Coffee price per pound: what a pound of ground coffee costs now

The US average retail price of 100 percent ground roast coffee was $9.317 a pound in July 2026. That is the latest published observation in Bureau of Labor Statistics series APU0000717311, US city average, not seasonally adjusted (BLS). A year earlier the same series read $8.414, so the price is up 10.7 percent year over year. Five years earlier it read $4.562, so it has more than doubled.

July price per pound, year by year

One month held constant so seasonality cannot flatter the comparison. Every value is the published July observation of APU0000717311.

Prices are published values from BLS series APU0000717311 in the Average Price Data file ap.data.3.Food, fetched 2026-08-18. The percentage column is arithmetic. There is no July 2018 observation because BLS did not publish one.

What this series is, and what it is not

It is an average retail price, not an index, covering 100 percent ground roast coffee in all package sizes across US cities. It is not seasonally adjusted. It says nothing about whole bean, instant, decaf, single origin or specialty roaster pricing, and it will not match the shelf price of any one bag in any one store. What it is good for is direction and scale over time, which is exactly what a "how much does coffee cost" question is usually asking.

Two more honest notes. The series has gaps: BLS publishes no observation for several stretches, including October 2025 and most of 2018 and 2019, so any chart of it has breaks that are publication gaps rather than price collapses. And the highest month in the published record is not the latest one: April 2026 came in at $9.723, above July's $9.317.

Turning price per pound into price per cup

A pound is 453.592 grams, so cost per cup is simply price per pound times your dose divided by 453.592. Dose is yours, not a published figure, so weigh it once and use your own number.

Arithmetic from 453.592 grams per pound and the July 2026 BLS price. Coffee only: no milk, no filter, no cup, no machine.

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The per-pound price is the reason larger bags keep showing up in kitchens: the arithmetic above scales linearly with whatever you actually pay per pound, so a cheaper pound is the only lever that moves every cup at once. Search 5 lb whole bean coffee on Amazon. Links are searches, not stocked listings, and nothing here changes the BLS figures above.

Related reading

• Coffee price statistics 2026
• What a cup of drip coffee costs to make at home
• How much coffee per cup

FAQ

How much does a pound of coffee cost? The US average retail price of 100 percent ground roast coffee was $9.317 a pound in July 2026, per BLS series APU0000717311.

How much has coffee gone up in the last year? From $8.414 in July 2025 to $9.317 in July 2026, an increase of 10.7 percent.

How many cups do you get from a pound of coffee? A pound is 453.592 grams, so a 15g dose gives about 30 cups and a 10g dose gives about 45. At the July 2026 price that is roughly $0.31 and $0.21 of coffee per cup.

Sources: every price is a published observation of Bureau of Labor Statistics series APU0000717311, coffee, 100 percent, ground roast, all sizes, per lb, US city average, not seasonally adjusted, taken from the BLS Average Price Data file ap.data.3.Food and cross-checked against the BLS public API response for the same series, both fetched 2026-08-18. Series page: data.bls.gov. Percentages, cups per pound and cost per cup are arithmetic from those published values and the definition of a pound as 453.592 grams.