Is It Cheaper to Make Your Own Cleaning Products?

Yes, a homemade vinegar spray is usually cheaper per bottle than a premixed supermarket one, often well under a dollar. But the gap shrinks fast once you count failed batches, surface damage and the glass cleaner you still buy. A diluted concentrate matches DIY cost without the guesswork.

The short answer, then the honest detail

If you are comparing a homemade vinegar spray to a premixed supermarket trigger bottle, yes, DIY almost always wins on raw cost per bottle. A litre of white vinegar and a box of bicarb soda cost a few dollars and stretch a long way. On paper the maths looks irresistible.

The problem is that the paper maths leaves things out. It ignores the batch you tipped down the sink because it separated. It ignores the etched stone benchtop you now want to replace, and the streaky windows you redid three times. It also ignores that a watery homemade spray often needs two or three passes to do what one pass of a stronger product does. Cost per bottle is the wrong number. Cost per clean, including the misses, is the number that matters.

We run a cleaning business, and the homes where DIY had quietly gone wrong are the ones that stuck with me: a dulled marble island that took acidic spray once too often, and bathroom mirrors that never came up clear no matter how the owner mixed their spray. Those are the costs that never make it into the "look how cheap this is" videos. This page walks through the real figures, where DIY genuinely shines, where it quietly costs you more than you saved, and where a concentrate sits in the middle: nearly as cheap as DIY, without the inconsistency.

What people actually mean by "make your own"

There are three different things hiding under the DIY banner, and they have very different costs and risks.

1. Pantry mixes (vinegar, bicarb, lemon, dish soap)

The classic homemade route. Cheapest by far on ingredients, but the most inconsistent, because kitchen vinegar is only roughly standardised and your "splash of dish soap" is never the same twice. Great for some jobs, genuinely risky on others (more on stone and grout below).

2. Essential oil and castile soap recipes

The "natural living" tier. These can clean well and smell lovely, but castile soap and quality essential oils are not cheap, and castile reacts badly with vinegar, curdling into a white mess. Once you price the oils, the saving over a shop bought eco cleaner often disappears.

3. Concentrates you dilute yourself

Technically still "making" your cleaner, because you mix it with water at home, but the formula is made to a fixed recipe for you. This is the bridge: you keep almost all of the per bottle saving of DIY, because you are paying for actives not water, but you lose the guesswork. HomeKind's All in One Cleaner Concentrate sits here.

When someone asks "is it cheaper to make my own", they usually mean tier one. So that is what we will cost out first.

The real cost of homemade: an itemised breakdown

Let us price a typical all purpose vinegar spray and compare it honestly to the alternatives. These are derived ranges from common Australian supermarket pricing, not a lab test, so treat them as ballpark, not gospel.

A standard 750ml trigger bottle of homemade all purpose spray is roughly half water, half white vinegar, with a few drops of dish soap. Here is what actually goes into one bottle:

• White vinegar: a 2L bottle costs a few dollars. One 750ml spray uses under 400ml, so a few tens of cents per bottle.
• Dish soap: a few drops from a bottle you already own. Effectively cents.
• Essential oil (optional): a couple of drops for scent. A small bottle is not cheap, but per spray it is a few cents at most.
• Water: from the tap. Negligible.
• The trigger bottle: reused, so spread across many refills it rounds to nothing.

Add that up and the ingredient cost per bottle genuinely lands in the low tens of cents. So far DIY looks unbeatable. Now here is the same comparison laid out per 750ml bottle, including the things people forget.

Read that bottom row carefully, because it is the surprise. A 1L HomeKind concentrate makes up to 100 spray bottles when diluted at the everyday rate of 5 to 10ml per litre of water. At $39.99 for the litre, that works out to roughly 40c of concentrate per made up bottle, which is in the same league as a homemade vinegar spray, not the supermarket price. If you want to see how that figure is built, here is how many spray bottles one litre of concentrate makes. You are paying for the active cleaning agents and adding the water (the heavy, cheap part) yourself at home.

So the honest headline is this. A diluted concentrate is close to homemade on per bottle cost. A premixed bottle is the genuinely expensive option, because you are shipping and paying for water.

Where homemade quietly costs you more

The per bottle number is only half the story. Here is where DIY eats the saving you thought you made.

Surface damage is the expensive one

Vinegar is acidic. On sealed surfaces it is usually fine, but on natural stone (marble, travertine, some granite and engineered stone), repeated acidic cleaning can dull and etch the surface. On unsealed grout and certain finishes it can degrade the sealer over time. One damaged benchtop or a regrouting job wipes out years of vinegar savings in a single afternoon. This is the single biggest hidden cost of pantry DIY. For a fuller list, see the surfaces you should never clean with vinegar.

Glass is where DIY frustrates people most

Homemade sprays, especially anything with soap in them, tend to leave a film or streaks on glass and mirrors. So people end up keeping a separate glass cleaner anyway. That means a second product, a second bottle and a second cost. A streak free finish on glass is the job DIY most often fails at, and the reason most homemade households never fully replace their commercial cleaners. If this is your sticking point, here is getting streak free glass the eco way.

The bicarb and vinegar myth

This one deserves its own note, because it is the most common DIY mistake of all. Plenty of recipes tell you to combine bicarb soda and vinegar for a powerful cleaner. The fizzing looks dramatic, but chemically the two largely cancel each other out: the acid (vinegar) and the base (bicarb) react to produce mostly water, a little salt and carbon dioxide gas. Once that fizz dies down you are left with weak salty water, not a stronger cleaner. Use them separately for the jobs each is good at, and do not waste both by mixing them in a bottle.

Failed and short lived batches

Water based homemade mixes have no real preservative system. Add anything organic (lemon juice, some essential oils) and the mix can grow mould or go off within days to weeks, especially in a warm Australian laundry. A batch you have to tip out is 100 percent wasted, ingredients and your time both gone.

Your time has value

Measuring, mixing, labelling and remaking every couple of weeks adds up. It is not a huge cost, but it is real, and it is the part the cost per bottle figure always ignores.

Where homemade genuinely wins

This is not an anti DIY page. There are jobs where homemade is the right call and you should not overthink it.

• Bicarb for scrubbing: a cheap, mild abrasive that is excellent on baked on oven grime, cooktops and sinks. Hard to beat on value.
• Vinegar for descaling: kettles, shower heads and taps with hard water scale respond well to a vinegar soak. This is acid doing exactly the job acid is good at.
• Bicarb as a deodoriser: a bowl in the fridge, a sprinkle on the carpet before vacuuming, a scoop in a smelly bin. Pennies, and it works.
• One off jobs where you do not want to buy a whole product for a single use.

The pattern: homemade wins for single ingredient, single purpose jobs (scrub, descale, deodorise). It struggles as an everyday all rounder across many surfaces, which is exactly where consistency and surface safety matter most.

The middle path: a concentrate you dilute

If your real goal is to spend less without the guesswork, a concentrate gets you most of the way there. You still mix with water at home, so you are not paying to ship bottles of water around the country, but the active formula is made to a fixed, consistent recipe every time.

HomeKind's All in One Cleaner Concentrate is built for this. A few points that matter for the cost and consistency question:

• One bottle replaces several. It is formulated to handle all purpose, glass, bathroom and floor cleaning, so you are not buying four products and four bottles. That alone is where a lot of household cleaning spend hides.
• Streak free on glass and mirrors. This is the job homemade most often fails, so replacing your separate glass cleaner is a genuine saving, not a marketing line.
• Plant based and enzyme activated. The protease, amylase and lipase enzymes target protein, starch and grease residues, the kind of broad spectrum performance a simple vinegar spray cannot match.
• Up to 100 spray bottles per 1L. Diluted at 5 to 10ml per litre for everyday cleaning, which is what brings the per bottle cost down to roughly 40c.
• Septic and greywater safe. Important if you are on a tank or reusing greywater on the garden, where some homemade and conventional cleaners cause problems. Here is more on septic and greywater safe cleaning.
• Four scents, same formula. Lemon Myrtle and Eucalyptus Radiata, Mandarin Peel and Rosemary, Peppermint and Pine Needle, or Fragrance Free.

For dilution guidance across jobs, see our notes on how to dilute a cleaning concentrate correctly so you are not over using product and quietly spending more than you need to.

How to make a safe homemade all purpose spray (if you want to)

If you do want to DIY, here is a sensible, lower risk version. The goal is to avoid the two classic mistakes: using it on surfaces vinegar attacks, and letting it go off.

1. Use a clean trigger bottle. Rinse and dry it first so you are not mixing into old residue.
2. Mix roughly one part white vinegar to one part water for general grime on sealed, vinegar safe surfaces only.
3. Add a small squeeze of plain dish soap for grease, and shake gently. Keep it minimal, too much soap means streaks.
4. Skip the citrus juice if you want it to last. Fresh juice shortens the life of the mix. A couple of drops of essential oil is fine for scent.
5. Do not add bicarb to the bottle. Mixed with vinegar it just neutralises into salty water. Keep bicarb for separate scrubbing jobs.
6. Label it with the date. Use within a couple of weeks and remake if it looks or smells off.
7. Never use it on stone, marble, unsealed grout, or where the manufacturer says no acid. When in doubt, test a hidden spot first.

That recipe is cheap and works for a lot of everyday jobs. It will still leave you reaching for a separate glass cleaner, and you will still need to keep your stone and grout off limits.

When DIY is not the right fix

Be honest with yourself about your home before you commit to homemade for everything:

• You have stone benchtops, marble, or a lot of tiled grout. The etching and sealer risk is not worth the few dollars saved.
• You clean glass and mirrors often. Streaks will drive you back to a commercial product anyway.
• You are on septic or use greywater. You want something you know is safe for that system, not a guess.
• You want one product for the whole house. DIY pantry cleaning is several single purpose mixes, not one reliable all rounder.
• You are time poor. Remaking batches every fortnight is a chore that erodes the saving.

If two or more of those apply, a concentrate will almost certainly save you money and frustration over a year, not cost you more.

So, is it cheaper to make your own?

Per bottle, homemade is usually cheaper than a premixed supermarket spray. No argument there. But the gap to a diluted concentrate is small. Once you count surface damage risk, failed batches, the separate glass cleaner you still buy, and your time, the honest answer is "it depends on your home". For single purpose jobs like scrubbing and descaling, make your own and save. For everyday all surface cleaning where consistency and safety matter, a concentrate gives you near DIY cost without the gambles.

HomeKind is in stock now and posted same day if you order before 1pm, otherwise the next business day. You can buy today and it is posted same day if you order before 1pm, otherwise the next business day. If an all in one concentrate that is cheap per bottle, streak free on glass, and septic and greywater safe sounds like the version of "save money on cleaning" you actually want, you can order the All in One Cleaner Concentrate here. To go deeper on the numbers, our pillar guide on saving money on cleaning without cutting corners pulls all of this together.