UK Dog Food Price Index
Built live from the retailer prices we track - updated July 27, 2026 . Free to reuse (CC BY 4.0, link required).
What does it really cost to feed a dog? We convert every price we track to cost per day for the same 15 kg dog - so a 15 kg bag and a 400 g tray finally compare like for like, and the averages below are always live.
- Dry£0.96/day
- Wet£3.83/day
- Raw£2.74/day
Does paying more get you a better bowl?
Across 2,814 foods we have both priced and scored, the answer is: barely. Each dot is a food - cost per day along the bottom, our independent quality score up the side. If price bought quality the cloud would climb to the right. It stays flat.
0.03 correlation between price and score (0 = none, 1 = perfect, so this is almost nothing)
What it costs to feed a dog for a year
The average across every complete food we track, scaled to four dog sizes by energy need. The food you choose moves this more than the size of your dog - see the range by type below.
| Dog size | Per day | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| A small dog (5 kg) | £0.83 | £25 | £303 |
| A medium dog (15 kg) | £1.89 | £57 | £690 |
| A large dog (30 kg) | £3.18 | £95 | £1,160 |
| A giant breed (40 kg) | £3.94 | £118 | £1,440 |
The label-claim tax
What the buzzwords on the front of the bag add to the daily cost, on average, versus foods without the claim. A claim on the pack is not the same as a better score.
| Label claim | With the claim | Without it | You pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grain-free | £2.29 | £1.50 | +52% |
| Hypoallergenic | £2.31 | £1.73 | +34% |
What a day of dog food costs, by type
Average, cheapest and priciest cost per day for the 15 kg reference dog. Every type links to its rated directory.
| Food type | Avg / day | Range | Foods |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry | £0.96 | £0.16 - £6.93 | 1,897 |
| Wet | £3.83 | £0.48 - £14.11 | 728 |
| Raw | £2.74 | £0.50 - £7.24 | 185 |
| Cold-pressed | £1.24 | £0.55 - £2.61 | 94 |
| Fresh-cooked | £4.65 | £2.34 - £7.70 | 42 |
| Air-dried | £5.30 | £2.56 - £7.96 | 17 |
| Freeze-dried | £5.20 | £1.63 - £7.76 | 17 |
Types with no tracked prices are absent - a row appears the day its first price lands.
Does paying more buy a better food?
Our score comes from the label alone - price never moves the number. So here is what each score band actually costs per day, side by side.
Best value: good foods, cheapest first
Every food scoring 60/100 or better, ranked by cost per day. Scores are live - the order updates itself.
| Rank# | Food | ODF Score | Cost / day | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Autarky Autarky Adult - Delicious Chicken | 63Good | £0.36 | Dry |
| 2 | briantos briantos Adult Active | 60Good | £0.37 | Dry |
| 3 | briantos briantos Adult Chicken & Rice | 66Good | £0.38 | Dry |
| 4 | briantos briantos Adult Lamb & Rice | 60Good | £0.40 | Dry |
| 5 | briantos briantos Maxi Adult | 72Good | £0.41 | Dry |
| 6 | briantos briantos Adult Sensitive Lamb & Rice | 68Good | £0.42 | Dry |
| 7 | briantos briantos Junior | 70Good | £0.43 | Dry |
| 8 | Burgess Burgess Supadog Puppy Complete | 60Good | £0.43 | Dry |
| 9 | Autarky Autarky Adult - Succulent Salmon | 76Good | £0.44 | Dry |
| 10 | Harringtons Harringtons Large Breed Adult Dog - Rich in Lamb & Rice | 72Good | £0.44 | Dry |
The full spread of a dog's dinner
Feeding the very same 15 kg dog, the tracked foods run from a few pennies to several pounds a day. Here are the two extremes, the gap over a year, and where every priced food sits in between.
Same dog, same day: the priciest tracked food costs about 88.2× the cheapest - roughly £5,092 a year between the two extremes.
Where every priced food sits
Number of tracked foods in each cost-per-day band. Most cluster low; a small luxury tail stretches the top end.
How this index is built
Every figure on this page is computed live from real price observations: a price we saw at a named UK retailer, recorded with its date. Observations are append-only - a new price supersedes the old one, nothing is ever edited or backfilled.
To compare a 15 kg bag with a 400 g tray we convert every price to cost per day for the same reference dog: a 15 kg adult eating 12.5 g per kg of bodyweight a day (250 g). Your own dog will differ - the like-for-like ranking is the point, not the exact pennies.
Cost per day uses each food's cheapest current per-kg price, so a multibuy deal or an oversized value pack can nudge an individual figure. We publish what a feeding day genuinely costs to buy - not a cherry-picked cheapest line.
The index updates whenever a new observation lands, and the "updated" date above is the newest real observation - never the day the page happened to render. Quality scores come from our open, ingredient-led algorithm; price never moves a score.
The data is open under CC BY 4.0: use it in articles, tools or research. The one condition is attribution with a link to this page. See how the scores work