Save up to 73% on contact lenses!

If you're fed up with paying £30+ per month for contact lenses, check out my top tips and you could save hundreds of pounds each year.

Since we published this article, we've been contacted by two opticians who were concerned about potential risks involved in purchasing lenses from anyone other than your own optician. We don't claim to be experts in eye health at lovemoney.com, and we urge readers to have regular check-ups with an optician. If you buy lenses over the internet, you may be taking a risk, particularly if using lenses that are not exactly the same as the ones specified by your optician.

If, like me, you're a contact lens wearer, you probably love the convenience but baulk at the cost. Although prices have fallen considerably in the last few years, daily disposable lenses are still not particularly cheap and if you buy them through your optician you could be paying anything up to £40 per month. That's £480 per year!

Amazingly, usable contact lenses have been around since 1888 when German physiologist Adolf Fick constructed and fitted the first successful lens. However, not only was it made of heavy blown glass, it was also 18-21mm in diameter. And the gap between the lens and the eye was filled with a dextrose solution! Yuck.

Today, thankfully, lenses are manufactured from modern polymers, making them far more comfortable. A whopping 125 million of us, worldwide, currently use them to correct our vision.

Manufacturers

There are presently four main players in the world of daily disposable contact lenses: Johnson & Johnson (Acuvue), CIBA Vision Novartis (Focus Dailies), Bausch & Lomb (B&L - Soflens) and Coopervision, plus a number of smaller manufacturers.

As opticians tend to sell the big name brands, these are the ones many of us wear (opticians' own-brand lenses are usually a repackaged version of one of these). The trouble is, of course, they're rarely the cheapest option. In fact, with heavy advertising and marketing costs to cover they're usually the priciest - annoying when cheaper lenses may be just as good. What's more, you'll also be paying a bit extra for the convenience of your optician supplying them to you.

Buy in bulk

One way to cut the cost of your lenses is to "cut out the middle man" and buy in bulk from an online supplier. Companies such as Getlenses, ACLens and even supermarkets such as ASDA and Tesco now sell lenses online. All you need is a copy of your prescription (this needs to be within the last two years) and you can typically buy up to a maximum of a year's supply.

And the savings can be significant - for example, my 1-day Acuvue lenses cost £37 per month (30 pairs) from my optician, or £444 per year. But if I buy a year's supply (360 pairs) online from Secondsightonline, I pay £307, saving £137 (31%).

Cheaper alternative - Daysoft

However, there are cheaper alternatives even to this. I have read a lot (and indeed readers have been telling me) about online contact lens supplier Daysoft.

Set up by Ron Hamilton (the inventor of daily disposable lenses), Daysoft manufactures its own mid- (58%) and high- (72%) water lenses in the UK and sells them directly to consumers.

Not only are these lenses reported to be better than many brand name lenses, they are much cheaper, too. A year's supply of Daysoft lenses (mid or high water) costs £119.76 (or £9.98 a month for 32 pairs). If you were to switch from 1-Day Acuvue (as per the example above) you'd save a whopping £324 a year (73%), compared to purchasing from an optician, and £187 (61%) on buying in bulk online.

The thing is - how good are they really? Reports are all well and good but to really know you have to actually try them.

7-day Daysoft Trial

I gave Daysoft a ring to find out more and they kindly offered to supply enough lenses for myself and four colleagues to try them out.

Firstly, I found my helpful testers in the lovemoney.com office (Charlie, Carl, Lawrence and Richard), each of whom currently wear standard (spherical) daily disposable contact lenses, and we each recorded our normal wear patterns (length of wear, comfort rating etc).

We supplied details of our current lenses and prescriptions to Daysoft who then sent each of us our recommended Daysoft lenses (Daysoft 58 (mid-water) lenses in all cases). We then all wore the Daysoft lenses in exactly the same way as we do our usual brand for seven days, recording our findings throughout.

7-Day Daysoft Trial Results

Vision

As you can see, four of us found our vision with the Daysoft lenses to be the same as with our normal brand. Richard, however, had trouble with his and reported that his vision was worse.

Comfort

Of course, when it comes to contact lenses comfort is paramount, and in this area views were mixed. The lenses themselves were considered thicker than Focus dailies and Specsavers easyvision (no different to Acuvue). And as you can see from the table, Carl and I found them very comfortable. But Charlie found it harder to put them in, and Richard did not find them comfortable at all. Three of us found our eyes could be slightly drier than normal at the end of the day.

Packaging

Overall, we found the Daysoft packaging (which is different to most other brands) easy to use once you got the hang of it and all liked the fact lenses are rarely, if ever, inside out. We also liked the fact the packets would easily fit through a letterbox.

Value for money

One thing we all liked about the Daysoft lenses was the price - when looking at value for money, it is the clear winner. And it's also worth noting that with 32 pairs in a month's supply of Daysoft lenses, a 12-month supply actually means 384 pairs. As most manufacturers supply just 30 pairs per month (360 pairs a year) Daysoft users are actually getting an extra 24 pairs (over three week's worth) thrown in.

So what was our verdict? As you can see it was divided: two of us (Carl and me) are likely to switch, two definitely won't, and one probably won't. It is worth noting that both Carl and I currently wear Acuvue lenses, so you could infer that Acuvue wearers may get on better with Daysoft. The two that won't switch currently use Focus dailies. Charlie, who probably won't switch, uses Specsaver's easy vision lenses (which are repackaged Bausch & Lomb soflens).

Daysoft response

Encouragingly, Daysoft were very interested in our findings and are keen to help, if possible. In the case of dry eyes, a possible solution is to try the Daysoft 72 (high water) lens. And they're currently looking into Richard's case to see if there is anything they can recommend that might help.

Money Back Guarantee

Of course, with such mixed views if you were reading this and considering trying Daysoft lenses, chances are you won't. Although they may be very reasonably priced, who can afford to take a chance and buy a load of lenses that they may or may not get on with?

Fortunately, Daysoft offers a money-back guarantee: If you should purchase Daysoft lenses and decide, for whatever reason you are not happy with them, you can return them for a full refund (provided it is within 30 days of purchase and no more than seven pairs have been used).

As a final note, if you are thinking of buying your lenses online, don't forget about aftercare. Most opticians recommend that lens wearers should have a contact lens check annually, to assess the fit of lenses and health of the eyes, amongst other things (this is in addition to eye tests). The cost of these checks, is of course, usually included in the monthly fee for those that purchase lenses through their optician, so what can the rest of us do?

I gave three opticians a ring to find out what they offer and found they will all carry out contact lens checks for a fee of between £20-£40 (Dollond & Aitchison would charge £40, Specsavers £20 and an independent optician called would charge £30). So even when taking this extra cost into account you can see there are still significant savings to be made from buying lenses in bulk.

Clearly, while contact lenses will never be regarded as cheap, the encouraging thing to note is that there are ways to save money whilst not compromising on quality (especially if you currently purchase them through your optician). Why not buy your current brand in bulk, or try an alternative lens such as that from Daysoft?  Even when you tack on the cost of an annual contact lens check you could still save yourself hundreds of pounds a year.

More: Save £154 a year on your contact lenses