The claim going around
The figure comes from a 2026 blog post arguing that tariffs on Chinese imports, which peaked near 145% in April 2025, pushed basic PLA from about $18 per kilogram earlier in the year to roughly $28 by May, a 59% increase overall. It is a specific, alarming number, and it has been repeated as fact across forums and comment sections since.
Polymaker itself cited tariff-driven import costs as the reason for the 10% price increase it announced in May 2026, which we covered at the time. That is one brand's stated reason for one price move. It is not evidence for the broader "filament got 59% more expensive" claim, and that broader number is checkable against our own data.
To be clear about what this article is and is not: it is a check of one specific, quotable number against the prices we actually track. It is not a position on tariff policy, on whether tariffs are good or bad, or on what effect they are having on the 3D printing industry or any other industry. We report prices. Readers can draw their own conclusions about causes.
What we actually tracked
We record the price of every filament listing we track across Amazon and direct storefronts from Bambu Lab, Polymaker, ELEGOO, and Creality, several thousand spools in total, though Amazon accounts for the large majority of listings by volume. To check the surge claim honestly, we did what we did the last time we tested a price-trend claim: followed the exact same products over time, rather than averaging whatever happens to be listed each month. A simple monthly average is misleading here too, because new and often pricier listings keep entering the catalog and drag the average up even when no existing spool's price moved.
| Material | April 2026 | September 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | $19.52/kg | $18.75/kg | −4.0% |
| PETG | $16.48/kg | $15.97/kg | −3.1% |
| ABS | $20.04/kg | $18.95/kg | −5.4% |
| ASA | $22.53/kg | $22.09/kg | −1.9% |
| TPU | $25.09/kg | $24.26/kg | −3.3% |
Every material we tracked continuously from April through September 2026 got slightly cheaper, not dramatically more expensive. PLA fell about 4%, not up 59%. None of the materials we track moved anywhere close to the claimed magnitude, and none of them moved up.
How we calculated this
We did not average every listing in the catalog for each month. New listings enter constantly, and a raw average skews upward as pricier products join the mix even when no existing spool's price actually moves, the same trap that produced a misleading 8% "increase" when we checked a different price claim back in spring 2026. Instead we built a matched cohort: only ASINs with at least one recorded price in April 2026 and at least one recorded price in September 2026 made the comparison, so every number above reflects the same spools priced at two points in time, not two different snapshots of a shifting catalog.
Within that cohort, we excluded three categories of listings: filaments no longer active or flagged as ignored in our catalog, spools under 0.5kg (samples and minis carry a much higher effective cost per kilogram and would distort the average), and any listing priced above $40/kg (specialty composites, engineering blends, and clear pricing errors, which are not what "basic PLA" or "basic PETG" refers to in the claim we are checking). Matched-cohort sizes ranged from 46 ASINs for ASA up to 2,247 for PLA, depending on how many listings we track per material.
The dataset covers what we track: current pricing across Amazon and direct storefronts for Bambu Lab, Polymaker, ELEGOO, and Creality. Amazon makes up the large majority of listings by volume, so these figures are Amazon-weighted in practice, and brands we only see through Amazon resellers, SUNLU and eSUN among them, are included only to the extent they are listed there. This is not a full-market census and it does not cover wholesale or bulk B2B pricing. It is the same real listings, tracked twice, five months apart, which is a more reliable read than a single before-and-after price pulled from two different baskets of products. Our methodology page covers data sources and price per kg in more detail.
Where the $18 to $28 number likely came from
We cannot audit another site's dataset, but the shape of the error is a familiar one: a single low reference price from early in the year compared against a single high price from a different, smaller basket of listings later on, rather than the same products tracked over time. That approach is sensitive to exactly which spools happen to be in each snapshot, and it is easy for it to manufacture a large swing that does not reflect what any specific buyer actually pays over time.
What this means for buyers
Do not let a headline number push you into panic-buying filament before a feared price spike. Individual brands have raised prices for specific reasons, Polymaker's 10% increase being the clearest example, but there has been no broad 2026 surge across PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, or TPU. If anything, the spools we track have gotten a little cheaper since spring.
Check the current numbers yourself
Live pricing is on the PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, and TPU listing pages, updated continuously. For how to compare spools fairly regardless of what the headlines say, see the price-per-kilogram guide.