The best cheap dog foods, according to veterinary experts and pet owners

Everyone wants good value for money from their dog food – that means finding a food that your pet will love and that doesn't cost the earth.

To find the foods that dogs prefer, we surveyed 1,447 dog owners about the brands that they've tried. We asked them to rate things like their dog's reaction to the food and to tell us about the brands their dogs refuse to eat.

Once we had the most popular brands, we analysed three months of price data from Pets at Home, Zooplus, and eight of the UK's major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose – to find how much they cost per day. 

All of our prices are for a medium-sized (25kg), moderately active dog.

We've selected the cheapest, top-rated brands. Read on to see which popular brands offer the best value for money. 

 To see the full survey results, plus feeding advice from independent veterinary experts, see our best dog food brands

Best cheap dry dog foods

Because wet foods tend to be a lot more expensive than dry foods, we've split the results of our analysis. 

If you choose to give your dog dry food, make sure they have plenty of water available as they won't get hydration from it.

Earls Complete Dry Food, Chicken/Beef, 3kg

Price: £0.35 per day

Available from: Aldi

Earls is Aldi's own-brand dog food. 

Shoppers consistently highlight value for money as a major advantage of this brand.

However, it's only available from Aldi supermarkets, so it may not be the most convenient if you don't already shop there. 

Skinner's Field and Trial Maintenance, 15kg

Price: £0.50 per day

Available from: Ocado, Pets at Home, Zooplus

 

Skinner's makes food for working dogs – this lowers the price of its products as they're marketed for working dogs, qualifying them for zero‑rated VAT treatment under UK tax rules. As a result, consumers don’t pay VAT on these products.

If you have a working or very active dog, these products are a cheap way to provide your dog with the calories they need. 

Autarky Adult, Delicious Chicken/Succulent Salmon, 12kg

Price: £0.66 per day

Available from: Pets at Home, Zooplus

 

Autarky also scored highly in our survey, doing well on ratings such as dogs' wellbeing and their reaction to the food.

Its dry foods come in large pack sizes – up to 12kg – which makes them an economical product. 

We spoke to veterinary experts about why your dog probably doesn't need grain-free food

Best cheap wet dog foods

The cheapest of our wet foods costs roughly £2 more per day than the cheapest of our dry foods. 

However, they're a great way to add some variety to your dog's diet. 

You might choose to mix wet and dry foods to give your pet the most balanced diet while keeping costs lower. 

Autarky Wet, Succulent Salmon, 12 x 395g

Price: £2.51 per day

Available from: Zooplus

 

Our top three cheapest brands for wet food are similar to the cheapest dry food brands – we only looked at the most popular brands, rather than every brand on offer. 

Autarky was one of the cheapest brands for both wet and dry food. 

Its wet food costs under £2 more per day than its cheapest dry products. 

Earls Tender Pate, Chicken/Beef/Turkey, 300g

Price: £2.75 per day

Available from: Aldi

 

In our analysis, we noticed that supermarket brands tend to sell smaller pack sizes than other brands.

You would need to feed a 25kg dog almost five of these Aldi trays per day to meet their nutritional needs. However, it's still one of the cheapest products we looked at. So, you'll need to balance convenience and cost when considering if Aldi's products are right for you. 

Skinner's Field and Trial Lamb Economy Pack, 36 x 390g

Price: £2.86 per day

Available from: Pets at Home, Zooplus

 

This huge pack of Skinner's pet food will keep you stocked up for a while – it contains over two weeks' worth of food for a medium-sized dog. 

This food is specifically designed for working dogs with high caloric needs. 

Price per day for all brands 

Our survey covered 34 of the most popular dog food brands in the UK. 

This table shows the cheapest product each brand offers, along with the average price of their wet and dry foods.

Bear in mind that some of these brands received middling or lower ratings in our survey. 

Dry food tends to show less price variation than wet food, with averages ranging from £0.32 to £2.41.

In contrast, wet food prices started from £2.53, but three brands cost more than £10 per day. 

Non-supermarket brands

Three brands from our survey are not available in supermarkets: Butternut Box, Canagan, and Millies Wolfheart.

We visited their websites in January 2026 to collect the prices of their standard foods. 

• Butternut Box does not sell dry or wet food – it sells 'fresh' food, which is more similar to human food. It is a subscription service that, instead of selling separate meals, delivers a box of mixed foods to your home. It quoted us £3.89 per day to feed a 25kg dog. 
• Canagan's cheapest food was its chicken dry food, which costs £1.63 per day. It costs an average of £2.21 per day to feed pets the dry food. Its wet foods are either priced at £9.11 per day (for ranges including its chicken, lamb and beef flavours) or £9.85 per day. 
• Millies Wolfheart does not provide portion sizes for its dry food online, so we couldn't calculate the cost of these products. Its wet foods all cost the same – it's cheapest to buy a pack of 72 cans, which costs £4.79 per day, or the brand costs an average of £5.37 across all pack sizes.  

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How to choose the best food for your dog

The internet contains a huge amount of conflicting advice around feeding your dog, so when we ran our survey, we spoke to three independent veterinary experts about what actually makes a healthy food. 

All three gave us the same advice: finding a food that your dog eats and does well on is the crucial thing. 

‘The most important part of choosing a food is actually monitoring your pet,’ says Dr Teresa Hollands, senior lecturer in veterinary nutrition at the University of Surrey. 

'If you're feeding your pet a particular brand of food, and they have plenty of energy and seem well in themselves, then you are on the right track.'

You should also ensure that you are feeding your pet a complete food – this means it contains all the nutrients they need in a day. 

You can read more expert advice, including around finding the best feeding routine and maximising nutrition, in our guide to the best dog foods. 

How we analysed the best cheap dog foods

We conducted our survey of 1,447 dog owners online in October 2025. 

We asked them to rate different brands on things like their dogs reaction to the food and their wellbeing on the food. To find out more, including sample sizes for each brand, see our round-up of the best dog foods.

To find the cheapest foods, we downloaded price data for all the brands in our survey from Pets at Home, Zooplus, and eight of the UK's major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. 

We downloaded weekly prices between 7 October 2025 and 7 January 2026. We excluded any product that was not on sale for more than 20% of that time.  

Then we identified the standard ranges made by each brand (those that the brand makes for a typical dog with no specific dietary requirements), and how much of that food you need to give a 25kg, moderately active, neutered, 4-year old, male dog per day. 

We averaged the price of each product over the three-month period and used the feeding volume to calculate the price per day for each food.

We didn't report a dry or wet food price if we had less than two products in that category.

Three brands were not available from supermarkets: Butternut Box, Canagan and Millies Wolfheart. We visited their websites on the 21 January 2026 and collected the prices for their standard ranges and feeding guidelines to determine the price per day for their foods. 

Then we compared prices across the top-rated brands in our survey to find the best cheap dog foods. 

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