Bare tool pricing confuses people because it looks like a discount and sometimes is not one. The tool costs less because you are not buying batteries. Whether that saves you money depends entirely on what is already in your bag.
The one question that settles it
Do you own a spare battery on this platform that is not already spoken for?
If the answer is yes, a bare tool is close to the best value in cordless. You pay for the motor and the gearbox and skip the parts you already have sitting in the truck. If the answer is no, you are about to buy a tool you cannot run, and the kit was the cheaper path.
That sounds obvious written down. It stops being obvious in a store at a good price with a limited-quantity sign.
Do the math the honest way
The wrong comparison is kit price against bare price. That gap always looks big, because kits include a charger and one or two packs.
The right comparison is kit price minus what those batteries are worth to you. If the kit runs a hundred dollars more and includes two packs you would otherwise buy separately, the kit is the deal. If the kit includes a single small compact pack you already have three of, the bare tool wins.
Value here means value to you. A charger is worth full price to somebody starting out and nearly nothing to somebody with two on the wall already.
Where bare tools bite
Output requirements. Not every battery on a platform delivers the same current. High-draw tools such as circular saws, grinders, and mid-torque and high-torque impact wrenches pull hard, and a small compact pack either sags, trips its protection, or wears out early trying to feed them. Check what pack the manufacturer specifies as the minimum for that tool before assuming your oldest compact battery is enough.
Battery age. A pack that reads fine in a drill can be well past its useful capacity. Cells lose capacity with cycles and with time. Buying a bare tool to pair with four-year-old batteries usually means buying batteries a month later anyway.
Runtime reality. A saw that runs eight minutes on the pack you own is not a working tool, it is a demonstration. Cutting tools eat batteries at a completely different rate than drills do.
Where bare tools are the right answer
Anything low-draw and occasional. A light, an inflator, a caulk gun, a small vacuum, a radio. These run happily off compact packs and are painful to buy as kits, because the kit price is mostly battery.
Second tools of a type you already own also fit. A second impact driver so one stays set up with a nut driver costs very little bare and saves real time.
And filling out a platform you have already committed to is where the strategy pays. Once four or five packs are circulating, every additional bare tool is close to pure tool cost.
A simple buying rule
Before buying bare, count three things: how many working packs you own, how many tools you expect to run at once, and whether the new tool needs a higher-output pack than your smallest. If packs outnumber simultaneous tools and the output requirement is met, buy bare and put the difference toward another battery. If not, buy the kit.
When you are starting from nothing
Buy the kit. The first purchase on a platform should include a charger and at least two batteries, because the charger and packs are what make everything after it cheaper. The cost of entry is real, and pretending otherwise by chasing a bare tool price just delays it.
If you are unsure which platform to commit to, that decision deserves its own thought, because chargers and packs are what lock you in far more than the tools do.