Tool
Cost per Wear Calculator
Divide the price by the times you will really use it, care costs included, and compare two options side by side.
How to use it
Enter what the item costs and how many times you expect to wear it, either as a total or as wears a week over a number of years. Add a care cost per wear if it needs dry cleaning, polish or repairs, and a resale value if you could sell it on. Fill in option B to compare a cheap version with a lasting one. It works the same way as a cost per use for anything else you own, from a mixer to a bike. Our cost per wear playbook covers how to estimate the inputs honestly.
The result
The form needs JavaScript to recalculate. Without it, the result below stays on the coat example.
Option B (synthetic coat) is cheaper per wear: $0.50 against $0.86, $0.36 less each time you wear it (42 percent).
Option A (wool coat) would need 1,143 wears to catch up, against the 420 you expect.
Example: the two winter coats from our cost per wear playbook, with made-up prices.
Option A: wool coat
Needs 1,143 wears to match option B's $0.50 a wear. You expect 420.
Option B: synthetic coat
Cheaper per wear
Needs 82 wears to match option A's $0.86 a wear. You expect 140.
How the numbers work
- Wears are the number you enter, or wears a week times 52 times the years. When both are filled in, the number wins.
- Cost per wear is the price minus the resale value, divided by the wears, plus the care cost per wear. Without care leaves the care out.
- Total over its life is the price minus the resale value, plus the care cost per wear times the wears.
- Break-even is the number of wears at which one option's cost per wear falls to the other's: its price minus resale, divided by the other's cost per wear less its own care per wear. When its care alone costs as much per wear as the other option does in all, it never catches up.
- The pessimistic case halves every wear count before the sums.
What this does and does not tell you
It tells you what each wear will cost if your estimates hold, and how far off they can be before the answer flips. The break-even figure is the one to watch: if an option needs far more wears than you can honestly see yourself giving it, the cheaper option is the better buy. When the two land within about 20 percent of each other, cost per wear does not decide it.
It does not know how long a thing will last; that is your estimate, and the one that matters most. It treats money paid today and care paid over years alike. And a low cost per wear is not a reason to buy something you had not planned to: the cheapest wear in your closet usually belongs to something you already own, and a new piece can pull others in after it, which the Chain Cost Calculator adds up.
Questions readers ask
Does this work for things that are not clothes?
Yes. Read wears as uses: rides on a bike, loaves from a bread machine, jobs for a drill, years of a phone. Put running costs such as filters, pods or batteries in the care field, worked out per use.
How do I work out the care cost per wear?
Add up a year of care, such as dry cleaning, polish and the repairs you can foresee, and divide it by the wears in that year. A coat dry-cleaned once a winter for $20 and worn 70 times costs about 29 cents a wear in care.
What does break-even mean here?
It is the number of wears an option needs before its cost per wear drops to the other option's. If the lasting option needs 300 wears and you expect 400, it wins. If it needs 900, the cheaper option wins unless you are sure the lasting one will see that much use.
Do you keep what I enter?
No. The form works in your browser and sends nothing to us; the result is in the page address so you can share it. Reloading the page or opening a shared link sends that address to our host like any other page request. Nothing goes into your browser storage.
Sources
- A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion's future, summary of findings (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017) The estimate that clothes in the US are worn around a quarter as often as the world average.