Copper Price Today
The live copper price is shown below per pound, the unit copper is traded in, along with per-gram and per-kilo conversions. Copper updates in real time while you watch. To value a specific weight of copper, use the free value calculator.
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Indicative price, may be delayed. Dealers buy and sell at a premium or discount. Not financial advice.
Why copper is quoted per pound
Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium are priced per troy ounce because they are valuable in tiny quantities. Copper is different. It is an industrial base metal used by the ton in wiring, plumbing, motors, and construction, so it is quoted per pound on the COMEX exchange in the United States rather than per ounce. The price above is the exchange benchmark for copper, indicative and possibly delayed. Since copper is worth far less per unit than the precious metals, the per-pound figure is the practical way people buy, sell, and weigh it.
Scrap copper grades
Copper does not all sell for the same amount. Scrap yards sort it into grades by how clean and pure it is, and each grade is priced as a percentage below the COMEX price. The cleaner the copper, the closer it sits to the exchange price; the dirtier or more mixed it is, the larger the discount, because the buyer has to account for contamination, labor to process it, and recoverable metal. Common grades include:
- Bare bright: clean, uncoated, shiny copper wire, the highest grade and the closest to the exchange price.
- #1 copper: clean tubing, bus bar, and heavy wire, free of solder, paint, and fittings.
- #2 copper: dirtier copper with some oxidation, paint, solder, or attached fittings, so it is discounted more.
- Insulated wire: copper still inside its plastic or rubber jacket, paid on the recoverable copper content rather than gross weight.
The exact percentage each yard pays for each grade varies by yard, region, and day, so ask your buyer for their current posted prices rather than assuming a fixed discount.
A worked example
Say you have 10 pounds of copper. At the snapshot price baked into this site as of 2026-07-22, $6.27 per pound, the exchange value works out to:
10 lb × $6.27 per lb = $62.70 at the exchange price.
That $62.70 is the COMEX benchmark value, not what a scrap yard would hand you. A yard pays a percentage below the exchange price that depends on the grade, so bare bright would fetch more of that $62.70 than #2 or insulated wire. Use the live figure at the top of this page for a current number, and drop your own weight into the calculator to see the exchange value instantly.
Prices here are indicative, may be briefly delayed, and are not an offer to buy or sell. Scrap buyers pay below the exchange price. Nothing on this page is financial advice.