★ EVERYDAY · GROOMING · COMPARISONS
The safety razor saves $84.76 a year at the defaults: $12.24 against $97.00 for cartridges. Enter your shaves per week, cartridge and blade prices, how long each lasts, and what each handle costs, and this calculator works out the yearly bill for both sides — plus the cost of a single shave, where how often you shave actually shows up.
A cartridge razor charges you for the blade and the handle it sits on; a safety razor charges you almost nothing for the blade and a little for a handle that lasts years. The yearly bill is cartridges per year times cartridge price, plus the handle spread over its life, against blades per year times blade price, plus the safety handle spread over its life.
At the defaults the cartridge side buys 26 cartridges a year — 52 weeks divided by a 2-week lifespan — at $3.50 each, which is $91.00, and the $12.00 handle spread over 2 years adds $6.00, for a total of $97.00 a year. The safety razor side buys 52 blades a year — 52 weeks divided by a 1-week lifespan — at $0.12 each, which is $6.24, and the $30.00 handle spread over 5 years adds $6.00, for a total of $12.24 a year. The saving is $84.76 a year. Notice the handles cost exactly the same per year — $6.00 each — so the whole gap is the blades: $91.00 of cartridges against $6.24 of safety blades. The safety razor is not cheaper because its handle is cheaper; it is cheaper because a twelve-cent blade does the same job as a three-dollar-fifty cartridge.
This is the counterintuitive part, and the calculator shows it plainly: at 3 shaves a week and at 7 shaves a week, the yearly totals are exactly the same — $97.00 against $12.24, a saving of $84.76. That is because both lifespans are counted in weeks, not in shaves: a cartridge that lasts 2 weeks is replaced 26 times a year whether you shave 3 times a week or 7, and a blade that lasts 1 week is replaced 52 times a year either way. What changes is the cost of one shave: at 3 shaves a week (156 shaves a year) a cartridge shave costs $0.62 and a safety shave $0.08; at 7 shaves a week (364 shaves a year) a cartridge shave costs $0.27 and a safety shave $0.03. If your cartridges dull by shave count rather than by time — if a cartridge gives you 10 shaves however long that takes — then shaving less often would stretch each cartridge further, and the yearly bill would fall. Count your own shaves per cartridge over a month if you want the number that matches your face.
This page says it plainly: there is NO realistic cost flip. A $2.00 cartridge still loses by $45.76 a year, a cartridge lasting 4 weeks still loses by $39.26, and $0.25 blades still leave the safety razor $78.00 ahead. Even the safety razor's worst realistic case — $0.50 blades and a $60.00 handle replaced every 2 years — still costs $56.00 a year against the cartridge's $97.00, a saving of $41.00. The flip boundaries are precise and both sit outside real prices: a cartridge would have to cost $0.48 or less while lasting a full 4 weeks to tie at $12.24, or a safety blade would have to cost $1.75 or more — fourteen times the bulk price — to tie at $97.00. No cartridge sold at forty-eight cents lasts a month, and no bulk blade costs a dollar seventy-five. The cartridge wins on convenience and on the learning curve, never on the yearly bill.
Rounding convention, stated plainly: each yearly line is rounded to cents, the yearly totals are the sums of the rounded lines, and the saving is the difference of the rounded totals — so $97.00 minus $12.24 is exactly $84.76, and every branch figure adds up exactly as printed. Cartridge and blade counts are shown rounded to two decimals, but the costs are calculated from the unrounded counts, so a 3-week cartridge lifespan shows 17.33 cartridges a year and the cost follows from that exact count. Per-shave costs are the rounded yearly totals divided by shaves per year, rounded to cents.
| Output | Formula | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Cartridges per year | 52 ÷ cartridge lifespan in weeks | 52 ÷ 2 = 26 cartridges a year. |
| Cartridge cost per year | 26 × $3.50 | $91.00 a year at the defaults. |
| Cartridge handle per year | $12.00 ÷ 2 years | $6.00 a year at the defaults. |
| Cartridge total per year | $91.00 + $6.00 | $97.00 a year at the defaults. |
| Blades per year | 52 ÷ blade lifespan in weeks | 52 ÷ 1 = 52 blades a year. |
| Blade cost per year | 52 × $0.12 | $6.24 a year at the defaults. |
| Safety handle per year | $30.00 ÷ 5 years | $6.00 a year at the defaults. |
| Safety razor total per year | $6.24 + $6.00 | $12.24 a year at the defaults. |
| Yearly saving | $97.00 − $12.24 | $84.76 a year at the defaults. |
| Per-shave cost | Yearly total ÷ shaves per year | $0.37 vs $0.05 a shave at 5 shaves a week. |
This is a blades-and-handles model, not a shaving diary. It counts lifespans in weeks, so shaves per week moves the per-shave cost but not the yearly bill — if your cartridges dull by shave count rather than by time, count your own shaves per cartridge and the yearly bill will move with frequency. It excludes shaving cream, aftershave, a brush, and the learning-curve cost of the first few safety-razor nicks, and it excludes the time cost of the slower, more careful safety shave. Blade and cartridge prices vary by brand and by bulk pack — a 100-pack of blades can cost under ten cents each, while a name-brand cartridge pack can run over $4.00 a cartridge — so enter your own prices for the most accurate result. The handles are spread evenly over their lifespans, so the first year looks cheaper than it is if you buy the $30.00 safety handle up front: the cash leaves in year one, the saving accrues over the years after.
Bright Side Kit. "Disposable Razors vs Safety Razor: Yearly Cost Calculator" https://brightoolbox.com/disposable-razors-vs-safety-razor/ Accessed October 24, 2026.$84.76 a year at the defaults: $12.24 for the safety razor against $97.00 for cartridges, at 5 shaves a week with $3.50 cartridges lasting 2 weeks and $0.12 blades lasting 1 week.
No — not in this model. Lifespans are counted in weeks, so 3 shaves a week and 7 shaves a week both give $97.00 against $12.24. What changes is the per-shave cost: $0.62 against $0.08 at 3 a week, and $0.27 against $0.03 at 7 a week.
Then the cartridge side costs $58.00 a year (26 cartridges at $2.00 plus the $6.00 handle) against the safety razor's $12.24 — the safety razor still saves $45.76 a year.
Then the cartridge side costs $51.50 a year (13 cartridges at $3.50 plus the $6.00 handle) against the safety razor's $12.24 — the safety razor still saves $39.26 a year.
Then the safety razor costs $19.00 a year (52 blades at $0.25 plus the $6.00 handle) against the cartridge's $97.00 — the safety razor still saves $78.00 a year.
Not at realistic prices. A cartridge would have to cost $0.48 or less while lasting a full 4 weeks to tie at $12.24, or a safety blade would have to cost $1.75 or more to tie at $97.00. Neither price exists in a real shop.
At the defaults — 5 shaves a week, 260 shaves a year — a cartridge shave costs $0.37 and a safety razor shave $0.05. At 3 shaves a week it is $0.62 against $0.08, and at 7 a week $0.27 against $0.03.
Shaving cream, aftershave, a brush, the learning curve of the first safety-razor shaves, and the extra minutes a careful safety shave takes. It is blades and handles only, at the prices and lifespans you enter.