The Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index (SCRPI)* is a companion initiative to the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. It was developed by researchers at Emory University to track the retail prices charged by a representative group of North American specialty coffee roasters.

In the third quarter of 2026, the SCRPI fell 2.1%. The average price for roasted specialty coffees at the end of September 2026 was $35.10 per pound. This breaks down into an average of $24.02 per pound for the lowest-priced coffees (+0.5%), and $46.82 per pound for the highest-priced coffees (-3.5%) sold on the websites of the SCRPI roasters.

The year-over-year change in specialty coffee prices – from the third quarter of 2025 to the third quarter of 2026 – was +13.4%. This breaks down into a 3.7% increase for the lowest-priced coffees, and a 19.4% increase for the highest-priced coffees.

The corresponding ICO Composite Price for green coffee fell to $2.62 per green pound in September 2026. Thus, as retail prices for specialty coffees fell 2.1%, commodity prices fell 4.0% during the third quarter of 2026. Year over year, as average retail prices for specialty coffees rose 13.4%, the ICO Composite Price fell 16.9%.

* The number of SCRPI roasters currently stands at 55. Green Mountain Coffee was acquired by Keurig, which does not sell roasted coffee in bags. The website for Supreme Bean is currently under construction. Stone Cup Roasting did not sell its coffees on-line during the current quarter. Starbucks (Allegro Coffee) stopped selling coffees on-line during the fourth quarter of 2017 (third quarter of 2021).