Update 4/20/18: See the note at the bottom of the page. Usually, when our house runs out of paper towels roughly once a month or two, I head to Costco to get the best deal. But is it? And is it REALLY worth waiting in that hellish line? I did some quick math on Amazon so you don’t have to. All of these are select-a-size, because I hate tearing off 8 square feet of towel to wipe some barbecue sauce off my finger. These are all Prime, no Prime Pantry, because I’m not organized enough for that.
| Contender | Picture | Price | $/SqFt | Link |
| Price to beat: Costco |  | $22 | $0.0214 | Costco |
| Bounty “Huge roll” – 12ct |  | $28.97 | $0.034 | Amazon |
| Viva 24 rolls |  | $25.82 | $0.0248 | Amazon |
| Scott Mega-roll x30 |  | $29.58 | $0.021 | Amazon |
| Scott Mega-roll x24 | | $23.99 | $0.0214 (same as costco) | Amazon |
So the winner on price alone here is Scott (x30), but with the caveat that you need somewhere to put 30 freaking rolls if that’s what you order.
The real takeaway here is that you don’t NEED to go to Costco for the best price. But if you get the Bounty 12ct package, you’ll be paying a 62% premium, so don’t do that. If you don’t want to warehouse paper towels 30 rolls at a time, get the Viva pack and you’ll only be paying 20% more than you have to – almost certainly worth the saved pain and suffering.
Except apparently there’s no Scott dash button, so that kinda sucks.
UPDATE: I missed that there are less ridiculous options for the Scott that are comparably cheap. Added to the table.
UPDATE 4/20/18: Unfortunately, I think you should ignore this whole post, eat your pride and your Saturday late morning, and just go to Costco. The Scott paper towels kinda suck – they’re thin, tear easily mid-sheet, and don’t absorb much. On the other hand, the Kirkland brand remain my general favorite. While I was at Costco today, I also picked up some Kirkland TP. Turns out, I hate Angel Soft with a passion. Sorry, dash button. Oh – and now that I look at the Costco page for the Kirkland towels, I notice a couple of things: 1) my in-store price is $16, as of this morning, 2) the price dropped to $18.60 online, and 3) Costco now has a two-day delivery program, presumably to compete with Amazon, making Kirkland towels $22 delivered. So Kirkland is now the cheapest by a lot if you drive to the store, and about the same for delivery.
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