Lumber & Panel Price Tracker
Price trends for the wood that frames and sheathes the job — softwood framing lumber, plywood, and OSB — with 30-day and year-over-year change, a simple outlook, and a translation into the units you actually buy: a 2×4 stud and a 4×8 sheet. Sourced from free government data (BLS Producer Price Indices via FRED).
Price History & Outlook
Solid = stored history · dashed = trend outlook (not a guarantee)
Framing Lumber · index · source: BLS PPI via FRED · latest 2026-06-01
What this means on the job
Wood price indices translated into the units you buy. These are rough estimates — each unit is scaled from an anchor price by how far its index has moved, directional, not quotes.
Data & forecast notes
- Sources: all series are Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Indices, pulled from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) API — softwood lumber, plywood, and the reconstituted-wood (OSB) industry index. Each is monthly with a 1–2 month publication lag.
- These are indices, not dollar prices — they show the relative trend of producer wood prices (1982 = 100, except the OSB industry index), not a $/unit figure. There is no free government $/board-foot or $/sheet feed.
- The outlook is an extrapolation, not a guarantee — a simple trend projection from recent history, for planning context only. Lumber is famously volatile, so treat the direction loosely.
- Per-stud and per-sheet costs are estimates anchored to a recent retail price and scaled by the index. Verify against real quotes before relying on them.
- This page is informational and not financial or purchasing advice.
Frequently asked questions
Where does this lumber price data come from?
All the series here are Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Indices — softwood (framing) lumber, plywood, the reconstituted-wood industry index that covers OSB, and a broad lumber-and-wood index — pulled from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) API by a daily job into our own database. Each index is monthly and typically publishes 1–2 months behind, so the latest point can lag the current market by several weeks. It is a trend read, not a live ticker.
Why is lumber shown as an index instead of a price per board foot?
There is no free government feed for dollars per thousand board feet or per sheet — published cash-market prices (Random Lengths and similar) are paid subscriptions. A Producer Price Index tracks how far producer selling prices have moved relative to a base year (1982 = 100 for most of these series), so it shows direction and magnitude, not a dollar figure. The per-stud and per-sheet tiles convert the index to dollars by anchoring it to a recent retail price and scaling — those are directional estimates, not quotes.
Why doesn’t this match lumber futures or what my yard charges?
Three different animals. CME lumber futures are a contract price for a specific mill product delivered later — they swing hardest and move first. The PPI here measures what producers across the category actually sell for — it smooths and lags the futures. And your yard price adds freight, handling, and margin on top of mill cost, and typically moves weeks after the mill does. This page tells you which way wood is going; your yard tells you what a stud costs today.
Why do lumber prices spike so hard?
Sawmill capacity is fixed in the short term, so when demand jumps — a hot housing market, rebuilding after a storm season — prices ration the supply instead of production ramping up. Add duties on Canadian softwood and mill curtailments, and you get spikes like 2021, when futures roughly quadrupled before collapsing. The same mechanics run in reverse when demand cools. That volatility is exactly why the trend is worth checking before you hold framing pricing for 90 days.
How should I use this in a framing bid?
Check the 30-day and year-over-year change before deciding how long your number stands. In a rising market, shorten quote validity, get the lumber package priced and held by your supplier, or carry an escalation clause tied to delivered cost. The outlook on the chart is a simple trend extrapolation — lumber is volatile enough that it should inform how much protection you carry, not what price you plug in.