If you’ve ever bought the store brand of some items, you know that they are sometimes just as good as the name brand products. Sometimes these products are even manufactured in the same factories.

Reddit user anakrusix asked, “Sometimes cheap and expensive items are the same thing with the only difference being the brand name. What are some examples of this?”

Scroll down to see some examples of products where you should save your money and buy the store brand.

1. Medical Field

   Reddit user moby323 wrote:

   You guys should see the stuff we deal with in the medical field.I wanted to get a mesh metal glove to protect myself when using a saw during autopsies. Our medical supplier, Fisher Scientific, sold the hospital a “medical grade” chain mail glove for $300. They forgot to take the Bass Pro Shops tag off. It was a $12 glove for cleaning fish.

2. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers

   GuessImNotLurking shared:

   Years ago I was on a similar thread and found that melamine sponges are the same thing as Mr Clean Magic Erasers. So I hopped on AliExpress and bought 300 of them for a few bucks at 3am. I totally forgot that I’d done it until they showed up 6 weeks later. My wife was really confused. They do work great though and now we’ll never run out.

3. Costco’s Kirkland Brand

   Written by serb2212:

   Kirkland brand. (Costco brand) One eg: Beyer 81mg aspirin – $24.99 for 365 tablets Kirkland 81mg equivalent: – $4.99 for 365 tablets. Same active ingredient, big price difference.

4. Silicone

   Shared by Reddit user Sisinator:

   Aquarium nerds will know this one – silicone. Aquariums are usually held together with silicone, and silicone is just 100% silicone so generally predictable product no matter who makes it. EXCEPT, many brands for kitchen and bathroom sealing have added chemicals to keep mildew from growing on the cured silicone. This is a big no-no for aquariums (basically poison that would kill your aquarium pets). So you gotta read the ingredients and information carefully to make sure it’s not anti-mildew or anything dubious added. Or, you can pay double or triple for a pack of silicone with a big aquarium brand stamp.

5. Kroger

   Written by Groovychick1978:

   I used to work food packaging for Kroger. Roasted peanuts, dry oatmeal flavored or unflavored, cereal, chips. When we changed from store-brand to branded item, we would stop the line and change the box and the package. The food is the exact same. Exact.

6. Laptop Bags

   Reddit user mandatorysin wrote:

   I was in a shop looking at laptop bags and there were 2 brands right next to each other that were exactly the same, same dimensions, colour, materials, padding, everything. Except one was almost twice the price than the other.

7. Frozen Waffles

   Another example added by mactroneng:

   I worked in a frozen waffle/pancake factory once and the only difference between the name brand and off brand frozen waffles and pancakes was a little metal arm flipping back and forth to ensure every other waffle/pancake of the same bakery/freezer line made it to the name brand packaging line or off brand packaging line.

8. Duracell

   Written by Xarathox:

   Duracell and Walgreens brand batteries are the same.Source: I used to work for Duracell.

9. Men vs Women

   Shared by YoMan_DontEatThose:

   I don’t know exact brands but I would say anything identified as “for men” vs “for women”. I’m a female and buy men’s deodorant and razors. They’re both cheaper and the same exact product just black vs pink most of the time..

10. Champion

    Astraea_Nyx has an observation about similar products from the same brand:

    Champion does this so much. They have like “cheap champion” and the more pricey one. Champion literally used to be shit and you’d get made fun of for wearing it and now it’s all hyped up but you can still find a champion shirt for less than 10$ I have three.

11. A Lot of Different Types of Food

    Retired truck driver jdlech has seen a lot:

    Retired truck driver here. I often picked up cans of soup for various big retailers. I’ll be picking up generic and name brand at the same mfg. plant. Same soup, same cans, just a different label wrapped around them.Brands like Campbell’s will produce generic soup right along side their own brand. The proportions will be a bit different, but the same plant will produce the same soup for 3 or 4 different off brands as well as their own. At least Campbells changes up their formula a bit. Meat packers don’t. A meat packer will produce their own brand, plus one or two off brands, but it’s exactly the same meat, from the same plant, processed exactly the same way. No variation whatsoever. The only difference coming from a meat packing plant is the shipping and handling instructions. Some brands insist the meat not be frozen, others want it frozen solid as a rock. But the worst offenders is the “organic” industry. The definition of “organic” in the U.S. allows for stuff that is definitely NOT anyone’s idea of organic. Organic produce will tend to be smaller than its non-organic counterpart, and often with natural blemishes you normally don’t see on regular produce. If it looks exactly like the non-organic counterpart, it’s probably not really organic at all. Big tell tale is if it’s the same size. You don’t dump a shit ton of pesticide and fertilizer on produce and not get bigger produce.

12. Folgers

    Written by sonoranbamf:

    I bought the family Dollar coffee the other day – the “aroma seal” said Folgers and it had Folgers imprinted on the side

13. Hydroflask

    Shared by arsuperin:

    Hydroflask. You can get those bottles unbranded straight from China for just a few dollars.

14. Printer Paper

    Shared by Reddit user Cleverusername18:

    Pinter paper. I used to work in a factory that cut the paper down to size. We would load up the packaging material for say Staples, do our run of that then switch packaging to the generic packaging without switching the bulk paper out. The plain white package holds literally the same as Staples brand but the brand name is expensive

15. Beats

    Written by sit_giRL:

    I have worked in a pawn shop for seven years now. We test everything that comes in so I have heard every kind of headphone and speaker imaginable.One day I went to test a pair of cheap Onn Bluetooth earbuds. They sounded better than Beats earbuds. At the next meeting I blindfolded five employees and had them listen to those same two sets- same song, same volume, same phone, everything. They all agreed that the second option, the Onn set, sounded WAY better than the first set, the Beats. When the test was over they were astonished- moral of the story is that brand name doesn’t mean shit. Something cheaper that can do the same thing will come along and might actually kick ass. Moral of the story is that a brand name is just a logo on a sticker. At the end of the day, it just comes down to having a solid construction and liking the sound.