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Calculator
Membership break-even
Any paid membership — a warehouse club, a delivery service, a trade account — is a bet that you will spend enough to earn the fee back. This works out the monthly spend that makes the bet break even.
Be honest about the savings rate
The savings rate is not the discount on the items you notice — it is the average across everything you buy, compared with what you would otherwise pay elsewhere. If you would not have bought it at all, the discount saved you nothing. Use the unit price calculator on a few items you buy regularly to estimate a real rate instead of guessing.
The fee pays for itself
$67.71 / month to break even
- Annual spend
- $250.00 × 12 = $3,000.00
- Combined savings rate
- 8.0%
- Annual expected savings
- $240.00
- Membership fee
- − $65.00
- Net expected benefit
- $175.00
- Break-even monthly spend
- $67.71
Sensitivity
If your true savings rate is a third lower than you think — 5.3% — you would need $101.56 a month instead. Membership math is usually decided by that gap, not by the fee.
Cotco is independent and this calculator is not about any particular retailer or club. It assumes your savings and cashback rates apply evenly to everything you buy, ignores taxes and fuel or travel costs, and does not count perks you may value but cannot price.