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Pumpkin Spice-flation? Prices for Starbucks’ Famous Latte Have Doubled Over the Years
By Adam Hardy MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
A hot, 16-ounce pumpkin spice latte costs about $6.50 this fall. That’s the same price as last year — but a huge jump from the original PSL price.
With baristas already slinging pumpkin spice lattes as of Tuesday, Starbucks has ushered in the unofficial start of autumn a month early.
This year brings some good news for inflation-weary Americans. A hot, 16-ounce — that’s “grande” in Starbucks lingo — pumpkin spice latte costs about $6.50 in 2025, according to average menu prices across several U.S. cities. That’s the same price as last year.
Since the drink’s inception more than two decades ago, however, the cost has nearly doubled.
Starbucks’ pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove-infused latte has rocketed in popularity, spurring copycats, candles and offshoots like pumpkin cream cold brew and pumpkin-flavored chai. The drink has also sparked a lot of backlash, becoming a lightning rod of public disdain over seasonal creep, overconsumption and capitalism in general.
“I will be subject to its tyranny no longer,” Last Week Tonight host John Oliver proclaimed in a 2014 tirade against the flavor. “It stops here.”
Except it didn’t. Eleven years later, the pumpkin spice latte lives on. Actually, it’s thriving.
The PSL, as fans refer to the drink, remains Starbucks’ most popular seasonal beverage, according to the coffee chain. And Starbucks relies on it to get people in the door: Visits to the store spiked 24% the day PSL launched last year, according to the business-intelligence firm Placer.ai. And foot traffic stayed elevated the remainder of the week.
More broadly, Starbucks has begun to rely on major seasonal menu launches, saying that about 10% of annual sales come from seasonal items.
But will price-conscious Americans be willing to shell out over $6 for the (in)famous latte again this year?
Pumpkin spice latte prices over the years
Money charted the cost of the PSL over the past two decades, finding that as the drink’s popularity exploded, so did its price.
While the pumpkin spice latte was created in 2003, it wasn’t released nationally until the following year.
Money’s earliest price estimate begins in 2005, when a hot, grande PSL cost $3.35.
Since 2005, Money estimates, the cost of that same autumn latte has risen approximately 94%, far outpacing inflation. By contrast, overall prices have increased 62.5% from fall 2005 to today. Over that same period, roasted coffee prices grew 68.5%.
Here’s a closer look at prices for hot, grande-sized PSLs.
Year | Typical PSL price |
|---|---|
2005 | $3.35 |
2006 | $3.53 |
2007 | $3.71 |
2008 | $3.89 |
2009 | $4.07 |
2010 | $4.25 |
2011 | $4.50 |
2012 | $4.50 |
2013 | $4.55 |
2014 | $4.75 |
2015 | $4.75 |
2016 | $5.25 |
2017 | $5.25 |
2018 | $5.25 |
2019 | $5.45 |
2020 | $5.65 |
2021 | $5.72 |
2022 | $5.95 |
2023 | $6.25 |
2024 | $6.50 |
2025 | $6.50 |
Price estimates are based on two dozen sources, from archived news stories to customer receipts, reviews and Starbucks menu prices across various cities.
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Adam Hardy is Money's lead data journalist. He writes news and feature stories aimed at helping everyday people manage their finances. He joined Money full-time in 2021 but has covered personal finance and economic topics since 2018. Previously, he worked for Forbes Advisor, The Penny Hoarder and Creative Loafing. In addition to those outlets, Adam’s work has been featured in a variety of local, national and international publications, including the Asia Times, Business Insider, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yahoo! Finance, Nasdaq and several others. Adam graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida, where he studied magazine journalism and sociology. As a first-generation college graduate from a low-income, single-parent household, Adam understands firsthand the financial barriers that plague low-income Americans. His reporting aims to illuminate these issues. Since joining Money, Adam has already written over 300 articles, including a cover story on financial surveillance, a profile of Director Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an investigation into flexible spending accounts, which found that workers forfeit billions of dollars annually through the workplace plans. He has also led data analysis on some of Money’s marquee rankings, including Best Places to Live, Best Places to Travel and Best Hospitals. He regularly contributes data reporting for Best Colleges, Best Banks and other lists as well. Adam also holds a multimedia storytelling certificate from Poynter’s News University and a data journalism certificate from the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) at the University of Missouri. In 2017, he received an English teaching certification from the University of Cambridge, which he utilized during his time in Seoul, South Korea. There, he taught students of all ages, from 5 to 65, and worked with North Korean refugees who were resettling in the area. Now, Adam lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida, with his pup Bambi. He is a card-carrying shuffleboard club member.