Rubbing salt into a wound caused by seemingly endless Christmas shopping, the purchases of uniforms, bags, shoes, stationery - and in many cases an iPad or laptop - proved a double blow for parents in the lead-up to the school year.

So how much does it cost to kit a kid up for school?

After surveying the parents of 10 private and public ACT primary school students in various grades, Fairfax Media calculated an average pricetag of $495 per student, which included uniforms ($220), shoes ($180), book packs or books and stationery ($80) and lunch items ($15).

This was despite parents' best efforts to bargain hunt, find hand-me-downs and use items from previous years.

The bill shot up to around $850 with an added personal electronic device - and there were still fees, lunches, excursions and transport costs to consider.

The big sting for many of the parents was buying a gadget needed under each school's 'Bring Your Own Device' policy.

A growing number of Australian schools have been implementing BYOD policies, strongly encouraging students to bring their own laptops and tablets to class.

The parents of two students hired Chromebooks from the school at a cost of $50 for the year, two more had paid roughly the same amount to fix devices they bought the previous year, one said their child's school had no BYOD policy and the rest paid between $300 and $480 for either a laptop or iPad.

Krystiana Hewat, whose daughter Bella Titulaer is entering grade four at Bonython Primary School, said it was a huge shock to be informed two weeks before the end of school that students needed to bring iPads the following year.

"I didn't have the funds to buy a new one, especially with Christmas coming up," she said. So she bought one for $300 off a family member.

Other parents said they understood schools could not provide devices for every child and believed BYOD schemes were inevitable given the increasing reliance on technology.

The ACT Council of Parents & Citizens Associations communications officer Janelle Kennard said many parents felt pressured into buying new devices even if the BYOD policies were not compulsory.

"If parents can't afford one their kids can feel discriminated against," she said.

Ms Kennard said the council believed back to school costs - excluding technology - had remained relatively steady in recent years, but schools could do better.

"It is important for them to work with their parent bodies with things such as choosing sensible uniform options," she said.

"Places like Target have generic colours in shirts at are really cheap, but if they step outside and have, say, purple, they have to get the specialist supplier which is much more expensive."

Low-income parents will likely be stung from the scrapping of the federal government's Schoolkids Bonus, which gave them up to $856 a year for school essentials between 2013 and 2016.

A 2013 Heritage Bank survey found Canberra families spent an average of $327 on back to school costs, including uniforms, shoes, books, food and musical and sporting equipment.