The LEGO High Price Myth Debunked

Everyone keeps saying LEGO prices are going up, but let the data speak for itself…

LEGO is not a cheap toy or hobby. Everyone says that, and relatively speaking, that’s mostly true. But people also say plenty of other things without really analysing the data, or doing enough digging into the facts, to see just how true their statements are. When it comes to the famous LEGO bricks, myths are everywhere, and the funny thing is, we seem to have made them all up and never bothered to check whether there’s any truth to them, or are we just as bad as gossiping grannies at the market. Everyone says LEGO has gotten pricier over the years, but has it really? Let’s find out. It might turn out that LEGO prices have actually gone down, and today’s sets are far better value than they ever were.

Realising that the cost of LEGO sets and bricks is a topic that can be explored from various angles, I decided to look at the numbers from… you guessed it… various angles.😁 I will look at affordability, diversity, and price per piece ratios. I will only take into account retail prices of sets sold at LEGO stores, so no second-hand stuff, 3rd party seller offers or anything that could skew my calculations in favour of proving a point. Yeah, I am deliberately making my job harder.

Affordability

To keep things somewhat relatable, I will only go back as far as 1990. That’s 33 years, so I think long enough, to make a point. The median income in the US in 1990 was $17,000. Adjusted for 2022 inflation, that is $36,487. For context, the median US wage in 2022 was $46,001. Now that we know what kind of money we’re working with in terms of median income, let’s look at a set that’s released almost every year in some form or another — the Fire Station.

The 1990 Fire Control Center, set #6389 was sold for $52, and contained exactly 533 LEGO pieces. This was considered a large set. Adjusted for inflation, in 2022 that’s $116. Wow! Pretty big jump. Even I didn’t expect that, but hey, it is what it is.

Now let’s look at the 2022 Fire Station, set #60320 sold at $69, containing 540 pieces of premium LEGO fun. If we are to take inflation into account, this set should have cost around $120 given that the 1990s set cost $116 when accounting for inflation.

But maybe that doesn’t convince you, so let’s see how many of these sets you could buy from an average yearly US salary in 1990 and then in 2022.

• 327 sets of the 1990 Fire Control Center
• 666 sets of the 2022 Fire Station

I’ll admit any day, that I am pretty shite at maths, but to me, that looks like double the sets in 2022 compared to 1990. I could do the same exercise for many other sets and the numbers would look very similar. I chose the Fire Station at random because it’s a large enough set to be considered “expensive” but re-released so many times that the pattern would be obvious. Take the famous 1991 #4558 Metroliner as reference or the 1999 #7110 Star Wars Landspeeder at $6 and compare it to the 2023 #30654 X-wing Starfighter at $4.99 with nearly double the piece-count, and the 2023 set comes out as far better value for money than the 1999 set ever dreamed to be.

From LEGO City sets to licensed sets, the prices of LEGO sets have not gone up, in fact, they have largely fallen way behind inflation, making them a far cheaper toy than they ever were in the past three decades.

Diversity

But I did say there’s more than one way to skin this LEGO cat, right? 🐈 Set prices alone may or may not mean everything, so I feel it’s important to look at just how many sets LEGO has released on a yearly basis and how many of those are under $50 when accounted for inflation.

• In 1990, there were 129 sets released, of which 27 were below $50.
• In 2022, there were 967 sets released, of which about 400 (I didn’t count keychains, plushes, and storage boxes) were under $50.

From where I’m standing, the huge diversity of low-priced sets in 2022 far outweighed the 1990s. In fact, even the ratio of low-priced sets was much higher in 2022 than in 1990. In 1990, it’s about 20% of their catalog, while in 2022, it’s over 40%, so double that of 1990! In 2022, fans had so many affordable options and themes to choose from that it’s literally impossible to feel excluded from the fun.

Getting past the heart-ache of not being able to afford a $50+ set, nearly half the LEGO universe, is still well within reach!

Price per piece

So, that’s two out of three so far, right? Let’s see if price per piece ratios change anything in this story in favour of the myth, or just prove me yet again, right.

Going back to the original Fire Station comparison, adjusted for inflation, the PPP of the 1990 set is 21 cents, while the 2022 set’s is just 13 cents, and guess what? That’s not even what we’d call a good ratio, as good starts below 10 cents. So taking that into account, let’s look at some of the very expensive sets of 2022 and 2023.

• The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell that I, myself, called (and I still do) highway robbery, has a PPP of 8.1 cents, well below 10.
• The Ninjago City Markets #71799 set, has a PPP of an insane 6 cents!
• The 2022 Eiffel Tower, set #10307, has a PPP of 6.3 cents.

When looking at 1990 sets, the best PPP I could find was the Whirl and Wheel Super Truck, set #5590 at 7.9 cents per piece, and I haven’t yet accounted for inflation. When I do, that number jumps to a whopping 17 cents! Well, powder me with sugar and call me a donut, but that doesn’t look like better value to me, and it ain’t the beer talking either. 🍺

Simply put, LEGO sets today are far better value in terms of price per piece ratio than any of the sets in the 1990s.

Disclaimers

There are a few things I have not accounted for in my calculations, the first of them being disposable income — money that people can spend after bills, food, housing, and transportation expenses were paid. Clearly, this hasn’t always been the same, but reliable data is also difficult to find. My calculations make the assumption that a person or family with median income (which in this case was actually lower than the average income), can afford a $50 (accounted for inflation) set once in a while, say four times a year.

I also did not account for price to salary ratios across the globe. Of course, for instance in Eastern Europe, where the LEGO set prices are the same as they are in Ireland or the US, but the salaries are considerably lower, LEGO does become a lot less affordable toy or hobby. That being said, that was just as true three decades ago as it is today, maybe even more so.

It is also no myth that the number of very high-priced sets has increased over the last decade or so. I, myself, have spoken up against this, but less so because of the price, as you can see, the PPP of those can be insanely good. That being said, huge sets are a different kind of problem. The price, however, hasn’t gone up per se, it’s more that the price-range has widened.

Verdict

As tough as it may be to swallow for many, the data simply doesn’t support the claim that LEGO bricks and LEGO sets have become pricier. It’s just not true, and that’s a good thing because it means more people can get into the hobby and get more creative than ever before. Is it still a premium toy? Yes, it certainly is, and one could argue that spending even $50 for a box of plastic is outrageous, and in that respect, I think we can all agree that LEGO was always overpriced, but then so are many other things starting from our hipster takeaway coffees, bottled water, the tech gadgets we use on a daily basis and I could go on and on.

Summa summarum, LEGO sets have never been more affordable and better value for money than they are today. Access to premium creativity has gotten cheaper.

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, LEGO fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer! Read my Hello story here! Subscribe and/or become a member for more stories about LEGO, tech, coding and accessibility! For my less regular readers, I also write about random bits and writing.