrown away.

The Environment Agency study estimated the global warming impact of the average disposable diapers used by one child over 2.5 years at around 550 kg of CO₂ equivalent. The result for reusable diapers under the study’s average washing and drying scenario was around 570 kg, but there was a very big difference between different ways of using them (Environment Agency, 2008).

That last part is the most interesting to me. The study found that when reusable diapers were washed in full loads or always dried outdoors, their impact fell by about 16%. When the same diapers were also used for a second child, the impact dropped by about 40% compared with the baseline scenario, or roughly 200 kg of CO₂ equivalent. At the same time, always tumble drying increased the impact by about 43%, and washing at 90 °C combined with tumble drying increased it even more. So here too it is not simply a case of “cloth is good and disposable is bad”, because the way you use them matters.

Later research confirms the same picture. In 2021 the UN Environment Programme reviewed several life cycle studies of diapers and concluded that reusable diapers are better for the environment than disposables on most indicators, as long as they are washed sensibly (UNEP, 2021). In practice that means a full machine, a 60-degree wash instead of 90, and line drying whenever possible.

One number that is easiest to picture

If a child uses around 2,900–4,400 disposable diapers over two years, that means thousands of diapers that can’t be used again after a single use. With a cloth diaper the story is completely different, because the same diaper goes back and forth between the child and the washing machine again and again, and that repeated use is the whole point of the system.

Why do I pay so much attention to quality with Nulu diapers?

When you buy a cloth diaper, you are not really buying just one diaper, but something you plan to use a great many times. That is why it matters to me what fabric sits against the baby’s skin, how the seams are made and how the material behaves after dozens of washes.

Nulu diapers are made in small batches in my studio, and I use solar power to make them. I have chosen the materials so that they suit repeated use and can withstand regular 60-degree washing, not just based on how pretty they look when new. I also like the idea that this isn’t just another product that goes in the bin after one use, but that with good care one Nulu diaper will serve you for a very long time.

The more uses one diaper can withstand, the lower the cost of each use becomes. And if that same diaper can later go on to the next child, the maths gets even better.

So are cloth diapers worth it?

My answer is that mostly, yes, if you use them consistently and wash sensibly. But I wouldn’t say you now have to live with cloth diapers only, all the time. Some families use them all the time, some only during the day, some take disposables along when travelling and use cloth at home, and some start with a couple of diapers just to understand whether the system suits them at all. That is completely okay too.

In fact the question isn’t whether you are a “cloth diaper person” or not, but simply whether a reusable diaper could work in your family’s everyday life. And if it does, besides less waste it can be a pretty good decision for your wallet as well.

If you are now wondering where to start or how many diapers your family would actually need, write to me. I’ll gladly help you put together a set that suits your child, your washing routine and your budget. 🤍