Advanced options
Most lens wearers need glasses TOO (evenings, rest days, the eye infection week): so lenses are usually a premium on top, not a substitute. Part-time wearing is the value play: dailies 2-3 days a week (sport, weekends, occasions) costs a fraction of full-time monthlies. Online lens retailers undercut high-street subscription prices 30-50% for identical boxes: you're entitled to your prescription and can buy anywhere.
What The Contact Lenses vs Glasses Calculator Works Out
- Lenses per year: the cost per wearing day x days worn a week x 52. Dailies run 70p to 90p a wearing day and monthlies plus solution around 50p, so a five-day-a-week dailies habit is GBP 200-plus a year.
- Glasses per year: the price of a pair spread over its two-year life. A GBP 100 to GBP 200 pair amortised over two years is GBP 50 to GBP 100 a year.
- The lens premium: the whole lens bill, because almost every lens wearer owns and replaces glasses too (evenings, rest days and the infection week when the optometrist benches the lenses). Contacts are a premium layered on top, not a substitute, and the decade figure shows what that premium buys over ten years.
- Custom lens cost (advanced): enter your real per-day figure from your own boxes, for example GBP 0.65 for dailies on a subscription or GBP 1.20 for toric or multifocal dailies.
- Online retailer discount (advanced): online lens retailers sell the identical branded boxes 30% to 50% below high-street subscription schemes. The prescription belongs to you and opticians must hand it over on request.
- Glasses lifespan, aftercare and sunglasses (advanced): change how often glasses are replaced, add the annual lens aftercare check that high-street bundles hide in the subscription, and add prescription sunglasses or a spare pair bought each glasses cycle.
- Total eyewear per year (advanced): lenses after discount plus aftercare, glasses and any extra pairs, with a monthly figure. Vision economics is unusually personal in what the premium buys: peripheral vision, no fogging in rain or sport, and the confidence dividend surveys consistently find.
- Laser surgery payback (advanced): the surgery quote divided by your yearly lens spend. A GBP 2,000 to GBP 4,000 procedure amortises against the lens premium over 10 to 15 years for suitable candidates, which is exactly the comparison the clinics advertise.
- Part-time alternative (advanced): what dailies two days a week for sport and occasions would cost instead of full-time wear. It matches most people's actual preference pattern once asked, and costs a fraction of full-time monthlies.