Weighing Out the Cost of a Bidet vs. Traditional Toilet Paper

When people hear the word “bidet,” they often think “luxury.” While it’s true that using a bidet is a delightful experience, installing one in your own home isn’t an extravagant expense. In fact, switching to a bidet can actually save you money over time because you don’t have to buy as much toilet paper! Let’s look at the bidet vs. toilet paper cost and see how it breaks down.

The toll of toilet paper

The environmental impact of the toilet paper industry is dire. American toilet paper production kills 15 million trees, uses 253,000 tons of chlorine and wastes 17.3 terawatts of electricity in the manufacturing stage alone! But even the most eco-conscious consumer might worry that switching to a bidet might be too big an expense. 

Let’s try to estimate the actual cost breakdown of toilet paper using some back-of-the-napkin math (or the back of some toilet paper, if you have extra TP lying around.) Nationwide, Americans use 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper every year. If you divide that by our population, which is about 382 million people, that’s about 94 rolls per person every year. That’s a whole lot of TP to cover your trips to the bathroom at home, at work, in restaurants, and wherever else nature calls!  

With more people than ever working from home, households are stocking up on toilet paper to cover their bathroom breaks during the day. With 94 rolls a year needed, a family of four could end up using about 376 rolls per year — that’s about $560 per year of the most popular brand of TP! Switching to a bidet can lower your toilet paper usage by 75% or more. 

The average cost to install a bidet

It’s not too hard to calculate the cost of a bidet vs. toilet paper price. That’s because most bidet attachments and bidet toilet seats are designed so that you can install them yourself. That means that you don’t need to spend anything on installation, because you don’t need to buy any special tools or hire a handyman to get everything set up. 

The only expense, then, is the bidet itself. How much does a bidet cost? It depends on the kind that you’re getting. You can spend under $100 for a bidet attachment. The Omigo Element, our essential bidet attachment, is $79, and the Element+ with dual temperature controls costs $99. If you want more features, you can splurge on a higher-end bidet toilet seat. Our advanced bidet toilet seat, the Omigo SL, is $449. Our flagship product, the Omigo luxury bidet toilet seat, costs $649. That one boasts a dryer feature that completely eliminates the need for toilet paper!

Bidet vs. toilet paper: the cost in the long run

The good news for a new bidet owner is that the savings add up over time. Your bidet will last for a long time, cutting down on your toilet paper spending year after year. Using the estimates we calculated above, a family of four could spend up to $1680 on toilet paper alone over the course of three years! With a bidet lowering toilet paper usage by 75%, that number goes down to just $420 over three years. If you bought the Omigo SL, then, you’d spend $449 on the bidet toilet seat and $420 on toilet paper, bringing the total cost down to $869 — still far less than the $1680 you could spend on toilet paper alone over three years! And of course, a bidet toilet seat with a dryer feature would mean no more toilet paper spending at all, bringing the total spending over three years down to just $649 for the bidet toilet seat itself. 

These numbers are estimates, of course, as everyone’s toilet paper preferences vary. But they’ve hopefully given you an idea of the cost comparison. At-home toilet paper usage is going up, but ordering a bidet can help you keep the costs down.