Probably will be cheaper if you stay in Moderates or better. Good luck. You might look at some of the other posts about the value of joining. Some good comments from many of us about this topic.
I've appended my typcial response to that issue:
The maintenance fees have gone up at a compound rate of 2.8% per year at OKW since 1991. Moderate resort rates have gone up about 5.5% during the same time,
DVC points at about 4.6% and the CPI by about 2.6% per year.
When we were making the decision in 2002, I forecast the cash flows (cost and fees) for studios and one bedrooms and compared that to moderate Disney Club discounted and deluxe Annual Pass discounted rooms. I purposefully skewed the analysis by using 120% of the average increase in maintenance fees and 85% of the average increase in resort rates. We will break even in ten years.
Based on my reading Disney is working to reign in the availability of room only discount codes. There is an excellent article on that topic in the August newsletter for Mousesavers (
www.mousesavers.com). That view has been supported by many others and has been my experience recently as well. If that is the case, then comparisons of rack rates or rack rates with minimal discounts might be a better analysis. That only improves the DVC as a prepaid vacation.
Our conclusion, we should have done this 10 years ago, but could not afford it then. It is a great way to vacation at WDW. The resorts are first rate. You stay in larger units, with more amenities than even the deluxe resorts and pay about the same or less than a moderate and meet lots of new friends.
Good luck with your decision.