By far the best way to purchase cheap disc golf discs is to buy them on the internet. Local big box retailers rarely have a good selection, and the prices are much more expensive.
One of my local sporting goods stores only offers crappy Aerobie golf discs that do not fly well at all. In addition to poor selection, non disc golf specific stores usually charge MSRP retail price. They want $20 for a disc I can get online for $13! And who wants to pay retail when you don’t have to?
The problem with buying discs online is that you also have to pay for shipping. But, even with the shipping costs, you’re still saving money compared with the local retailers. When buying discs online, you also have to wait a few days before your discs actually arrive in your hand. The big advantage of buying frisbee golf discs online is that you don’t have to leave your home to do it.
Understand Different Plastic Grades
One of the tricky things when shopping for an inexpensive disc is understanding the quality. Not all golf discs are built of the same plastic and come in the same quality. The least expensive ones are made from a low quality plastics that nick, warp and get and damaged very easily. Once a disc gets defected, it loses flight performance and predictability. All the major manufacturers use several different grades of plastic, and price them according to quality.
The first time I ever bought discs online, I didn’t realize that different plastic qualities exist. I ended up purchasing Innova DX plastic discs, knowing the Innova brand name, but not realizing that the drivers I got were poor quality that didn’t last more than a few rounds. While a base plastic disc isn’t a bad thing for putters and even midranges, in my opinion, base plastic drivers are worthless (unless you are throwing them in a precarious situation where there is a good chance you will lose your disc and don’t want to lose one of your good ones).
Now Innova DX is at least using plastic made by a company who specializes in disc golf. This plastic at least meets the flexibility requirements required by the Professional Disc Golf Association. By testing out nearly every disc golf disc I can find, (read my reviews on Emsco Sports, Franklin, Halex, Disc Eagle) there are actually substantially worse plastics.
5 Best Ways to Get Ultra Cheap Disc Golf Discs
1. Buy in Bulk
There are some great bulk package sets out there. While there are many starter sets, there are also complete bulk sets, putter packs, and mystery boxes where you can save up to 50% over the normal MSRP. Use this link for a great discount disc golf website where you can buy discs for cheap in bulk.
If you like more choice in choosing which discs you will be getting, my favorite way to get cheap bulk discs is with Discount Disc Golfs “build your own deals boxes” bulk set. Discount already has amazingly low prices, but if you purchase 5 discs at once you get a 15% additional discount. 9 discs 20% off, and if you get 18 discs at once you save a whopping 30%! Note that these discs do not generally include the name brand discs.
2. Misprints and Factory Seconds
If you don’t mind a little imperfection on your disc, then buying misprints and factory seconds is a great way to save big money in disc golf. Use these links to shop for misprints and factory seconds.
3. Buy on Sale
Disc golf companies often put items on sale because they have a surplus or just want to promote certain discs. Like most things in retail, if you buy them when on sale, you can save some cash on a variety of different brands. Shop on sale discs here.
4. Shop Lesser Known Brands
Manufacturers like Innova, Discraft, Dynamic Discs and Prodigy literally pay their professional players millions of dollars each year. They also spend hundreds of thousands sponsoring tournaments and professional events. To cover these marketing costs, they must charge more for their plastic. On the other hand, lesser known brands differentiate from the big names with lower prices. These are a few of my favorite budget brands:
5. Buy Products at Ultra Low Introductory Amazon Prices
Perhaps my absolute favorite way to get discs at deal prices is to shop the new Amazon disc golf products. The way the Amazon algorithm works is that in order to get the good rankings, you need good ratings. However, a newly listed product doesn’t have ratings, and it can’t get those ratings until people buy it. This puts Amazon sellers in an interesting situation. The only way to stand out amidst the highly ranked product is with a much lower price. When Amazon sellers make a new product listing, they often list the product on sale for a loss, until the listing establishes credibility by getting user ratings. I routinely shop for these “hot new listings” and post about them here.
Why Amazon, E-Bay, and Walmart are likely NOT the places with the Cheapest Discs
Now when you can get the ultra low new product deals on Amazon, you can’t beat the price. But in most instances, with established products — those with lots of reviews, you are most likely going to find them at lower prices elsewhere.
The cost to sell products on Amazon, Ebay, and Walmart Marketplace is expensive! In order to make a profit on an individual disc using Fulfilled by Amazon (available for prime shipping and shipped directly from Amazon warehouses), the company listing the product must have about a 60% margin to cover the fulfillment and shipping costs (shipping is not ever actually free).
Most disc golf specialty retailers list their products at “Keystone” or double their wholesale costs. Because the cost to list on Amazon is already more than their profit margin, there is no reason for them to list good quality discs.
If retailers fulfill the product themselves, at minimum they will still pay a 15% fee to Amazon, but with Amazon’s liberal return policies the actual selling costs are substantially more expensive.
Why Amazon Prices May Appear Less
Because of the ultra high profit margin needed to sell on Amazon either:
- The discs for sale are made with junky plastic in China by companies that don’t know a thing about disc golf (which is often the case on many Amazon and Walmart.com listings)
- The prices on Amazon are more expensive than disc golf specialty companies who only sell GOOD Quality discs.
So if Amazon can’t provide the lease expensive price on quality discs, how can I get good discs for very little money?
Best Places to Buy Inexpensive Frisbee Golf Discs Online
We’ve done extensive research and here are our top three websites for cheap golf discs:
#1 Cheap Retailer – Infinite Discs
The least expensive place to buy new discs on the internet is InfiniteDiscs.com. Infinite Discs is by far the biggest retailer in disc golf and likely get better pricing than most of the smaller companies. For normal inventory, their retail prices are better than most, but you can really save when you shop from their misprints, factory seconds, and on sale discs. These prices are lower than anything on the internet, including Amazon and E-bay. Infinite typically advertises different discs on sale each Tuesday and occasionally announces discount codes in their newsletters and social media.
Shipping on these discs can be free if you spend enough at once. The other great thing about Infinite is that they take pictures of every disc so you can see exactly the disc you will be purchasing.
If you’re not looking for specific discs or flight paths, a great way to get a bunch of premium plastic discs at an inexpensive price is by purchasing a Mystery Box. The package sets Infinite offers gives you 7 different discs (none of which are in a baseline plastic) for less than $10 each.
The best time to get cheap discs from Infinite, is during their annual Black Friday sale. This typically goes from Black Friday through cyber Monday and is the best time to get disc golf savings.
Disc golf is so fun you might as well enjoy it even more by paying as little as possible.
Direct Links for Infinite’s Cheap Discs
