Lego Sets Become More Expensive Every Year (Real Proof!)
I was walking down the Lego aisle in Walmart the other day and it hurt to look at the price tags. I have always been a price-conscious guy, even as a kid. I remember Lego sets being around $30 for a solid set with cool Minifigures. Nowadays, I feel like the same set is selling for $50!
Like any sane person, I went home and made a Database of every Lego Star Wars set that has ever be released. For this experiment, I just picked Lego Star Wars as it’s my favorite theme. I jotted down their retail price, number of pieces, and year released. From there, I used Google Sheets to calculate a few averages, and the numbers are as clear as day. So, are lego sets more expensive now?
Lego sets today are more expensive than ever, for the same number of pieces. The average price of a Lego Star Wars Set has increased 314% since 1999. Meanwhile, the average number of pieces per set has stayed relatively the same. Inflation isn’t to blame, as it has only risen by 78% since 1999.
Let’s look at the Data
I browsed various Lego wholesale databases to collect the set number, piece count, year, and more information for each Lego StarWars set released since 1999. I put it all in this Google Sheet, which you can view yourself if you want to fact check me.
Taking the retail price of each Lego StarWars set sold over the years, I came up with the following chart. I took an average of the retail price of every set released by year. We can see a clear trend of prices increasing $2.15 a year since 1999 on Average.
While looking at these charts, I noticed that years where Ultimate Collectors Series Sets were released had exceptionally high average retail prices compared to other years. In 2007, for example, the UCS Millenium Falcon was sold at a retail of $499.99 USD. This set alone increased the year’s average retail price by nearly $27!
To make sure that Ultimate Collector Series Sets weren’t throwing off my data, I excluded them from the following chart. Even without the UCS sets, there is a clear trend of retail prices of LEGO Star Wars sets increasing every year.
I believe this to be clear proof that Legos are becoming more expensive year after year. We are only covering Lego StarWars in this article, but they are Lego’s #5th highest-selling theme (according to Lego’s 2021 Financial Statements). The theme makes up a large chunk of Lego’s revenue.
Are Sets Getting Larger as they Become More Expensive?
With clear proof that Lego sets are getting more and more expensive by year, we can start to look into why this is the case. One leading argument I found while browsing forums is that sets are getting more detailed with more and more pieces as years go by. Let’s see if this is the case.
The most obvious move here was to take the average number of pieces in a Lego set by year since 1999. There have been years where Legos released larger sets than others, causing it to even out overtime. The following chart shows the average number of Lego pieces in StarWars sets by year.
Again, I found years where Ultimate Collector’s Series sets to have a much higher piece count because of how large these sets are. So, I made another chart counting the average amount of pieces by year excluding UCS sets. I also excluded Minifigure sets, Microfighter sets, and other sets that are designed to be less than 50 pieces and are predominantly Minifigure packs.
After excluding the smaller, Mini-figure Lego sets that are much different than a traditional set, it’s clear that there has been a clear increase in the number of Legos in a Lego set over the years. With an average of 467 pieces in each Lego StarWars set released in 2022, there has been a 50% increase in in the number of pieces since 1999.
Comparing 50% increase in piece-count to the 60% average change in retail price since 1999, it seems like the increase in price is justified with the increase in set size, inflation, and other general improvements to Lego Sets over the years.
Has the Value of a Lego Set Increased?
A figure that Lego nerds like myself use to value Legos are PPB (Price per Brick). For a set to be considered a good deal, the PPB is between $0.08 and $0.12. For example, if a set with 1000 pieces retails for $100.00, the PPB is $0.10. With this figure, we can determine whether or not a Lego Set is a good deal.
Since I have the data, I thought it would be interesting to see the change in PPB over the years. So, I put together a chart where I calculated the PPB of every set released, excluding Minifigure packs and other untraditional sets, and took an average by year.
Looking at the long run, we can see that Lego StarWars sets has slightly increased its PPB. The ideal outcome here would be for a constant PPB. Considering it’s only a 2 cent difference over a span of 23 years, I believe Lego StarWars sets to still be fairly priced.
Possible Reasons why Legos are More Expensive
Because we don’t have the actual cost breakdown of each Lego Set, it’s hard to find a clear answer for why sets have become so expensive. All of the following reasons for why Legos are pricier are guesses that have been floating around the Lego Community. Nobody knows for sure why Legos are more expensive.
Sets are becoming more complex and detailed.
We found earlier that Lego StarWars sets have increased its piece-count by 50% since 1999. With these improvements, we have been introduced to more complex sets and features that make older Sets look bland. All of this is a result of development and study, which comes at a cost. It makes sense for this to reflect on the price of a Lego Set.
Licensing Fees have driven up prices.
There is widespread speculation that Disney’s has increased the price of Lego StarWars licensing fees after acquiring Lucasfilm, which has increased the price of sets. Disney bought StarWars in 2012.
If you look back at the Average Retail Price of a Lego StarWars set by Year chart, you’ll notice that the average price of a set stayed the same at 2012 and for several years after. We didn’t see a serious increase in price until 2017 when the average price jumped to $54.45 a set.
Some may argue that this proves Disney did not hike up licensing costs, or a past contract expired and they did. The only people who know for sure are Lego and Disney. All we can do is continue to speculate.
Possible Errors in my Calculations
I want to point out a few clear errors and biases in my findings. Just to be clear, I’m no qualified data analyst in any way. I’m just a curious individual who wanted to find out if Legos really are getting more expensive.
First off, I only used data from the Lego Star Wars Theme. While this is a very popular theme and was Lego’s #5 most selling theme (From The Lego Group’s Financial Reports) in 2021, it does not represent all of Lego. What would be interesting is comparing the price jump in this theme over the years to other themes, to see if this is a Lego Star Wars specific phenomenon. If it was, we could rule that expensive licensing fees to be the cause.
