Guide to Buying LEGO Sales and Deals Online

There are a ton of LEGO sets out there. Some are geared towards kiddos and some are geared towards adults. This guide has some basic intro stuff about LEGO. If you are a LEGO veteran, skip ahead to the Getting LEGO Deals section.

Introduction to LEGO

LEGOs are a brand name building block with really high quality control. The quality control makes building with them a lot easier than many off brand bricks, especially with small bricks. There are 3 main reasons people buy sets: to build and display, to build, play with, and eventually they become loose pieces, and mainly for the pieces to build up a “free play” collection of loose bricks.

LEGO Age Ranges

Age	Who it’s for	What to expect
1½+ / 2+ / 3+	Toddlers	DUPLOs. Due to choking hazard this age range is all DUPLOs, and regular bricks start at 4+
4+	Preschool / first LEGOs	Regular sized bricks but with “starter” pieces: large pre-shaped bases, few steps, fewer small pieces. This line used to be called Juniors
5+ / 6+	Early elementary	Small, simple sets with short instruction books, built mostly from standard bricks. Some small pieces, but a lot of larger pieces. Plenty of play value
7+ / 8+	Middle elementary	The core of most play themes (City, Friends, Ninjago, Star Wars). Longer builds, more small pieces, some mechanisms like doors or hinges
9+ / 10+	Previous LEGO experience	Bigger, more detailed sets with multiple instruction books and more advanced techniques like sideways building. Many Technic sets start here, and Technic pieces show up in the structural parts of regular LEGOs
12+ / 14+ / 16+	Teens and experienced builders	Larger, intricate models, some with gears or functions. Fewer play features, more of a challenge
18+	Adults	Display pieces (Icons, Architecture, Art, large Technic). More sophisticated techniques, made to show off rather than play with

Often LEGOs that are 4+ to 6+ have a lot of “common” shapes and are good sets to build up a base of bricks for “free build” playing. LEGOs that are 7+ tend to have a lot more specialty pieces and fewer 2×4 blocks and blocks that are the “base” of free play.

The age ranges in my mind are very rough. Technic builds involve pins and are more difficult for younger kids. Starting at 9+ some “normal” LEGO sets start using Technic pieces for structural elements (more than axles and swivel pieces). I stay away from Technic builds for younger kids (my 6 year old gets a lot less pleasure from them).

I find the age ranges kind of crazy and they don’t really mean much. When my kiddo was 5 they built LEGOs at all age ranges including 18+. Our build strategy is that I find the pieces and they follow the directions to build. On sets 10+ they probably did 95% of the steps correctly or without asking for help. On sets with lower age ranges they were probably ~98% correct.

Age ranges are important for the first several sets. Get lower age ranges so they can learn building techniques (without realizing they are) and get comfortable with building. After 2-4 sets you can then increase the age ranges they are building.

Buying LEGOs

One of the first things that people look at (including me) when they buy a LEGO set is the number of pieces. There is a lot more nuance in this number than first appears. Technic sets tend to be piece “heavy” because they contain a ton of pins. Once you have had a few Technic sets you will have more pins than you know what to do with. A 1,000 piece Technic car can have an MSRP of ~$60-80, but most block based LEGOs with 1,000 pieces are $100+. This pricing does take into account the pins, and it is hard to compare Technic piece count to block based LEGO piece count. Some sets have a TON of small pieces. The Botanicals series is one of these, but there are many other branded sets that are predominantly small pieces.

If you are buying LEGOs to display and don’t really care about getting pieces for “free build” since the sets will stay built for years, the metrics that I am talking about below mean a lot less. They can help you with a decision, but likely are not going to be the deciding factor of buying a LEGO set. The two main value metrics are cost per piece and cost per gram.

Cost Per Piece

This is simple. It is the cost per LEGO piece that you buy. Like I mentioned before, some sets are mainly small pieces. When trying to get “value”, if you strictly looked at cost per piece you would end up with just Botanical sets in your collection, since they tend to have a ton of small pieces in each set, inflating the piece count. This seems like a really good metric, but over the last 10 years the average weight of a LEGO piece has dropped by ~31% . This isn’t due to LEGO using lighter plastic or thinner plastic. It is due to them creating a lot more smaller pieces.

This seems like the best metric to look at, but you should be looking at cost per gram.

Cost Per Gram

This measurement divides the price of the LEGO set by its weight and you get the cost per gram. Ounces/grams, you don’t have to know the difference and it doesn’t matter. The number you get is simply one that you use to compare to other sets. The number also isn’t a true cost per gram since the sealed box weight is used to calculate it. That means the weight of the box, packaging, and instructions is included. This roughly averages out in the long run, since the larger the box and the larger the instructions, the more pieces there are to absorb that extra weight.

Licensed Theme Premium

LEGO pays a licensing fee on sets that use a third-party theme like Star Wars and Marvel. BrickNerd did a really good analysis in 2021 of cost per gram by LEGO theme, 2021 article, very good write up, in British pounds). Regardless, the trend is still accurate today with licensed theme prices. LIFEVOR has 2026 LEGO pricing by brand and a calculator. Third party branded themes are the most expensive, then LEGO branded themes (Ninjago/Friends/Dreamzz/etc), then unbranded themes (Classic/Creator/Icons/etc). Today, I think the price differences are even greater than in 2021. If you are a fan of data and visualizations of data, Brad Greig has a great write up on LEGO pricing done in 2024, it is in AUD).

Getting LEGO Deals

LEGO Bulk

Buying LEGO bulk is a good way to get a lot of pieces for “free play”. If you want new bulk pieces, LEGO sells several Classic sets that are the cheapest MSRP on average per gram and contain a lot of the basic pieces that you need to build. It is common to buy bulk used and it is a good way to build up your collection. The average prices of bulk are below, without minifigures. Minifigures and pieces of branded/desirable sets often increase the numbers below.

Cleaned bulk: ~$8-10/pound, sorted by color is on the higher end.
Uncleaned bulk: ~$4-6/pound.

There are a few places to buy LEGO bulk.

Facebook Marketplace

Positives: Some of the best deals, more likely to get minifigures in your bulk
Negatives: You have to deal with the marketplace, more time intensive, might have to drive somewhere, in some areas you need to be quick to respond, some not reputable sellers

eBay

Positives: Lots of options, from bulk resellers selling cleaned bulk to old collections including partial builds
Negatives: Shipping is an added expense. Often more expensive than Facebook Marketplace, but adds the convenience of buying it while sitting on your butt without any extra effort needed

Estate and Garage Sales

Positives: Often the cheapest and higher chance of getting expensive minifigures (many other sellers sort them out)
Negatives: Most amount of effort. Normally not cleaned.

Thrift Stores

Positives: Sometimes good deals, sometimes not.
Negatives: Time intensive. Sometimes minifigures separated.

ShopGoodwill.com

Positives: Buy it online, no traveling needed. Often better prices than eBay. If you live near a store location and don’t pay shipping, you can often get bulk for <$2/pound.
Negatives: It is often a mystery exactly what you are getting. Not precleaned, and some lots need cleaning and others don’t. Some stores pick out the minifigures.

Third Party LEGO Stores

Positives: Usually cleaned LEGO and sorted. Often possible to get color specific
Negatives: More expensive

BrickLink

Positives: Usually cleaned LEGO and sorted. Often possible to get color specific
Negatives: More expensive

LEGO Sales

If there is a particular set that you want, your best bet is to set pricing alerts with third-party products like Google Chrome’s price tracking feature, CamelCamelCamel, Sortd, PriceSpy, or Visualping. There are a lot of these products and most work by getting a commission from the link they send. Visualping works differently.

If you are looking for good deals, then a LEGO deal site is a good idea. I find deals by sites’ internal alerts, sales emails, scraping data, looking for visual changes to pages, and manual searching. I look at sites that I get a commission from and ones that I do not get a commission from. Some sites like Target are tricky since they list their markdowns based on the last price, not the retail price. That means a discount can show as 15% on their site (not a great discount number) and it actually be a 50% off MSRP deal.

How To Determine If A Deal Is A Good Deal

There are a couple metrics that can be used to see if a price is a deal.

Percent Off MSRP

This is the one used the most frequently. It is a good metric to use if you want a particular set or a particular theme. It is the easiest one to track and most deal sites use this metric.

Price Per Piece (PPP)

The current average PPP for LEGO is roughly $0.10. Some themes like Creator are below average at about $0.07 PPP and Star Wars is about $0.14. I list the PPP per set. This metric does ignore minifigures, which can make up a big part of a set’s value.

Price Per Gram (PPG)

This is a weight based metric. This is a really good metric if you want to build your piece count for when the sets are taken apart. It also accounts for the size of the set per the price. This is probably the best “value” metric. Small sets and ones with SMART bricks tend to do poorly. It also does not take into account minifigures.

Here Are The Ratings I Use

They are different than other people use. I am rating them on whether it is a deal. Most other sites that have these calculations rate sets on a scale from low to high, and the average price counts as “good”. But the average price isn’t a good deal.

Rating	Per piece	Per gram
Steal	under 5¢	under 3.5¢
Great	5–7¢	3.5–4.5¢
Good	7–9¢	4.5–5.5¢
Fair	9–11¢	5.5–7¢
Not a deal	over 11¢	over 7¢

Discount off retail
Steal: 50%+ · Great: 40–49% · Good: 30–39% · Fair: 20–29% · Not a deal: under 20%. These ratings are harsher than every other LEGO deal site I have found and that is how I like it. The goal is to find real deals, not make sets that aren’t really deals seem like they are deals.

Overall deal rating
Each deal gets an overall rating from the middle of its three ratings (discount, price per piece and price per gram). If two of the three say Steal, it’s a Steal. Occasionally I will manually adjust the rating up or down since there are more factors that can’t be shown in these metrics.

Minifigures

The metrics above don’t account for minifigures. I include the minifigure count, how many pieces there are per minifigure (for example, 1 per 133 pieces), and the price per minifigure. These metrics help you account for minifigures in the pricing of the deal.

Wrap-up

Finding a deal on LEGO is more complicated than just looking at the price. A deal also depends on what you are looking for. A deal for a Star Wars fan and someone looking for a birthday present for their kiddo’s classmate likely look very different.