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Original poster

How much do you pay for your child’s contact lenses?

70 replies

ItsStillWork · 22/02/2026 14:00

Dd wants to try contact lenses, she will need the myopia lenses as she has them in her current glasses.

specsavers are telling me that the nhs don’t cover any money towards the contact lenses but they can’t give me an estimated cost for them.

ive asked them for a rough estimate at what I would be looking at a month but they said they couldn’t tell me.

her appointment isn’t for another week yet and she’s desperate to know if they’re an option for us but I can’t tell her if I don’t know what they would roughly be.

how much do you pay for your child’s contact lenses?

OP posts:
IrishSelkie · 22/02/2026 14:03

I pay €30/month for daily wear (the safest)
Cost depends on the eye prescription.
Whatever you do, don’t start buying them online for cheaper. There are so many scams with counterfeit contacts.
Always, always buy thru an optician.

Readingislife · 22/02/2026 14:04

All different prices for all different lenses and/or solutions. I used to pay roughly £30 per month this was 10 years ago though.

Sunnysidegold · 22/02/2026 16:01

My son's daily disposables are £32 for 20 pairs per month. He has one toric lense which I think is more expensive.

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General health
ZookeeperSE · 22/02/2026 16:04

Monthly scheme with a local optician is £34 per month for dailies and it includes the cost of the contact lens/eye test too.

Nearly50omg · 22/02/2026 16:06

You have to pay 3 months at a time and they won’t let you pay monthly and they are £70 each month for the myopia control ones

TheLurpackYears · 22/02/2026 16:08

I buy my daughters via the SpecSavers monthly scheme. It’s £36 pcm for normal daily lenses and would be another £10 or so for myopia ones.
The scheme is impenetrably complicated, has to be handled entirely from the local branch and they can’t actually get hold of her lenses for one eye atm anyway. I’m probably going to start buying them from the same place I buy mine online.

thismummydrinksgin · 22/02/2026 16:09

We have the myopia ones from specsavers, they are £36 a month . The have actually decreased in price over the last few years. We were paying £42, then £38, then £36.

Nearly50omg · 22/02/2026 16:12

Normal lenses are a lot cheaper and also they can be purchased monthly. The control ins can’t - we’ve tried every opticians.

also get some to try first from you optician of these ones as they are AWFUL!! They have no shape so don’t hold up when you are trying to put them in they collapse all the time the are so thin and I’ve been wearing lenses for 40 years and NEVER had as much trouble in my life!! My child spent over an hour at a time trying to just get one in!! Then I spent another 30 mins before we both went sod this!!! They manage to get normal lenses in within 10 seconds so it’s not their technique it’s just these awful lenses!! They have also refused to wear them now as their vision is obscured due to the way the lenses are and they hated them and also by the end of the day had a splitting headache

FrothyCothy · 22/02/2026 16:18

I think we pay about £26 per month for 10 pairs for DD.

SherbertLemons · 22/02/2026 16:22

I pay £46 pcm with Specsavers. Daily lenses in their more moisturiser retaining rage and I have astigmatism which pushes up the price. I used to buy my lenses cheaply online but I got a ring around my iris as the ended were too dry so now it’s just a necessary monthly expenditure. If you have a health cash back plan at work you may be able to claim or at least claim a bit back that way.

Original poster
ItsStillWork · 22/02/2026 16:35

Nearly50omg · 22/02/2026 16:12

Normal lenses are a lot cheaper and also they can be purchased monthly. The control ins can’t - we’ve tried every opticians.

also get some to try first from you optician of these ones as they are AWFUL!! They have no shape so don’t hold up when you are trying to put them in they collapse all the time the are so thin and I’ve been wearing lenses for 40 years and NEVER had as much trouble in my life!! My child spent over an hour at a time trying to just get one in!! Then I spent another 30 mins before we both went sod this!!! They manage to get normal lenses in within 10 seconds so it’s not their technique it’s just these awful lenses!! They have also refused to wear them now as their vision is obscured due to the way the lenses are and they hated them and also by the end of the day had a splitting headache

Were these the myopia ones that your child struggled with?

OP posts:
Original poster
ItsStillWork · 22/02/2026 16:38

I was expecting about £35 a month, contacts sounds very expensive from what you lot are paying.

shes never tried them, they do a training lesson with you on them first.

dh is very hesitant to allow her to have contacts due to the expense of them but she will need braces soon and she doesn’t want to be a kid in high school with glasses and braces, I do understand that.

OP posts:
7238SM · 22/02/2026 16:40

To get an idea OP, check what her current glasses prescription is, say -3.75 and -2.50, go online and check the costs for that prescription. I'm also short sighted and my contact prescription is always slightly different to my glasses, but it will give you an idea. How old is DD? Does she have a part time job/chores to contribute to the cost?

Remember that they should give her a copy of the script, she can then buy them from anywhere. I would only buy from a reputable company and not a random online company. For years I used Daysoft lenses which worked out cheaper than whatever I'd been using and they have generic brands. I was fine, until, my eyes rejected them and I had lots of issues. I would NOT recommend this brand or similar, but buying the prescribed brand from say asda opticians is fine. For glasses, asda ones came in £300 cheaper than specsavers, for the exact same lens strength, thinning, anti glare, very similar frames etc.

I personally hate specsavers for a multitude of reasons. I'd suggest she gets her contact prescription, then looks elsewhere to buy. I'd just buy a box of each lens, and not sign up to any monthly subscriptions at this stage. Specsavers will likely convince her a monthly plan is best, but to start with, just trialling a box is fine IMO. Remember, she 'might' not be wearing them daily to start with.

Original poster
ItsStillWork · 22/02/2026 16:46

She’s 13 years old. There’s no part time job but she doesn’t have duties as such at home, but will do things if I ask her to.

she does let the dog out at 6.30am every school morning before I get up and has to leave her room tidy and bed made every morning, washing in the washing basket etc, bur nothing else really.

she doesn’t do any outside activities that cost money, does very well at school and doesn’t give us any trouble. I can’t remember the last time I bought her any clothes (she hasn’t needed a different size) so she doesn’t really cost us hardly any money so I do think if the contacts will make her feel better about herself (she hates glasses) then it’s a small amount of money compared with what other people spend on their children.

specsavers give you a weeks worth of them before you order them in bulk.

OP posts:
gototogo · 22/02/2026 16:47

I buy boxes of lenses from Specsavers without a plan as I don’t use them most days. They give a 5 day trial usually for free then you can order boxes or sign up for x per month. Branches do vary though as each branch is a franchise owned by the opticians, not sure if anyone realises this, the one by my work is bad, one near my house is excellent

Randomchat · 22/02/2026 16:50

Ds wears the ones that slow down short sightedness. I can't remember the brand name. They cost £42 for 30 pairs. Is that what you mean by myopia lenses?

Mine are around £24, just bog standard daily disposable lenses.

Original poster
ItsStillWork · 22/02/2026 16:50

Randomchat · 22/02/2026 16:50

Ds wears the ones that slow down short sightedness. I can't remember the brand name. They cost £42 for 30 pairs. Is that what you mean by myopia lenses?

Mine are around £24, just bog standard daily disposable lenses.

Yes those are the ones.

OP posts:
Ponderingwindow · 22/02/2026 16:56

DD’s lenses are very cheap.

my lenses are ridiculously expensive. I wear one of the most expensive lenses sold and they are worth every penny.

not giving prices because I’m not in the uk. Just explaining that it all comes down to the exact prescription and that is why it is hard to get an exact price.

I buy online. Yes, there are scam companies out there, but it’s not hard to find reliable distributors and I prefer the convenience of home delivery.

7238SM · 22/02/2026 17:09

specsavers give you a weeks worth of them before you order them in bulk

Nearly every high st retailer does this, so don't assume specsavers are doing you a favour OP. As I said above, please don't get tied into a monthly subscription, until she wants and needs that many. As myself and others have said, you can buy just 1 box at a time to start with. When I did my research, asda were the cheapest monthly, but this was about a year ago.

LittleMidlander · 22/02/2026 17:22

DD has ones that are supposed to slow down the rate at which she becomes short sighted, which she changes monthly. Even still, it costs us £58 a month! I don’t begrudge it of they work, but I’m not entirely convinced they’ve been working all that well so far. I think it is quite a new thing via her optician, but if her prescription changes again, I think it’ll be time to switch to daily disposable ones.

Original poster
ItsStillWork · 22/02/2026 17:28

She’s only had the myopia lenses a year (didn’t have glasses at all before) and will be having an eye test on the same day as a consultant for the contacts.

i ve no idea what her eye reading is

OP posts:
LethargeMarg · 22/02/2026 17:44

We pay £38 per month for my son’s myopia control lenses. It’s an independent optician and they are quite pricey for everything else so surprised they are priced competitively with spec savers
older daughter with severe myopia (-18 prescription) has always had lenses free on nhs but is under specialist team at the hospital and has gas permeable now.

BellaBlister · 22/02/2026 18:08

My daughter is 13 and I pay £48 a month for her daily lenses. We're with an independent optician who spent ages ordering lots of different brands for my daughter to try, as she was getting lots of deposits in one eye with her previous brand. Every 3 months the she has a lens test to make sure everything is looking ok. Worth every penny!

solvendie · 22/02/2026 18:11

My daughter’s lenses from specsavers are £46 per month for dailies - not sure why I’m paying more than everyone else here!

thismummydrinksgin · 22/02/2026 18:22

My daughter had them at 11/12 and they have been transformative for her. She would not have worn glasses at school and that would have had an impact and he sight would have deteriorated. Honestly if you can afford it, it’s a great thing to be able to do. They teach them to use them. What’s good with these is that they have 6 monthly checks, and if they run out, my local store just tops us up no problem. My child’s one eye actually improved at the last check.