Coffee price tracker: what a pound of coffee actually costs
The US average retail price of 100 percent ground roast coffee was $9.317 a pound in July 2026. That is the latest figure in Bureau of Labor Statistics series APU0000717311, and every number on this page comes from a cached pull of that series through the BLS public API. Nothing here is estimated.
Series APU0000717311, coffee, 100%, ground roast, all sizes, per lb, US city average, not seasonally adjusted. 206 monthly observations from January 2006 to July 2026, pulled 2026-08-15. The breaks in the line are breaks in the published series, not gaps in this chart: BLS publishes no observation for 2007-09 to 2007-10, 2008-01 to 2009-11, 2018-06 to 2018-08, 2018-10 to 2019-09, 2025-10. Series page at BLS.
What the series actually says
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Latest month (July 2026) | $9.317 per lb |
| Highest month in the pull (April 2026) | $9.723 per lb |
| Lowest month in the pull (December 2006) | $3.113 per lb |
| Year on year (July 2025 vs July 2026) | $8.414 to $9.317, up 10.7% |
| Five years (July 2020 vs July 2026) | $4.536 to $9.317, up 105.4% |
| Twenty years (January 2006 vs July 2026) | $3.232 to $9.317, up 188.3% |
What your habit costs
The price per pound is prefilled with the July 2026 figure above. Change it to what your bag actually costs and the math follows.
As an Amazon Associate, Barista Life earns from qualifying purchases. Links below are Amazon searches, not stocked listings, and nothing here changes the numbers above.
A pound is 453.592 g. The grams-per-cup default of 15 is a dose you set, not a published figure: weigh yours and type it in. The cafe price is whatever you pay, not a BLS series. Only the price per pound is sourced.
Annual averages, straight from the series
Averaged across whatever months BLS published in each year, so the month count is shown beside every average rather than hidden.
| Year | Average price per lb | Months published |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | $3.203 | 12 |
| 2007 | $3.469 | 10 |
| 2009 | $3.669 | 1 |
| 2010 | $3.906 | 12 |
| 2011 | $5.191 | 12 |
| 2012 | $5.676 | 12 |
| 2013 | $5.453 | 12 |
| 2014 | $4.990 | 12 |
| 2015 | $4.720 | 12 |
| 2016 | $4.393 | 12 |
| 2017 | $4.453 | 12 |
| 2018 | $4.302 | 6 |
| 2019 | $4.141 | 3 |
| 2020 | $4.433 | 12 |
| 2021 | $4.705 | 12 |
| 2022 | $5.891 | 12 |
| 2023 | $6.156 | 12 |
| 2024 | $6.322 | 12 |
| 2025 | $8.180 | 11 |
| 2026 | $9.492 | 7 |
Reading it honestly
This series is an average retail price, not an index, and it is not seasonally adjusted. It covers 100 percent ground roast coffee across all package sizes in US city average terms, so it will not match the shelf price of any one bag, and it says nothing about whole bean, instant, or specialty pricing. Month to month moves of a few cents are noise. The series has also stopped and restarted: there is no published data for 2007-09 to 2007-10, 2008-01 to 2009-11, 2018-06 to 2018-08, 2018-10 to 2019-09, 2025-10.
Once you know the price per pound, the thing that changes your cost per cup most is your dose. The coffee ratio calculator converts dose, yield and ratio across six methods, and the coffee cost calculator runs the cafe versus home setup payback. Every free tool is on the tools page.
FAQ
Where does the price data come from? The US Bureau of Labor Statistics average price series APU0000717311: ground roast coffee, per pound, US city average. The series is pulled from the BLS public API and the raw response is cached and cited.
How current is the chart? It shows the latest month the BLS has published. The BLS releases the series monthly, and gaps in the chart are real gaps in the government data, not interpolation.
Why did coffee prices rise so much? The page shows the published index history rather than speculating on causes. The year over year and multi-year changes are computed directly from the BLS series shown.
How to cite this page
Suggested citation: "Coffee price tracker, Barista Life (baristalife.co), reviewed August 15, 2026. https://baristalife.co/pages/coffee-price-tracker"
Quote any figure here with attribution and a link to Barista Life. The underlying series is US Bureau of Labor Statistics average price series APU0000717311, ground roast coffee per pound, US city average; cite the BLS as the primary source too. Every citable page on the site is indexed at data and citations.