LEGO is an expensive toy, that is for sure. They are made with high standards and with an established brand. Since most LEGO is sold in sets, you may have wondered what the cost is for each individual LEGO piece. What is LEGO price per piece?
Price per piece is a term frequently used by LEGO buyers to show the cost that you must pay for each piece in each LEGO set. It is calculated by dividing the price of the set by the number of pieces in that set. Price per piece can then be used to compare LEGO sets against each other to determine which one of them is comparatively more expensive for the same number of pieces.
What is the average price per piece of LEGO?
The price per piece of a LEGO set is $0.18 on average. This average was calculated from over 1000 LEGO sets that were released between 2019 – 2021. We used sets from every theme and included both large sets and small sets to get an overall average.
When we exclude Duplo from the calculation, which has a much higher price per piece than other LEGO themes, the average is reduced to $0.16.
What LEGO theme has the highest price per piece?
Duplo has the highest price per piece of any LEGO theme. At $0.84c per piece, Duplo is certainly quite a bit more expensive than other LEGO themes when you consider the cost of each block in the box.
In second place, LEGO Classic has a price per piece of $0.63c in the data that we used, which is also quite a high price.
What LEGO theme has the lowest price per piece?
The lowest price per piece was LEGO Art. At a retail price of $119.99, many of the LEGO Art sets offer some fantastic value. The LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Crest set for example has 4249 pieces in it, and retails for that same price of $119.99. This is a price per piece of $0.03c.
Similarly, the LEGO Art Star Wars The Sith set has 3406 pieces in it, for a price per piece of $0.04c. Excellent value!
Breakdown of LEGO Price Per Piece By Theme
What is the price per piece breakdown of all of the LEGO themes in 2021? Where do they rank when it comes to the average price per piece of the sets within the theme?
Let’s look at the data!
| Architecture | 0.08 |
| Art | 0.04 |
| Brick Sketches | 0.12 |
| BrickHeadz | 0.07 |
| City | 0.27 |
| Classic | 0.63 |
| Collectable Minifigures | 0.65 |
| Creator | 0.09 |
| Creator Expert | 0.08 |
| DC Comics Super Heroes | 0.12 |
| Disney | 0.16 |
| Dots | 0.10 |
| Duplo | 0.84 |
| Education | 0.44 |
| Friends | 0.14 |
| Harry Potter | 0.11 |
| Hidden Side | 0.10 |
| Ideas | 0.08 |
| Jurassic World | 0.16 |
| Marvel Super Heroes | 0.12 |
| Mindstorms | 0.38 |
| Minecraft | 0.10 |
| Minions: The Rise of Gru | 0.11 |
| Ninjago | 0.11 |
| Overwatch | 0.10 |
| Seasonal | 0.10 |
| Speed Champions | 0.07 |
| Star Wars | 0.13 |
| Stranger Things | 0.09 |
| Super Mario | 0.28 |
| Technic | 0.12 |
| The LEGO Movie 2 | 0.13 |
| Toy Story | 0.19 |
| Trolls World Tour | 0.13 |
| Vidiyo | 0.26 |
| Xtra | 0.26 |
Do large LEGO sets have a lower price per piece?
To calculate the impact that the size of the set has on its price per piece, we categorized the sets in our data in the following way:
- Large LEGO sets are over 2,000 pieces.
- Medium LEGO sets are 1,000 to 2,000 pieces.
- Small sets are under 1,000 pieces.
Our findings are as follows:
| Set Size | Price Per Piece |
| Small | $ 0.20 |
| Medium | $ 0.09 |
| Large | $ 0.08 |
This is very conclusive. Large sets of over 2000 pieces typically have a much lower price per piece than small sets of under 1000 pieces. If you want to see what the largest LEGO sets ever produced are, check out our article here.
To see some of these largest LEGO sets available today directly on Amazon and check their prices, click here.
Do more expensive LEGO sets have a lower price per piece?
Let us repeat the above experiment, but this time we will look at the retail price of the set instead of the number of pieces in the set.
Do more expensive sets have a lower price per piece?
Let us categorize ‘expensive’ sets as LEGO sets that have a recommended retail price of $200 or higher. ‘Medium priced’ sets are $100 – $200, and ‘Low priced’ sets are LEGO sets that cost below $100 at retail.
| Set Retail Price | Price Per Piece |
| < $100 | $ 0.21 |
| $100 – $200 | $ 0.21 |
| > $200+ | $ 0.15 |
Again, we have a clear answer.
More expensive LEGO sets typically offer a better price per piece. In other words, you can get a higher number of pieces per dollar spent if you buy more expensive LEGO sets.
Does price per piece matter?
This is a widely debated topic, and the answer depends on several factors, such as what your plan is for using the LEGO set. The LEGO Group have directly stated that the number of pieces in a set are not the only factors that go into the price of the set. They also consider the number of new or different molds that they need to create as part of manufacturing that set, the cost of licensing the brand of that theme, and many other factors. (Source).
If you are a BrickLink seller and you plan to part-out the LEGO set and sell each piece individually, then yes you should be paying attention to the price per piece because it directly impacts the cost of your inventory.
However, if you are a collector or investor in LEGO sealed sets, then this is a more complicated question. A lot of our research indicates that price per piece is not a strong indicator of whether the value of a sealed LEGO set will increase over time. We will expand on this in a future article and use data to prove (or discredit) our theory.
Let us know your questions!
We hope you found this information about price per piece useful. Of course, this is not a perfect calculation. As we mentioned, the data we used is from sets that were released during 2019, 2020 and 2021. Re-running this calculation on every LEGO set ever produced would likely give us a different answer.
However, we do not feel like that would be the most accurate or useful answer, because The LEGO Group had a different approach many years ago than they do today. Looking at more recent sets gives us a better idea as to what to expect in the future.
If you have anything to add to this, or have any questions, head on over to our free Facebook group and join in the discussion there.
