Costco Clearance Prices Vary by Warehouse: What 608 Stores Show
Costco.com shows one price for the whole country. The warehouses do not. Every club sets its own shelf price on markdowns, and the famous .97 clearance ending shows up at one warehouse while the club twenty minutes away still charges full price.
We read the in-warehouse price and stock status of Costco’s deal items at every US warehouse we can reach. The scan that finished the morning of September 30, 2026 covered 608 warehouses, 1,347 items that were a deal at one or more of them, and 210,820 warehouse-level prices. This post is what that scan shows about how Costco clearance actually works on the floor.
If you want the background on the price endings themselves (.97, the other cent endings, the asterisk), start with our Costco price code guide. This post is about what happens across warehouses.
The same item has a different price at different Costcos
Of the 1,347 deal items, 44% did not have a single price nationwide. Across the warehouses that stock them, the median gap between the cheapest and the most expensive club was 28% of the price.
Most of those items are inexpensive, so the dollar gap is usually small. For items that typically sell for $100 or more, fewer vary (16%), but when they do the median gap is $100, and one in ten varies by $182 or more.
Three real examples from the September 30 scan:
| Item | Costco.com | Most warehouses | Cheapest in stock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dyson Cool CF1 bladeless fan (162 warehouses) | $199.99 | $149.97 | $99.97 |
| Kohler Riverly widespread bathroom faucet (66 warehouses) | $99.99 | $49.97 | $29.97 |
| Scotts MAX Weed & Feed, 14,000 sq ft (35 warehouses) | $79.99 | $49.97 | $4.97 |
The Scotts bag is end-of-season lawn clearance. Most clubs still had it at $49.97. One had it at $4.97, with stock.
What to do with this: a Costco price you see in a Reddit post or a deal group is one warehouse’s price. It tells you the item is being cleared, not what your club charges.
.97 clearance is about half off, at every warehouse
We only count a price as clearance when it ends in .97, sits at least 2% below both the online and list prices, and belongs to an item actually sold in the warehouse. That rules out the two things that fool most .97 hunters: items whose regular price happens to end in .97 (common in jewelry and kitchenware), and delivery-only appliances where the “warehouse price” field is a flat freight fee, not a price.
By that definition:
- Every one of the 608 warehouses had clearance on at least one tracked item.
- The median warehouse had 45 clearance prices among the items we track, and the busiest had 195.
- The median clearance price was 50% below the Costco.com price for the same item.
Among tracked items that were not on clearance, the regular in-warehouse price was still below the Costco.com price 94% of the time. That is the usual Costco pattern: online prices include delivery, so the club is cheaper even before a markdown.
Nearly half of .97 clearance is already gone
This is the number that should change how you shop Costco clearance.
For every warehouse price we also read Costco’s own stock status. Here is how regular prices and clearance prices compare:
| In stock | Low stock | Out of stock | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular prices | 93.8% | 2.2% | 4.0% |
| .97 clearance prices | 42.2% | 9.8% | 48.0% |
A regular-price item is out of stock at a given club 4% of the time. A .97 clearance price is out of stock 48% of the time. Clearance at Costco is sell-down pricing: the markdown goes on the remaining units, and the clearance price stays listed after the last one sells.
So the median warehouse had 45 clearance prices, but only 19 of them were buyable (in stock or low stock) on the day of the scan.
What to do with this: a .97 price with no stock is a record of what the club was clearing, not an opportunity. Before you drive, check that the warehouse still shows the item in stock. If it says low stock, go early.
Where the deepest prices are
Looking only at states with at least eight warehouses, buyable clearance per warehouse ranged from about 14 (North Carolina) and 15 (Tennessee, Ohio) up to about 30 (Utah) and 26 (Connecticut). Roughly a 2x range. Florida and Georgia sat near the low end at about 17, New Jersey, Colorado and Washington near the top at 23 to 24.
That is a real difference, but you cannot choose your state. What you can choose is which nearby club to check, and on a specific item the gap between two clubs can be most of the price, as the Scotts and Kohler examples above show. If you live within reach of two or three clubs, the useful question is not “what is on clearance at Costco” but “which of my clubs has this item cheapest, with stock.”
A workflow that fits the data
- Treat any shared .97 price as one warehouse’s price. Check yours.
- Check stock before you go. Nearly half of clearance prices are on items that are already gone.
- Compare your two or three nearest clubs. On items that vary, the gap is often a quarter of the price or more.
- Watch seasonal categories at season end. Our deepest single-warehouse cuts this week were a lawn product and a fan, both end-of-summer items.
- Ignore .97 on jewelry and kitchenware unless the price is clearly below what the item normally costs.
We run this scan automatically. The live list of Costco warehouse clearance, by club, is at Costco warehouse clearance deals, and online Costco price history for any item is on the Costco price tracker.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Costco clearance prices vary by store?
Yes. In our September 2026 scan of 608 warehouses, 44% of deal items were priced differently at different clubs, with a median gap of 28% between the cheapest and most expensive warehouse.
What does .97 mean at Costco?
A price ending in .97 usually marks a warehouse markdown or clearance. It is not reliable on its own: some items are regularly priced at .97, and on delivery-only appliances the warehouse field can be a freight fee. Compare it to the item’s normal price before assuming it is a deal.
How much off is Costco clearance?
The median .97 clearance price in our data was 50% below the Costco.com price for the same item.
Why is the Costco clearance item I saw online not at my warehouse?
Two reasons. Clearance prices are set per warehouse, so another club’s price may not apply to yours. And 48% of the .97 clearance prices we saw were on items already out of stock at that warehouse.
Is Costco cheaper in the warehouse than online?
Usually. Among the items we track that were not on clearance, the in-warehouse price was below Costco.com 94% of the time, largely because online prices include delivery.