What your groceries actually cost, store by store

Staples around Pittsburgh, PA, per unit

What each chain charges per unit, read from the branch nearest downtown and the regional catalog covering it. Pulled from the database on September 13, 2026.

A dash means we could not read that one cleanly, usually a listing too vague to convert. We leave it blank instead of guessing. Prices are local and they move, so check the tag on anything close.

The part a table cannot show you

Five staples, one reading. Your own list runs through the same four steps.

1. 01

   Everything goes onto one scale

   Fourteen ounces. Two packs of twelve. A pound, a dozen, a 1.5-quart tub. All of it converts to a single unit before anything gets compared. Shelf tags are supposed to handle this. Half the time the tag beside it uses a different unit.

2. 02

   Store brands get matched to what they replace

   The store brand lines up against the national brand it actually stands in for, so you are looking at a swap you would really make. Not two products that happen to share a word.

3. 03

   Nothing sorts by anything except price

   Order follows unit price for your search and your area. When a feed breaks, or a listing is too vague to pull one number out of, the row stays empty. A gap is more useful than a confident guess.

4. 04

   The whole basket gets totalled, per store

   One item rarely settles anything. Compare adds up your full list at each store near you, and says so when the cheapest answer means two stops instead of one.

Where each feed comes from, and how the site pays for itself, is spelled out on how it works.

Which stores we cover

Around Pittsburgh, PA, the comparison currently runs on Aldi, Kroger, Giant Eagle and many more. The list is short on purpose. Adding a chain badly is worse than leaving it out, because bad numbers sitting next to good ones make both of them useless.

Packaged staples are where this works best. Milk, eggs, bread, coffee, the cereal your kid will actually eat. Produce and the butcher counter move too fast and get priced too many different ways, so read those as a hint rather than an answer. If you want a store added, say so — requests are most of what decides the order.

Questions we get

Where do these prices come from?

The chains publish pricing for their own websites and apps, and they put out a flyer every week. We read both, clean them up, and convert everything to one unit. We do not take numbers off other comparison sites, and we never fill a blank with an estimate.

How old can a price be?

Prices come in on a schedule, not at the second you search, and the schedule varies by chain. Anything read in the last 14 days counts as current. Older readings only get used when there is nothing fresher for that item. So a number here can trail the shelf by a few days. If two stores land within a few cents, call it a tie and check the tag.

Can a store pay to rank higher?

No, and there is nothing to buy. Order follows unit price for your search and your area. No affiliate fees, no retailer money in the site.

Why is the same item in different units at different stores?

Because stores price it however they want and nothing requires them to agree. One sells cheese by the ounce, the next by the pound. Doing that conversion for you is most of what this tool is.

Do I have to make an account?

Only to build and save a list. The prices on this page, and everything about how the comparison works, are here for anyone.