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You might want to see if you can buy used (there are several groups in FaceBook, and of course there's Craig's List).

We considered going with Sun Baby Diapers because they are so inexpensive. A friend of mine uses them and loves them--they're pocket microfiber with either hemp or microfiber inserts. http://sunbabydiapers.com/ You can get 12 diapers for $45 (including inserts). I would get at least 18 for diapering a newborn, or at least 12 if diapering from 3 months on.

We decided to go a different, more expensive route for a couple of reasons. We really wanted to use organic cotton only (microfiber is a petroleum product, in contrast to organic cotton which is much better for the environment; also, people seem to have fewer issues with getting cotton completely clean, but this is anecdotal). I wanted something simpler than pockets to make it really easy for my DH. And I wanted something that would last--I would prefer to pay more now and have the elastic and snaps last through at least two children (if not more) rather than have the diapers fall apart and need replacing. I don't know if Sun Baby Diapers will fall apart sooner (I'm actually VERY curious to compare my friend's SB diapers to ours to see how that goes) but one does associate increased cost with increased quality.

So we bought Bumgenius Elementals, using a Black Friday sale (DEFINITELY use Black Friday if you are going to buy new diapers from any company!). We bought 12 initially, and now we have 15. I think we ended up paying $20 per diaper, on average.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have bought most of our diapers used instead of new. But $300 isn't a bad investment, when you consider that if just one child potty trains at the average age, they'll go through about 5,000 disposable diapers. Not to mention subsequent babies!

We bought used (but I was picky that everything be EUC/VGUC) from local resale groups on Facebook . We started off our stash of about 10 assorted pockets, and 20 prefolds/covers... I don't remember the exact number but it totaled around $150, with pail liner and small wet-bag included. Once we were CD'ing full-time we had figured out which sizes/styles worked for us and are catching sales and building up our stash with the ones we love. All in all, it has cost us less than $300 so far.

It really really depends on what you want to buy. You can purchase enough inexpensive covers and prefolds for around $100. Or you can buy all in one diapers and get up into the $600 for a bare minimum stash.

I found that the recommendation of 24 diapers was way more than we needed. We got by with 9 pocket diapers and 2 flip covers with 4 inserts for a long time, and only started adding more in preparation for having 2 in diapers. If you can wash every other day, you don't need as many (unless your baby is really intolerant to being wet or prone to diaper rash, in which case you would need more). We go 3-4 hours between changes, and honestly LO would go longer than that if I let him (he never fusses about a wet diaper).

You can prolong the life of the elastic in all diapers by laying them flat to dry (not using the dryer or hanging on a line) but that isn't always realistic, especially with AIO's.

@Skadi: The manufacturer of my diapers actually recommends Tide powder, but not the liquid stuff. Do you know what the difference is?

@Mrs. Lion: I'm curious, do they say not to use liquid? Or do they just specifically recommend the powder?

The only thing I've ever heard about the liquid vs. powder debate is that powder has more water softeners (so if you have hard water, it will help get the diapers cleaner). I use liquid because we don't have hard water issues and my washer always leaves a residue in the dispenser with powder.

@Mrs. Lion: I've heard the softener thing too. Are you in the Fluff Love & CD science fb group? They're awesome and may know why!

We use bumgenius freestyles, which I highly recommend! We have 20 diapers in our stash (7 were gifted, 13 we bought ourselves) they run about $18-$20 each normally and we bought ours on sale. Our whole stash of 20 cost almost $400 but since 7 were gifts, we only paid around $250 for our stash. LO is 18 months old now and we no longer need all 20 diapers as she wets them far less frequently, but when she was younger (nb - 12/13 months old) we definitely went through all 20 diapers in 2 days. Now it's more like 10 dirty diapers in 2 days.

We have 20 BG freetimes that I bought used for about $300. I really like them, I'm getting ready to use them for #2 and they're ingreat condition. I did buy 12 more on Black Friday and it's nice to have those additional diapers as well but definitely not required.