The Scoop on Dollar Store Pregnancy Tests

My big sister T, keeper of the modern family pregnancy wisdom and mother extraordinaire, wasted no time giving me the skinny on HPTs. After TTC for more than a year before becoming pregnant with my niece, she knew all the tricks of the trade.

"But doesn't it get expensive?" I'd asked her when I first told her that hubs and I were going to try. I'd been late enough times before to know that a box of two tests cost at least $15.

"Yeah," she told me. "But the expensive tests are no more accurate than the cheap ones--you have to go to the dollar store."

I was understandably skeptical. How could First Response and Clear Blue Easy get away with charging more than six times per test for something anyone could get at Dollar Tree? I made every logical argument for why I thought I wouldn't work. But T insisted they'd been accurate every single time, so I did a little experiment, and here are the results!

What the Books Say: "What to Expect When You're Expecting" by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel says the following about the sensitivity of pregnancy tests:

To find out how sensitive your pregnancy test is, check out the packaging. Look for the milli-international units per liter (mIU/L) measurement, which will tell you the sensitivity of the test. The lower the number the better (20 mIU/L will tell you you're pregnant sooner than a test with 50 mIU/L sensitivity. Not surprisingly, the more expensive tests have greater sensitivity.

Yet, I could not find the mIU/L measurement on the leaflets that came with any of the tests I bought.

My Experiment: As soon as I thought I might be pregnant I began testing multiple brands: "Dollar Tree" (dollar store brand), First Response traditional, and Clear Blue Easy digital

• Day 1: Faint line with First Response. Extremely faint line with Dollar Tree test. No digital test taken.
• Day 2: Darker line with First Response. Faint line with Dollar Tree test. "Pregnant" reading on digital test.
• Day 3: Full line with First Response (i.e., same color as test line). Faint line with Dollar Tree test. (No need to take digital test)
• Day 4: No test :)
• Day 5: Darker line with Dollar Tree test.
• Day 6: Full line with Dollar Tree test.

The Verdict: Though the Dollar Tree tests were accurate, they were notably less sensitive (which corroborates what was said in "What to Expect When You're Expecting"). However, they were not six to eight times less sensitive despite being six to eight times cheaper :) That said, my conclusion is that you'll save a lot of money TTC if you surrender to the dollar store brand. Sure, this may make for an extra day or two before you know, but over time it will save you tons of cash.

And, now to you--what have you discovered comparing/contrasting HPTs?