When you're craving a slice, it might be tempting to dial up Domino's or Pizza Hut. But I'd argue that Costco and Sam's Club are serving up some seriously delicious pizza at unbeatable prices, and it's not just the frozen kind.
But the choice between Costco pizza vs. Sam’s Club pizza is the real challenge. One major difference between the two pizzas is their accessibility. Sam's Club dishes out their pizzas with no membership required (it's true!), while Costco pizzas are more of a Costco membership benefit.
We compared the cost, size, toppings, and even calories to see who wins in this Sam’s Club vs. Costco battle. And we have a whole separate piece on the Costco vs. Sam's Club hot dog debate if you're into that.
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How Do Their Pizzas Compare?
We put the two pies to the test by ordering a Sam's Club pizza slice and a Costco pizza slice. We then compared the cost, size, toppings, calories, ingredients, and baking method to figure out the winner in the Costco pizza vs. Sam's Club pizza showdown.
Price: It's pretty much a tie
At $9.95, a whole Costco pizza sounds more expensive than a Sam’s Club's whole pizza priced at $8.98. But don't let that sticker price fool you.
I did the math to figure out the cost per square inch of pizza at both warehouses (my math teacher would be proud). It turns out that Costco's whole pizzas are 11.4% cheaper per square inch. It’s just a difference of five-hundredths of a cent, but hey, it's still a slightly better value at Costco.
But while Costco wins in the battle of whole pizza cost, Sam's Club has a cheaper pizza slice combo.
You can get a Sam’s Club pizza combo for $2.50 (includes a slice of pizza and a 30-ounce soda). Even though Costco discontinued their pizza combo in 2022, you can make your own pizza combo by ordering a slice of Costco pizza for $1.99, then adding a 20-ounce drink separately for $0.69. This makes your Costco "combo" come out to $2.68. So the Sam's Club combo is cheaper, though the pizza slice itself is not as good of a value.
Size: Sam's Club pizza-by-the-slice is surprisingly bigger
I got out my measuring tape and food scale to compare the sizes of the Costco pizza vs. Sam's Club pizza.
A Sam’s Club whole pizza is 16 inches and gets cut into 12 slices. Obviously, this makes it smaller than the Costco whole pizza, which measures 18 inches and gets cut into 12 slices.
But surprisingly, when you order by the slice, Sam's Club gives you a more generous slice than Costco — I watched them cut my slice. (And it's a much bigger slice than when you order a whole pizza.) Here's what I found:
Sam's Club pizza by the slice: One-fifth of the whole pie, 9.5 inches of crust, 9.9 oz in weight
Costco pizza by the slice: One-sixth of the whole pie, 8 inches of crust, 7.8 oz in weight
I fully expected Costco’s pizza slice to be larger based on the math, but in reality, it wasn’t! The Sam’s Club pizza slice had a longer crust and a heavier weight than the Costco slice — making Sam’s Club the winner of the size category.
KCL TIP: You actually don't have to be a Sam's Club member to eat at their cafe. This is mentioned in the fine print on the Cafe details page for each location.
The Pizza: Costco's process is fresher
Costco and Sam’s Club use real dough to make their pizzas, and they stretch it out in the warehouse. They also both share a process of baking their pizzas in a conveyor belt-like oven. But the difference comes in the rest of the process.
Costco uses a fancy "sauce robot" to place their sauce on the dough. The robot dispenses the sauce in a spiral around the pizza in an even layer. A Costco employee adds the cheese and pepperoni after the sauce (no robot for this step), then they bake it in a conveyor belt-like oven.
At Sam's Club, they make their pizzas every morning by hand with sauce and mozzarella cheese. Employees I spoke with said that after the pizzas are assembled, they are either baked immediately — or frozen. Since Costco doesn't freeze their pizzas in the process, we gave this win to Costco.
Toppings: Sam's Club has more options
At Sam's Club, you can choose from three types of pizzas — Cheese, Pepperoni, or Four-Meat (pepperoni, ham, Italian sausage, and bacon).
But Costco only offers cheese or pepperoni. Costco used to offer a combo pizza that had pepperoni, sausage, veggies, and cheese, but they discontinued it in 2021.
This makes Sam’s Club the winner in the pizza topping category just based on selection.
Calories: Costco has fewer calories
Even though a healthy pizza is kind of an impossible concept, if you're counting calories, Costco pizza has fewer calories than Sam's Club pizza for most items. The only exception is with the Sam's Club's pepperoni slice — it's got fewer calories than Costco's.
Cheese slice: 300 calories at Costco vs. 480 calories at Sam's Club
Pepperoni slice: 620 calories at Costco vs. 550 calories at Sam's Club
Whole cheese: 1,800 calories at Costco vs. 3,840 calories at Sam's Club
Whole pepperoni: 3,120 calories at Costco vs. 4,400 calories at Sam's Club
Here's the full nutritional info breakdown of each store's pizza options:
Taste: Costco is a fan favorite
To make this comparison fair, we taste-tested a fresh slice of cheese pizza from Sam’s Club and a slice of cheese pizza from Costco.
In my opinion, Sam’s Club's pizza had a sweeter sauce, more cheese, more grease, and a denser, bread-like crust. I thought that the Sam’s Club pizza tasted more like a baked frozen pizza to me.
On the other hand, Costco's pizza had more sauce, a fluffy crust, and the slices folded much easier.
Because of this, I have to go with Costco pizza for the taste test. (The members on Costco Reddit are also big fans of the pizza from Costco.)
The Winner: Costco Pizza
If you were keeping score, Costco's pizza won 3 of the 6 categories, with Sam's Club winning in 2 of the 6 categories (the cost category was a tie). Here's a recap of where each one shined:
Price: Tie
Size: Sam's Club
The Pizza: Costco
Toppings: Sam's Club
Calories: Costco
Taste: Costco
We chose a winner based on the categories we tested, but it can go beyond just those six categories. For example, I also preferred Costco pizza for their fast service.
When I ordered from Costco, the slice was available immediately (but didn’t taste like it was old at all).
When I ordered my slice of pizza from Sam’s Club, I thought it would be super quick, since you can order from the Sam’s Club Cafe using the Scan & Go app. But at the time I ordered, they didn't have any slices of cheese available, so I waited about 7 minutes.
KCL TIP: While Costco came out on top for the categories we tested, it's important to know that you'll usually need a membership to order from their food court. Compare this to Sam's Club, where you don't need a membership to order from the food court.
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