How Much Does Aluminum Cost?

Updated on September 28, 2026 | Written by Alec Pow
This article was researched using 10 sources. See our methodology and corrections policy.

Aluminum costs about $1.47 per pound at the raw global commodity level in late September 2026, but that is not the price most U.S. buyers actually pay. Adding the U.S. Midwest physical premium puts primary aluminum near $2.56 per pound before fabrication, freight, cutting, and distributor markup. Finished 6061 aluminum sheet can run roughly $4.20 to $7.00+ per pound, while scrap aluminum commonly brings anywhere from about $0.20 to $1.25+ per pound depending on its alloy, cleanliness, and form.

That enormous spread explains why asking “How much does aluminum cost per pound?” does not have one universal answer. An aluminum beverage can being sold to a scrapyard, primary metal traded against the London Metal Exchange benchmark, and a precision-cut piece of 6061-T6 sheet are all aluminum, but they are very different products in very different markets.

Article Highlights

• The late-September 2026 global aluminum benchmark is approximately $1.47 per pound.
• U.S. buyers also face a large regional premium, putting an illustrative primary-metal cost near $2.56 per pound before fabrication and distribution.
• Finished 6061 sheet commonly costs several dollars per pound rather than merely the commodity value of the metal.
• Aluminum cans average roughly $0.60 to $0.65 per pound in recent national scrapyard datasets, although individual yards can pay substantially more or less.
• Clean, sorted aluminum scrap is generally worth more than painted, mixed, iron-contaminated, or attached material.

How Much Does Aluminum Cost?

For a raw-metal benchmark, the September 25 official cash price for aluminum was $3,240 (at $30 per hour, earning that amount would take about 2.7 full-time workweeks, before taxes) per metric ton. Since one metric ton equals about 2,204.6 pounds, the conversion works out to approximately:

$3,240 ÷ 2,204.6 = $1.47 per pound

This is the number that comes closest to answering what aluminum itself is worth on the global commodity market. It is not a quote for a sheet, extrusion, wheel, can, coil, fabricated part, or even necessarily a pound of primary aluminum delivered to a U.S. factory.

U.S. physical aluminum carries an additional Midwest premium. In September 2026, the reported premium was around $1.09 per pound. Combining that with a $1.47 global metal benchmark gives an illustrative total of roughly $2.56 per pound before alloying, rolling, extrusion, fabrication, distributor costs, freight, and other charges.

Type of aluminum	Approximate cost or value per lb
Global primary aluminum benchmark	$1.47
Illustrative U.S. primary metal plus Midwest premium	$2.56
6061-T6 distributor-volume sheet	$4.20 to $5.10
Some 6061 sheet sizes and purchasing conditions	$5.99 to $7.27
Common aluminum scrap grades	$0.20 to $1.25+

The important distinction is that commodity aluminum establishes the metal-value foundation. Buyers of usable products pay for considerably more than the aluminum atoms themselves.

Finished Aluminum Costs

Someone purchasing aluminum for construction, machining, manufacturing, repairs, or fabrication should not budget around the $1.47-per-pound commodity benchmark.

A September 2026 market estimate placed 0.08-inch 6061-T6 aluminum sheet at about $4.20 to $5.10 per pound at distributor-volume quantities. Smaller purchases, specialty alloys, precision dimensions, protective film, cutting, certification, shipping, and retail markup can push the effective price higher.

This price gap is similar to what buyers encounter with other manufactured metals. The commodity is only one input into the eventual metal fabrication cost.

For perspective, buying 100 pounds of aluminum sheet at $4.20 to $5.10 per pound would cost around $420 to $510 (about 1.8 to 2.1 full-time workdays at $30 per hour) before tax or delivery. At earnings of $30 per hour, that is equivalent to roughly 14 to 17 hours of work.

Aluminum Scrap Prices

Scrap aluminum should never be priced using the LME quote alone. Scrap yards pay according to the material they can recover and resell, minus sorting, processing, contamination, transportation, and operating costs.

Recent U.S. yard data puts common aluminum scrap in roughly these ranges:

Scrap type	Typical recent value
Aluminum cans	About $0.60 to $0.75/lb
Clean aluminum sheet	About $0.60 to $0.70/lb
Cast aluminum	About $0.55 to $0.90/lb
6061 structural aluminum	About $0.75 to $0.80/lb
Clean 6063 extrusion	About $1.00 to $1.25/lb
Clean electrical aluminum wire	About $1.10 to $1.45/lb
Mixed turnings	About $0.25 to $0.55/lb
Contaminated breakage	About $0.20 to $0.50/lb

For beverage cans specifically, September 2026 yard reports produced a national average around $0.63 per pound, with individual reported prices ranging from approximately $0.42 to $0.95 per pound.

Another recent dataset showed clean sheet near $0.64 per pound, while higher-value sorted extrusion and wire grades exceeded $1 per pound.

That variation is normal. A local recycler is buying a particular grade from you, not “aluminum” in the abstract.

What Raises Scrap Value?

The cleaner and easier aluminum is to process, the more valuable it generally becomes. Alloy separation also matters. The aluminum recycling industry notes that scrap separated by composition maintains greater value than mixtures containing different alloys and contaminants.

Before selling scrap, separate aluminum from steel screws, iron brackets, rubber, plastic, wood, insulation, and other attached materials where doing so is practical and safe. Keep identifiable alloys or product types apart instead of throwing everything into one mixed load.

Volume matters too. A recycler bringing thousands of pounds of consistent commercial scrap may negotiate differently from a homeowner arriving with a small bag of cans.

For 100 pounds of beverage cans at $0.63 per pound, the payout would be roughly $63 (about 2.1 hours of work at $30 per hour). The same 100-pound load valued as clean 6063 extrusion at around $1.20 per pound could be worth about $120. Identifying the material correctly can therefore matter as much as watching daily commodity prices.

Historical Aluminum Prices

Aluminum prices change enough that a figure from several years ago can quickly become misleading. The U.S. Geological Survey’s annual aluminum data provides a more consistent historical comparison than mixing isolated daily spot quotes.

Year	Average U.S. market spot ingot price
2025	$1.80/lb
2024	$1.30/lb
2023	$1.26/lb
2022	$1.53/lb
2021	$1.39/lb

These are annual U.S. market averages, not scrap-yard payouts or retail sheet prices. Their usefulness is in showing the broad direction and volatility of the market using one consistent measure.

Why Aluminum Prices Move

Global supply and demand: Aluminum is heavily used in transportation, packaging, construction, electrical equipment, machinery, aerospace, and other industries. Changes in manufacturing activity can therefore alter demand quickly.

Electricity: Producing primary aluminum requires huge amounts of power. The smelting process relies heavily on electricity, which makes power availability and long-term energy costs important to smelter economics.

Recycling: Secondary aluminum has a very different energy profile. Industry estimates indicate that recycling aluminum uses about 95% less energy than making primary aluminum. That is one reason scrap represents such an important part of the overall supply chain.

Transportation: Metal is heavy and frequently travels between smelters, rolling mills, extrusion plants, warehouses, fabricators, and buyers. Freight costs become part of the delivered price even when the underlying metal quote does not move.

Regional premiums: The United States has its own physical-market premium above the international benchmark. This can create a surprisingly large difference between an LME quote and what an American manufacturer pays.

Trade policy: U.S. aluminum pricing in 2026 is also affected by Section 232 tariffs. Federal actions during the year established different tariff rates for covered aluminum and derivative products, including high additional duties on many imports. Product classifications and exceptions matter, so businesses importing metal need the applicable tariff treatment rather than assuming one percentage applies to every aluminum product.

The Hidden Price

The hidden cost of aluminum is the difference between the quoted metal value and the usable material arriving at your shop.

A buyer who sees aluminum at $1.47 per pound might assume that 100 pounds should cost roughly $147. In practice, purchasing 100 pounds of fabricated 6061 material could cost several hundred dollars because the invoice may incorporate the regional premium, alloy conversion, rolling or extrusion, cutting, warehousing, packaging, freight, minimum-order charges, and seller margin.

Small orders often suffer most. A supplier still has to pull the material, cut it, package it, process the transaction, and ship it whether you purchase 10 pounds or 10,000 pounds.

Scrap sellers face the reverse effect. A pound of primary aluminum may carry a metal value well above $1, yet a scrapyard cannot necessarily pay that amount for mixed scrap because it must sort, process, transport, melt, and eventually resell the recovered material.

How To Pay Less

Buyers can often reduce their aluminum cost without trying to predict commodity markets.

• Compare price per pound. Two sheets with very different sticker prices may have similar normalized material costs.
• Buy standard dimensions. Custom cuts and unusual sizes usually add processing cost.
• Increase order quantity. Distributor-volume pricing can be much lower than small-order retail pricing.
• Choose the right alloy. Do not pay for aerospace or high-strength specifications when a less expensive alloy satisfies the application.
• Compare delivered prices. A cheaper piece of metal can become the more expensive option after freight and cutting charges.
• Ask about remnants. Fabricators and metal suppliers may discount usable offcuts when exact dimensions are unimportant.

If aluminum is only one part of a custom project, the metal itself can represent a surprisingly small fraction of the final price once cutting, welding, forming, machining, and finishing are included.

Getting More For Scrap

For sellers, the biggest practical improvement is usually sorting rather than trying to time the commodity market.

Call several yards and describe the material precisely. “Clean 6063 extrusion” gives a buyer much more useful information than “aluminum.” Ask whether the posted price requires a minimum quantity and whether contamination changes the grade.

Remove obvious steel attachments when economical, separate cans from sheet and extrusion, and avoid mixing clean material with heavily contaminated pieces. A magnet can help identify ferrous attachments, although it cannot tell you which aluminum alloy you have.

The economics are similar to other materials such as pyrite and mineral specimens: composition, condition, quantity, and the buyer’s intended use can cause the sale value to differ significantly from a headline commodity price.

What We Verified

For this price check, global raw-aluminum pricing was compared with the London Metal Exchange’s September 2026 reference data. U.S. physical-market premiums were checked against recent market reporting. Scrap values were compared across recent U.S. yard datasets rather than treating a commodity quote as a scrapyard payout.

Historical U.S. prices, domestic production, recycling, consumption, and import dependence were checked against U.S. Geological Survey data. Energy claims were narrowed to figures supported by aluminum-industry and smelting data. U.S. tariff language was checked against the applicable federal actions rather than relying on older trade-policy descriptions.

The resulting ranges should still be treated as market benchmarks rather than guaranteed quotes. Aluminum changes price frequently, and scrap-yard payouts, distributor quotes, freight, quantity, alloy, dimensions, and location can move the amount you actually pay or receive.

Answers to Common Questions

How much is aluminum worth per pound?
At the raw global commodity level, aluminum was about $1.47 per pound in late September 2026. U.S. physical primary aluminum can cost substantially more after the Midwest premium is added.

How much is scrap aluminum worth per pound?
Many common aluminum scrap grades bring approximately $0.20 to $1.25+ per pound. Beverage cans are commonly around $0.60 to $0.75 per pound, while clean wire and high-value extrusion can bring more.

How much are aluminum cans worth?
Recent national scrapyard data puts aluminum cans at roughly $0.63 per pound on average, although individual reported yard prices vary substantially.

Why does aluminum sheet cost more than the aluminum spot price?
Sheet pricing includes the raw metal plus regional premiums, alloying, rolling, heat treatment, finishing, warehousing, cutting, distribution, freight, and seller margin. Finished 6061 sheet can therefore cost several times the raw commodity benchmark.

Is aluminum more valuable when it is clean?
Usually, yes. Clean and correctly separated aluminum requires less sorting and processing, allowing recyclers to pay more than they would for mixed or contaminated material.

Is aluminum worth more than steel scrap?
Aluminum generally commands a higher price per pound than ordinary ferrous scrap, but actual values depend on grade and local markets. Anyone sorting scrap may also find a metal detector useful for some identification tasks, although alloy identification requires more specialized equipment.