By the time you add in parking fees and nightly "resort fees" off site is usually more than Cheaper onsite hotels unless you are in a motel 6 type.
We have a one bedroom villa at Sheraton Vistana Resort for May 1 - 8. $419 including all taxes and fees for the 7 night stay. Booked via Skyauction (open to everyone).
No parking fees, no resort fees, no charge for wifi.
The cheapest Disney 1 bedroom for that week (pricing via David's points rentals) is $2338 (AKL). That's a savings of $1919, or $274 per night.
Our car rental is $114 taxes included for an 8-day rental of a full size vehicle. Assuming I parked every single day at the parks, 8 x $17 = $136. Add $50 for gas.. Even with those two costs factored in, I'm STILL ahead by
$1619.
SVR is very much no "motel 6". Its a full one bedroom villa with a king bed in the master, separate full kitchen or kitchenette (depending on the configuration you receive), washer/dryer, living area with queen pull-out sofa, dining area, and in some cases, screened in balcony. The resort offers seven pools (each with their own special features, from waterfalls to in-water volleyball), 6 outdoor hot tubs, 13 tennis courts, 2 sand volleyball courts, 2 basketball courts, shuffleboard, mini golf, dive-in movies, an onsite farmers market, daily scheduled activities, and more. We have stayed onsite before (POR) and their amenities couldn't even come close to matching those found at the Vistana.
I looked into other options in order to get more space and save some money. (The idea of renting a timeshare had my head swimming and about gave me hives.) No matter how I looked at it, the savings just weren't that substantial.
I honestly have never been able to get onsite even close to offsite assuming the room styles are comparable (not a 1260 square foot, two bedroom villa priced against a standard 260 square foot room at a value).
For our December trip (the 19th to 26th):
Our two bedroom, two bath villa at SVR is $906 all-in. Car rental is reserved right now for $267 (a midsize SUV for that vacation). Let's again assume we'll park at a park every single day, so add another $136 in parking fees. Then another $50 for gas. That's a grand total of $1359.
Disney's cheapest 2 bedroom via David's points rental: $3430 (AKL again).
Difference: $2071, or $296 a day....and that's after all the extra costs for offsite are factored into the pricing. That is a substantial savings in my book......enough to cover our airfare in its entirety and a portion of our food budget to boot.