come to the same thing

To be the same or nearly the same as something else, especially after consideration. When you get down to it, downloading pirated music for free online and stealing CDs from a store really come to the same thing. Don't you think that taking medication for a mental illness comes to the same thing as taking medication for a physical illness? These different expenses all come to the same thing: money leaving my bank account.

aˌmount/ˌcome to the same ˈthing

it does not matter how something happens or is done, the result in the end is the same: Whether it was your fault or his fault, it still amounts to the same thing. My car’s wrecked.

come to the same thing, to

To make no difference. “It all comes to the same thing at the end,” wrote Robert Browning (“Any Wife to Her Husband,” 1842), the words of a dying wife concerning the likelihood that her widowed husband will remarry. It also has been put as amount to or add up to the same thing.