A paper‐based potentiometric sensor was constructed and characterized for the detection of glucose in saliva. Dilution of the samples was optimized to afford the optimum experimental conditions of measurements. The performance allows for detecting abnormal high glucose concentrations observed in diabetes patients. Repeatability data were presented and the performance of the sensor compared to literature examples showing suitable characteristics at a much lower cost. The validation in real saliva samples was performed against a commercial colorimetric kit showing that glucose could be effectively determined in the 4–10 mM range based on the comparison with a reference method.