If you’ve been shopping at Costco for a while and something feels off about the stuff you’re bringing home, you’re not imagining things. Over the past couple of years, a growing list of Costco products have quietly gotten smaller while prices stayed the same or even crept up. Shoppers have been documenting it with side-by-side photos, posting receipts on Reddit, and calling the company out on TikTok. And the evidence is pretty hard to argue with.
This is shrinkflation, and Costco is not immune to it. The company has built its entire reputation on value, bulk sizing, and treating its members fairly. So when people started noticing their muffins looked different, their paper towels ran out faster, and their toilet paper rolls seemed to spin down quicker, the backlash was personal. Here’s what’s actually been shrinking, how much you’re losing, and what Costco has said (or hasn’t said) about all of it.
The Muffins That Started a War
This is probably the most talked-about change and the one that made the most people angry. Costco’s bakery muffins used to be comically large. They came in six-packs, and you had to buy two at a time (12 muffins total), but you could mix and match flavors. The price was $9.99 for all 12. They were a Costco institution.
Toward the end of 2024, Costco replaced them with smaller muffins sold in eight-count packages at $6.99 each. No more mixing and matching. And when you do the math on what you’re actually paying per muffin, the new price comes out to about 58% more expensive on a per-unit basis. That’s not a small bump. That’s a completely different product at a worse price dressed up as a convenience improvement.
Costco’s explanation? They blamed customers. Specifically, they said people had been complaining that the old muffins were too big and that the two-pack requirement meant too many muffins going stale before anyone could finish them. Some shoppers actually agreed with that reasoning. But plenty of long-time fans weren’t buying it. New flavors like blueberries and cream, triple chocolate, lemon raspberry, and cinnamon chip didn’t do much to soothe the frustration.
A self-identified bakery employee on Reddit confirmed the rollout started in the Texas region (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana) and said the company planned to expand it nationwide if sales held up. They did. And here we are.
Kirkland Paper Towels Lost 20 Sheets Per Roll
A TikTok video by a user named Sheena racked up over 1.8 million views showing two rolls of Kirkland Signature paper towels purchased just one month apart. Same price. Same packaging. But one roll had 160 two-ply sheets, and the other had only 140. That’s 20 fewer sheets per roll, and when you’re buying a bulk pack, it adds up fast.
The complaints weren’t just about quantity either. Verified purchasers on Costco’s own product page left one-star reviews saying the paper felt thinner, less absorbent, and didn’t tear cleanly along the perforations. When your paper towels don’t tear right, you end up pulling off more than you need, which means the roll disappears even faster. It’s a double hit.
There’s a small silver lining on this one. According to a report from HowStuffWorks, Costco shoppers made enough noise that the company quietly restored the paper towels to 160 sheets per roll. It’s one of the rare cases where complaining actually worked. But the quality concerns about thinner paper and poor tearing haven’t gone away.
Kirkland Toilet Paper: 45 Fewer Sheets, Same Price
Kirkland Signature bath tissue went from 425 sheets per roll down to 380. That’s a 10.5% reduction, and the price didn’t budge. Multiple Reddit threads flagged it, with users joking about whether their hands had somehow gotten bigger or the bagels and toilet paper had gotten smaller. (Spoiler: it was the toilet paper.)
To be fair, Costco wasn’t alone on this one. Charmin’s mega roll dropped from 264 sheets to 244 (a 7.5% cut), and Angel Soft went from 425 sheets all the way down to 320, which is a brutal 25% reduction. Angel Soft claimed they made the sheets 20% thicker to compensate, but that math doesn’t exactly check out when you’re losing a quarter of your roll.
The Croissants Apparently Lost Half Their Size
Costco’s bakery croissants are another product shoppers have been tracking. Facebook and Reddit users started posting photos of croissants bought a month apart, and the size difference was obvious. In one Reddit thread titled “The croissants are getting smaller,” someone who claimed to be a bakery employee confirmed that the croissants (which arrive frozen at the store) had been reduced in size. The alleged reduction? A staggering 50%.
That’s not a subtle tweak. If true, you’re getting half the croissant for the same price. And unlike the muffin situation, Costco hasn’t offered a public explanation for this one.
Bakery Cookies Went From 24-Pack to 21-Pack
Costco’s brown butter sugar cookies showed up in stores in a 21-count package priced at $7.99. That might not sound weird unless you know that Costco’s bakery cookies have traditionally come in packs of 24. Three fewer cookies for the same price is a quiet little sting.
One commenter on an Instagram fan account summed up the frustration: “Costco bakery items are no longer worth it. First the size of the muffins change now the frosting on the cinnamon rolls do too!” And then there was the peppermint bark situation, where Costco’s fan-favorite “jumbo” peppermint bark came back noticeably thinner than in past years. A TikTok showing the paper-thin pieces went viral, with the creator saying it “disappears” and was “never like this before.”
Kirkland Salsa, Toothpaste, and Other Quiet Cuts
The bakery gets the most attention, but shrinkflation at Costco goes well beyond baked goods. Kirkland Signature Organic Medium Salsa dropped from 38-ounce containers to 35-ounce jars. Some shoppers were okay with the switch because the new jars are glass instead of plastic, but you’re still getting three fewer ounces every time you buy it.
Crest 3D White Advanced Toothpaste went from 6 ounces to 5.2 ounces. One Reddit user noticed it immediately: “Found an old tube and they reduced it from 6 oz to 5.2 oz. Same packaging.” That’s roughly a seventh less product.
Dixie Ultra plates dropped from 285 per pack to 240. Gillette razor cartridge packs now include fewer refills. Scott Shop Towels lost about four square feet per roll, going from 43.6 square feet to 39.5. Kirkland frozen blueberry bags got smaller while the price stayed put. Even Kit Kat bars in bulk Costco boxes were caught shrinking, with a Reddit user posting a photo comparison and writing, “We’ve been buying these in a 50 pack from Costco for around 4 years and today they felt weird in my hand.” Nestle’s director of corporate affairs actually confirmed that one, admitting rising prices pushed the size reduction.
Why Companies Keep Doing This
The reason is simple. Raising a price tag is something a shopper notices instantly. Shaving a few ounces off a jar, pulling 20 sheets off a roll, or slimming down a muffin? Most people don’t catch it. Cognitive researchers call this “unit bias,” meaning we see an identical-looking package and assume it holds the same amount as last time. Companies count on that.
And the strategy works. One academic study found that after a product is downsized, sales actually increase by 6%. That’s the infuriating part. Even when 82% of American consumers say they’re concerned about shrinkflation (up from 73% the year before), people keep buying. A poll by Gartner found that 62% of consumers said they might stop buying a brand that practiced shrinkflation, but “might” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Real brand-switching behavior has actually been falling, not rising.
A 2025 GAO report found that shrinkflation’s impact on overall inflation is small at the macro level (less than 0.1 percentage point). But zoom into specific categories, and the picture changes. Paper products saw a 3-percentage-point contribution from shrinkflation alone. Snacks saw 2.5 points. If you’re buying toilet paper and chips every week, those aren’t numbers you can wave away.
What You Can Actually Do About It
The most practical thing is also the most boring: check the unit price. That little number on the shelf tag that tells you the cost per ounce or per sheet is the only honest number in the entire store. Package sizes change, labels get redesigned, and containers get taller but narrower. The unit price cuts through all of it.
Beyond that, keep an eye on packaging changes in general. When a product suddenly switches from a plastic container to glass, or from a jar to a bag, or from individual wrapping to none, there’s usually a size change hiding behind the redesign. Some of those changes are genuine improvements. Some are cover.
Costco still offers strong value on a lot of products. Nobody’s saying to cancel your membership over muffins. But the days of blindly trusting that everything in that warehouse is the best deal possible? Those might be behind us. The company that built its brand on being straight with customers has been caught cutting corners in the quietest ways possible, and its own shoppers are the ones holding up the evidence.
