Is it cheaper to make bread in a bread maker?
Fresh baked homemade bread will forever be one of my favorite scents. If they made candles that could capture the scent correctly, I would probably buy a ton of them. The only thing better than the scent of homemade bread, is the taste.
Fresh homemade bread has a taste unlike anything you can buy in the grocery store. The lack of preservatives and the use of fresh ingredients like herbs and spices, can truly make for some amazing bread. Knowing that the quality will be so much better, will the cost to make your own bread save you money?
Now to truly understand if making your own bread is cheaper, you will have to take into account what type of bread that you normally buy, the brand, and the regular non-sale price of the store bought bread. There are tons of different options in the bread aisle that include everything from basic white bread to whole wheat bread to gluten free bread.
Is it cheaper to make your own bread in a bread maker?
We typically use three types of bread regularly: sliced sandwich bread, hotdog buns, and hamburger buns. My family prefers the standard white variety of bread, but I am more of a honey wheat fan.
On an average week, we will purchase one loaf of bread per week, and we typically buy the store brand. We usually buy bread at Walmart because it is the cheapest for around $1.00, the other local stores in my area charge closer to $2.50 per loaf.
We recently started pricing out bread machines, and I was pleasantly surprised that you can get a very highly rated machine for around $100. When bread makers first came out around 1986, they were very basic and also pretty expensive.
Thankfully baking fresh bread at home is making a comeback in kitchens everywhere and appliances are now more affordable and offer way better features.
I prefer to only buy appliances if they will save me money or save me time. We all know that bread making is a process, so a bread machine is not likely to save me time. Now I want to know if a bread maker will save me money!
| Type | Cost | Winner |
| Homemade Sliced Sandwich Bread | $1.57 a loaf | |
| Average Loaf of White bread in the US | $2.50 a loaf | |
| Walmart brand white sandwich bread (in GA) | $0.93 a loaf | WINNER! |
| Homemade Hotdog Buns | $1.37 (8 buns) | |
| Average package of Hotdog buns in the US | $2.90 (8 buns) | |
| Walmart Brand hotdog buns (in GA) | $0.93 (8 buns) | WINNER! |
| Homemade Hamburger Buns | $0.98 (8 buns) | (Super close 2nd place) |
| Average package of Hamburger buns in the US | $2.36 (8 buns) | |
| Walmart Brand Hamburger buns (in GA) | $0.93 (8 buns) | WINNER! |
For the above table of bread costs, I picked 3 top rated homemade bread recipes that used a bread maker. I sourced the price for ingredients like flour at Walmart and figured out the cents per oz to find the final cost.
I also did a cost analysis of cheapest, middle price, and expensive options to get an average retail cost of each type of bread. Lastly, I gave the current prices for Walmart brand bread at my local store in Georgia.
Based on these 3 different sets of prices, I determined that if you were to buy the store brand white bread at Walmart, it will be cheaper than making your own bread at home with a bread machine.
Why is homemade bread so hard to make?
One of the most common complaints about making your own bread at home, is that it is difficult to make. Bread making is truly a skill, similar to baking. Some people excel at baking, and others may never truly master it.
The most important piece of making bread at home is practice. It takes time and experience to truly practice making good bread and it is not expected to make amazing bread on your first try.
In past decades, all bread made at home would be made from scratch. The truly homemade variety that your grandmother or great grandmother made on a weekly basis, and it was done by hand.
The ingredients are fairly simple and readily available, but it is the combining and crafting these humble beginnings into delicious bread that is truly artistic.
I fell in love making bread while training for a culinary degree. Some of the best chefs that could make anything, could not make a good loaf of bread. My favorite professor once said that cooking is a science, and baking is an art.
The art is not just in the appearance of the final product, but also in the taste and texture. You can make a beautiful loaf of bread and it tastes dry or has a super hard crust.
In regular cooking, measurements are vital to the overall success of a recipe, but if you add a little too much of this or a tiny bit less of that, your final product will probably still work out and be tasty.
In bread baking, the most common source of a failed final product has to do with the beginning measurements. Bread recipes are typically shown with measurements using cups and tablespoons, but truly accurate recipes will show grams.
If you want to truly perfect bread making, you will need to invest in a kitchen scale and weigh your ingredients. Measuring by weight is the most accurate way to make bread. There is too much room for error by using a “scoop” type measurement method.
How do I make bread without a bread maker?
If you want to make bread at home and don’t have a bread maker, you will need some pretty heavy-duty equipment. I recommend using a dough hook attachment on a mid to high grade Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer.
A handheld mixer with beater attachments will not work to make bread. The dough will not form correctly, and you will end up with a product that tastes tough and chewy.
I recommend a mid to high grade stand mixer, because most of the cheaper models do not have the horsepower for the machine to work over a long period of time. I’ve used one of these cheapy mixers and burned up the engine on the first batch.
The cheaper mixers are fine for making muffins, a cake mix, or even whipped cream, but they are not strong and sturdy enough to make bread.
If you really want to make bread at home without a bread machine, invest in a decent quality Kitchen Aid mixer. You can actually find really good deals on them around Christmas time or even at places like Home Depot or Lowe’s.
My husband bought mine at Lowe’s a zillion years ago on a Black Friday deal for super cheap and it is still working 10 years later. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive one, but it really can’t be the cheaper small ones.
Also keep in mind that you may already have an appliance that will work as a bread maker, both the Instant Pot and an Air Fryer will make bread! You will still need to mix the dough either by hand or with a stand mixer, but they will bake bread.
Is a bread maker machine a good investment?
A typical bread machine can start at $60 and go all the way up to $500+ for a decent machine. The more expensive machines tend to have lots of bells, whistles, and settings.
After my recent research, I will probably buy a Cuisinart Bread Maker for about $90. It has multiple settings and levels of cooking, plus has rave reviews mentioning it is easy to clean and simple to operate.
I would only recommend buying a bread machine if you are planning to use it regularly. If you are wanting to use it to save money, you will need to compare apples to apples.
If you typically buy bread every week for less than you can make it, then buying a bread machine just became a luxury and not a money saver.
I am challenging you to take the cost of your weekly bread purchases, and then compare it to a recipe for the homemade version. This test will help you determine if the bread machine is cost effective.
Is it cheaper to make your own bread rather than buy it?
Based on the data that I gathered, if you are buying very inexpensive bread, then it is probably a little bit cheaper to buy the bread at the grocery store.
If you typically buy bread that is medium priced (not the cheapest or the most expensive), then you can probably save a little bit of money. Overall, the savings would probably take a few years to pay off the cost of the machine. The average cheap bread machine may last 3-5 years, whereas an expensive one may last over 10 years.
If you tend to buy artisan loaves or fresh baked bread at the bakery, then making your own homemade version will definitely save you money with a bread maker.
Keep in mind that making bread is a process and does take time though. Some bread makers now have automatic features that act similar to a Crock Pot where you can put your ingredients in, hit a few buttons, and a few hours later you have bread. The actual work on your part is minimal, but the final product will still be awesome.
I think if you are looking for a healthier and better tasting bread product, then baking bread at home is definitely the way to go.
If you are only focused on the cost savings, unfortunately making your own bread at home will only save you pennies per loaf of bread and may cost you more in energy as well.
As a final note, the cost of inflation seems like it will only keep going higher lately, so it is possible that in a few months or year, baking your own bread at home could save you a lot of money. If you really want to splurge on a bread maker now, it may pay off later!
If you are on a DIY kick, go check out “Is it cheaper to make your own cheese?” and the results may surprise you!
