🪙 Cheapest Pets for Kids to Maintain: Real Monthly & Lifetime Costs

By the WhatPetShouldIGet Expert Team · Reviewed against veterinary & animal-welfare sources · Updated Aug 13, 2026

The cheapest pets for kids to maintain are land snails, stick insects, betta fish, mice, gerbils, and hamsters. All of them run roughly $5–$25 a month, and — counting the habitat, the food, and every month of the animal’s whole life — each stays under about $700 all-in. Those aren’t guesses: every number in this guide comes from our own lifetime cost study of 45 pets, the same data behind every care page on this site.

🐾 Our top picks: Stick Insect · Land Snail · Betta Fish · Mouse · Hamster · Gerbil

The key word is maintain. The pet-store sticker price is the least useful number in pet ownership: a $30 goldfish setup quietly becomes a 20-gallon tank and a decade of filters, while a $10 stick insect never costs much more than fresh leaves. The cheapest pet to buy is often not the cheapest pet to keep — so this guide ranks pets by what they actually cost a family over the animal’s real lifespan.

The genuinely cheap pets, ranked by whole-life cost

Stick insects — about $245 for the animal’s whole life. Around $5–$15 a month for fresh bramble or romaine and a $30–$100 mesh enclosure, and that is truly the whole bill. They’re quiet, odorless, and mesmerizing to watch — the cheapest real pet we know of that still feels like a pet. Lifespan is short (one to two years), which is worth talking through with your child first.

Freshwater shrimp — about $465 all-in. A tiny planted tank of cherry shrimp costs $8–$20 a month once the $60–$200 setup is running, and it doubles as the most relaxing night-light a kid’s room can have.

Land snails — about $565 all-in. $5–$12 a month and a $25–$80 terrarium — the cheapest setup on our whole list — with a genuinely kid-friendly temperament: slow, gentle, impossible to be bitten by. With good care some live 3–7 years. One rule: keep a legal species — giant African land snails are illegal in the US.

Mice — about $570 all-in for a pair. Cheap per month ($8–$18) and cheap to house ($50–$150), but females need company, so budget the pair — our number already does. Busy, clever, and fun to watch; short lives (1–2 years).

Betta fish — about $625 all-in. The classic first pet, done properly: a heated, filtered 5-gallon tank ($60–$180 once) and $8–$20 a month. A betta is happy alone — no pair required — and has more personality than any $10 animal has a right to. The cup-on-the-counter version is not cheaper; it’s just shorter.

Hamsters — about $690 all-in. $10–$25 a month, a modest cage, and no companion needed (Syrians must live alone). The honest caveat is the schedule, not the money: hamsters sleep through the day and wake up after bedtime, which disappoints more kids than the price ever will — we say more in our honest guide to first-pet mistakes.

Gerbils — about $1,400 all-in for the required pair. A touch more than the pets above because they need a friend, but $10–$20 a month each, awake during the day, and among the most entertaining diggers in the small-pet world. If your child wants a small furry pet they can actually watch and handle after school, the gerbil pair is where we’d spend the extra few hundred dollars.

Hermit crabs — about $1,700 over a long life. Only $10–$25 a month, and the total is higher simply because a well-kept crab can live 10+ years — which is a feature, not a trap, as long as the family knows it going in.

The “cheap” pets that quietly aren’t

Goldfish are the biggest surprise on our books: about $5,200 over a 10–20 year life. The fish costs a dollar; the 20-plus-gallon tank, filtration, and two decades of upkeep do not. Guinea pigs land near $5,300 for the pair they must be kept in — wonderful, gentle starter pets, just not budget ones. And the long-lived giants are the real budget traps: a tortoise runs about $41,000 across its 50–100-year life and a parrot about $53,000 — it’s the long-lived pets, not the big ones, that quietly cost the most. The full ranking, cheapest to priciest, is in our lifetime cost study.

None of that makes those animals bad pets — it makes them bigger commitments than their price tags suggest, which is exactly what a family budget conversation should surface before the pet comes home, not after.

How to budget for any pet (the 10-minute version)

Make two columns. One-time setup: the habitat, lighting or heating, and starter supplies — our setup costs guide lists this for all 45 pets, cheapest first. Every month: food, bedding or filtration, and a few dollars set aside for vet or equipment surprises — even a small tank eventually needs a new heater. Then multiply the monthly number by the animal’s lifespan in months, and you have the real price of the pet. Our free pet cost calculator does this arithmetic for you for any pet on the site, and our family budget guide has a downloadable planner. The ASPCA also keeps a good list of ways to trim ongoing costs without cutting care (ASPCA: cutting pet care costs).

Honest bottom line

A tight budget doesn’t have to mean no pet — it means choosing an animal whose whole-life cost fits, not just its sticker price. A snail, a stick insect, or a properly housed betta gives a child the daily-care routine, the responsibility, and the joy of a first pet for a few dollars a month — and succeeding with a small, affordable pet is the best possible audition for a bigger one later. Want a short list matched to your family’s budget, space, and schedule? Take our free pet quiz — it factors in cost automatically.