Home Depot Vs. Ace Hardware: Which Hardware Store Is Cheaper?

Anyone looking to build out their arsenal of tools knows that it can be an incredibly pricey endeavor. Whether you are in the market for large power tools or simple things like nails and screws, the amount you are spending at a hardware store can escalate pretty quickly, especially if you are someone who tries to do a lot of handy work around the house yourself. Unless you are indebted to your local, family-owned hardware store, chances are pretty good that you are going to end up going to a major chain store like The Home Depot or Ace Hardware for all of these tools. The question then becomes which of these stores is going to give you the better deal on the equipment you need.

On the whole, The Home Depot is the store that will help you save money on your hardware needs. It is a much larger store than Ace Hardware and generally offers more options, almost forcing the retailer's prices to be more competitive and appealing to prospective buyers. Ace Hardware, on the other hand, is a great place to just pop into and grab a couple of things that are more top of mind, but because of its convenience, Ace may take slight advantage of your wallet for that convenience. Occasionally, the savings from The Home Depot are marginal, but in others, they are substantial. We are going to look at a variety of different categories — from power tools to lawn maintenance products — and see where exactly you can get the best bang for your buck at The Home Depot compared to Ace Hardware.

Hand tools include everything from hammers and screwdrivers to saws and bolt cutters. The Home Depot and Ace Hardware sell many of the same products in these categories, including the same brads. These include big names like Milwaukee, Dewalt, and Craftsman tools. Each company has its own in-house brands as well, with The Home Depot having names like Husky and Ace having its namesake. When it comes to hand tools, The Home Depot is generally the cheaper option, though not always.

If you are in the market for a name brand tool, The Home Depot is going to be more budget friendly. For example, let's look at a 20-inch curved claw smooth face hammer from Milwaukee. At Ace Hardware, this will cost you $33.99, and over at The Home Depot goes for $24.97 as of this writing, though that is marked down from $31.97. Either way, that is a better deal. You see this kind of discrepancy with other tools from other brans too. Both sell a three-piece set of chisels from Stanley, but Ace Hardware sells it for $16.99, while The Home Depot has it for $14.97.

It is the in-house brands where you can see savings from Ace Hardware, which also have positive reviews from customers. A 1 x 3-inch Phillips-head screwdriver from Ace Hardware's Ace brand sells for $5.99, and that is a bit less than the $7.97 from The Home Depot's Husky brand. However, that is not universal. Take each brand's 16-inch claw hammer with a fiberglass handle. The Husky hammer costs $14.97, and the Ace will cost you $15.99. On the whole, the better deals are at The Home Depot.

While the consistency of hand tools at The Home Depot being cheaper than those at Ace Hardware is pretty strong, that same correlation cannot be said for the power tools at each respective hardware store. For these heavier duty tools, there are some instances where one store offers a better deal than the other, but in the majority of these tool selections, the two stores offer the exact same product at the exact same price.

For example, take the 20V MAX cordless 6.5-inch circular saw from DeWalt. Each store currently sells the tool for $129, marked down from the regular price of $159. You see this identical pricing all over the place, such as the Milwaukee M18 FUEL 18V cordless 4.5-inch/5-inch angle grinder. Both The Home Depot and Ace Hardware sell this for $229. There are certain instances where you see price discrepancies, such as with the Milwaukee M18 FUEL half-inch cordless drill/drive. The Home Depot offers this at the slightly lower price of $189 compared to Ace's $199, but these are not that common.

Ultimately, though, your best bet is to go to The Home Depot for these. The reason behind this is because you have a greater variety of brands to choose from. Some big names like Ryobi have an exclusive distribution deal with The Home Depot, and you may be able to save money by comparing things on a brand-by-brand basis rather than a store-by-store one. Also, if you already have batteries to power these tools from a company that Ace doesn't stock, you save yourself having to purchase new batteries and chargers that can be quite pricey.

What you are able to purchase at a hardware store goes far beyond things that help you hammer nails and tighten screws. You can also find all the equipment you need to tend to your home's lawn and garden. That could take the form of a large lawn mower, but it also encompasses things like soil, mulch, and pest control. No matter what you are looking for to care for your outdoor space, the place you want to go to is The Home Depot. In just about every scenario, the larger store is offering a significantly better deal.

If you want to get yourself some black mulch for your yard, The Home Depot sells a bag from Vigoro, which goes for $3.33 for 2 cubic-feet. Ace doesn't sell that brand, but it offers a bag of the same size from the Nature Scrapes line from Scotts. That one costs $6.99. Even when the stores do sell the same product, The Home Depot is the better deal. It sells a 1.5 cu-ft bag of all-purpose garden soil from Miracle-Gro for $8.47. Meanwhile, Ace sells a smaller bag of the same garden soil — covering just one cubic foot — for $8.59. Even pest control is cheaper, such as the one-gallon jug Ortho Home Defense Killer spray costing $16.81 at The Home Depot and $17.99 at Ace.

It's lawnmowers where you can see massive savings, though. A Dewalt Flexvolt 21-inch push mower with a 60V battery costs $799 at Ace Hardware but goes for $719 at The Home Depot. No matter what you're doing, The Home Depot is the cheaper way to tend your lawn.

Another major thing that you can pick up at a hardware store is lighting equipment. This category, of course, contains light bulbs but extends out to ceiling fans, security lights, and chandeliers too. When it comes to your standard A19 LED light bulbs that most people are going to use for most of their lights, the two basically have no overlap in terms of what brands they offer. The Home Depot has a vast array of options (led by EcoSmart) and Ace Hardware has very little else besides Feit. At their most basic, The Home Depot does get you a better deal on those kinds of bulbs. That store sells a 16-pack of EcoSmart soft white A19 60W-equivalent LED bulbs for $21.98, but Ace has a 10-pack of the same kind of bulbs from Feit for $14.99.

There is more brand crossover when it comes to things like ceiling fans, and in that case, the prices are quite comparable between the two stores. Hunter is one of the biggest brands of ceiling fans, and both stores offer the company's 42-inch Builder line low-profile fan in snow white. The Home Depot's price for it is $146.47, and Ace's is only slightly more at $149.99. Because of The Home Depot's size, the store is able to offer a lot more optionality with its lighting equipment. Most of its top-selling light bulbs are smart bulbs or have dimming features, and many of its ceiling fans come with remotes. These are a bit harder to come by at Ace, which may make it seem like it's more affordable, when it actually isn't.