Copper is up almost 50% since last summer. The copper pipe contractors actually pay for is up about 15%. That gap is the whole story — fabrication, distribution, and distributor price lists move slower than the metal.
The figures below come from supplier invoices processed by CostCrunch from July 2025 through September 2026 and from FRED's global copper price (IMF ticker PCOPPUSDM). These are prices actually paid on active jobs, not list or distributor-quoted prices. FRED has only published through September 2026 at the time of this post.
Key Takeaways
- Pipe moves in steps, copper moves daily. 3/4" Type L copper pipe stayed at $4.017/ft for six months (Sep 2025–Feb 2026) while copper rose 30%. Then it stepped up in March, May, and July.
- Commodity outran finished pipe 3x. Copper $4.43/lb → $6.57/lb (+48.1%). Pipe $3.75/ft → $4.34/ft (+15.5%), which is $8.25/lb → $9.53/lb of copper equivalent.
- Pipe follows copper with about a 3-month delay. Same-month correlation 0.84, 3-month lag 0.91. Correlation is not causation and the sample is only 15 months.
- Pass-through is ~60%. Copper value in a foot rose $0.97 ($2.02→$2.99), pipe price rose $0.58. The rest — fabrication/distribution/margin — shrank from $1.74/ft to $1.35/ft.
- Copper now 69% of pipe price, up from 54%. If the non-copper slice reverts, arithmetic implies ~$4.70–$4.75/ft at today's copper — not a forecast, just the math.
Global copper outran pipe
Conversion: nominal Type L 3/4" weighs 0.455 lb/ft (ASTM B88). Pipe $/lb = pipe $/ft ÷ 0.455. Copper value per ft = copper $/lb × 0.455. Pipe line is the monthly median across organizations. Copper is FRED PCOPPUSDM $/metric ton ÷ 2204.62.
Source: CostCrunch spend data. Pipe: CostCrunch invoice data. Copper: FRED PCOPPUSDM (IMF). Index Jul 2025=100.
The gap opens Dec 2025–Jan 2026. Copper jumped then; pipe didn't move until Mar 2026.
| Month | Pipe $/ft | Copper $/lb | Pipe index | Copper index |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-07 | 3.75 | 4.43 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| 2025-09 | 4.02 | 4.53 | 107.1 | 102.3 |
| 2025-12 | 4.02 | 5.35 | 107.1 | 120.7 |
| 2026-01 | 4.02 | 5.89 | 107.1 | 132.9 |
| 2026-03 | 4.16 | 5.68 | 110.8 | 128.2 |
| 2026-07 | 4.34 | 6.14 | 115.5 | 138.6 |
| 2026-09 | 4.34 | 6.57 | 115.5 | 148.1 |
The non-copper slice shrank
Source: CostCrunch spend data. Copper value = copper $/lb × 0.455 lb/ft. Pipe Jul $3.75/ft, Sep $4.34/ft.
Copper was 54% of pipe price in Jul 2025, 69% in Sep 2026. The non-copper slice — drawing, annealing, packaging, freight, distributor margin — compressed $0.39/ft.
Pipe follows with a delay — here's the shift
If you literally slide the copper line 3 months to the right, the two lines lock together through 2025. The copper jump in Dec 2025 lands on the Mar 2026 pipe step; Jan 2026 on Apr 2026. Hit Play to see it animate — ghost is copper at real date, purple is copper shifted. Drag to scrub. The live corr label interpolates between measured anchors.
Source: CostCrunch spend data. Pipe med $/ft indexed Jul25=100. Copper FRED PCOPPUSDM $/lb indexed same. Apr-Jun25 copper included to fill lag.
That best-fit is quantitative too:
Source: CostCrunch spend data. Monthly median 15 points, Apr-Jun 2025 copper included to fill lag.
0 months: 0.84, 1 month: 0.83, 2 months: 0.88, 3 months: 0.91. Read it as a rough estimate — 15 points and pipe prices that move in steps, not a precise physics constant. We included Apr–Jun 2025 copper (93.9 / 97.5 / 100.7) to fill the first three lag months, otherwise Jul–Sep 2025 would have no lagged partner.
How this was built
- Material: 3/4 x 10 L copper pipe (Type L, 3/4") has ~1,227 invoice lines and $1.68M spend — far more than Type M or K. Only materials lines, priced per foot.
- Filtered out: credits, excluded lines, duplicate invoices, quarantined documents, and orgs not price sources. About 1,000 lines used.
- Price: monthly median, not volume-weighted, so a single large order doesn't pull the average.
- Copper: IMF/FRED PCOPPUSDM, monthly average global price, $/metric ton → $/lb. FRED through Sep 2026 only.
- Weight: nominal 0.455 lb/ft, ASTM B88. Actual mill weights vary a few percent.
- Caveats: benchmark is Grade A cathode, not US mill basis; no Midwest premium or tariff; almost no pipe data before Jun 2025.
What this means
Spring 2025 budgets are about 15% low on this item already, and copper up another leg since then is not yet fully in pipe. Distributor price lists update in steps, so the risk is timing — a March bid built with March copper can get the April or July list.
Bottom Line
From Jul 2025 to Sep 2026, copper +48%, 3/4" Type L pipe +15.5%. Pipe follows copper with roughly a quarter lag and about 60% of the copper move has passed through. Non-copper margin compressed and now, if it reverts at today's copper, arithmetic is ~$4.70–$4.75/ft — again, not a forecast, just what reverting would mean.
Last verified: November 9, 2026