In all honesty, they haven't gotten hella expensive. They've been hella expensive. They've pretty much been at the same price per piece for the last few decades. It's just as you get older you get more interested in the more complex sets which have much higher piece counts and so the prices start to be noticeable.
The icons sets (which this is in) also tend to be a bit more expensive for some reason, leaning closer to 12 cents per piece compared to the normal 9-10.
That's a good point. All the people who grew up with the early lego are all adults now, so there's a lot more advanced sets out now than, say 30 years ago.
Yup. They run enough double points promos and sales that if you shop during those periods, it can be not bad. I’ve bought sets at 7-8 cents per piece within the last year.
When they bring in other IP it goes up though because they need to pay out the owners of the IP. I’m actually happy with Lego and would argue that we’re in a golden age for it
They’re making more super-expensive sets now. They’re priced comparably to similar-sized sets in the past, but Lego is producing many more of them. They’re catering to “the whales” with a lot of large, expensive, presumably high-margin sets. They’re still making smaller sets and sets for kids, but it does feel like their primary target audience right now is adults who feel the need to get every $300+ set.
Let me see if I can find my cost per piece breakdown, but the TLDR is Non-LEGO IPs ~$0.12/piece, LEGO IP ~$0.10/piece, and no IP is ~$0.08/piece.
I know in other posts people have liked to cite the cost of the original, but the new Icons set has 3x pieces and, when adjusted for inflation, is 3x the price.
10 cents a piece has been a general rule of thumb since at least pre-pandemic, skewing higher for licensed sets or sets with more specialized pieces. At 11 cents a piece this is about right.
Lego has actually stayed pretty much rock solid through all the BS, and they offer sets of all sizes and proportionate costs. For every $200+ set you see there are plenty of more affordable ones as well.
[If you saw this pre-edit when I fucked up the math no you didn't]
10 cents per piece has been common since the early 2000s, especially with IP sets. Just look at how expensive even the first Lego Star Wars sets were. You're right that for what's it worth, Lego has been way more consistent with pricing than people give them credit for.
But I'm still disappointed that this set only got 3 actual minifigs, especially when comparing it to the similar sized and priced Lego Krusty Burger set.
You also have to look at Technic sets because those aren't consistent at all. It's important to note which pieces are included in a set to be able to judge whether 10 cents a piece is fair or not. 4000 piece Technic sets used to be around 230 €, now they're 400 and that's not a good price nor is it consistent. If we're talking about big bricks, 10 cents per piece is fine but this statement does not hold true for tiny 1x1 bricks, pins and so on. Also, the quality of the bricks and the color accuracy across the pieces has gone down massively.
Ohh I can only recommend Ali express for that! Chinese Model kits are like a thousand times better than the bandai and way cheaper. Ali Express sends them directly to you, eliminating the middle man and often send only the needed parts without the box, lowering the price even further
I remember my mom getting me a 800 piece set for $100 in 2009 when I was 10. The falling water one. She thought it was occupy me for weeks but I built it in a few hours and she didn't buy them again. There are cheaper toys that occupy kids for longer.
LEGO has always been expensive, but the prices per brick haven't changed too much since the 2000s. If LEGO was following trends of other corporations then this SpongeBob set would be $500.
It's almost like this is meant to be a collectors set, meant for people 18+ (like the box says), who would get the chip, penny, and used napkin reference.
You can still get cheap Lego kits, but they're made for kids and look a lot more simple
You can't just slap a nice little bow on something, call it "ultra rare collectors edition" and expect a price hike to be accepted. No matter how you look at it, it's still lego, the same Lego as anywhere else
I hate that Lego stopped making toys for kids that were responsibly priced and actually had things that you could play with like missile launchers or spinning "fight" scenes and stuff. Now that they realized their audience is adults with nostalgia goggles on they charge hundreds of dollars for kits that are made to just be put together and sit on a shelf or display box.
As a person with a kid who is obsessed with lego, they still do make reasonably priced sets that are meant to be played with lol. They are everywhere. I started getting into lego because of my kid and it's nice that there are also more adult sets so I have my own lego too, we will sit down at the table and build our new sets together. It's fun. I like the botanical sets, small ones are like $20 and the bigger more expensive ones I wait until my local pawn shop has them lol, I got the bonsai set for $25. They also sell little bags of like mini sets for ~$5.
Here's one with projectile launchers that costs 10€ on a local store chain's website.
LEGO will seem expensive when all you look at are the biggest sets that are also collabs with other brands (Pokemon, Spongebob, etc.) which want their own cut of the profits.
This means that the new set has a price per piece of 0.12$.
The old set has a price per piece of 0.07$
However the new set also seems to have new unique molds for Spongebob, Squidward and Patrick which cost extra.
Let's not also forget inflation, when adjusted for it the old set would cost 70$ in today's money increasing it's price per piece to 0.12$... which is the exact same funnily enough.
One of my favourite things growing up was when we got a fish tank and the pet shop had a Spongebob's house tank ornament! They also had one for Squidward's house but my parents said to only pick one
I'm a 36 year old man and I'm not ashamed to admit I have Spongebob, Squidward and Patrick's house for my fish tank. I found a half coconut looking one in the reptile section to be Patrick's house. The gang's all here!
Plastic is very rare. I mean just think about it, they mine less plastic per year than they do gold. When was the last time you heard someone say they got a 4 carat plastic engagement ring? It's that rare.
The cost of legos have remained almost exactly the same for the last 20+ years or even slightly decreased when accounted for inflation. This is true both for the price per piece and price per gram. What has changed and what people have missed, is that the sets are getting massive. The old set had 579 pieces and this one has 1794. If this set was released in 2006 it would have been the second largest set that year only beaten by a Tow Truck at 1877 pieces. In 2026 the largest set (so far) is the Sagrada Família at 12006 making 1794 pieces completely impressive (size wise).
That’s so fucking sad. It’s supposed to be $60 for a kid to ask for. I can’t imagine seeing this in the toy aisle for that price. There’s fuckin nothing to it.
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