In August 2025 our catalog saved the price of every product in Thomann's partner feed. Since August 17, 2026 we have been recording the same feed every night. That gives us two snapshots of the same store about a year apart, so we lined them up.
29,744 products were on sale at Thomann in August 2025 and still are today. 1,628 of them are Harley Benton, the guitars, basses and gear Thomann sells under its own name. Of those, 866 got cheaper, 32 got more expensive and 730 kept their price, so on average the brand costs 4.4% less than it did in August 2025. Across the other 28,116 products the average move is 1.1% down: 9,094 cheaper, 5,728 pricier.
The cut was already in place on August 17, 2026, the day our nightly records start, and Harley Benton prices have barely moved since. When exactly it happened within that year, our data can't say.
Where Harley Benton got cheaper
Acoustic guitars took the biggest cut. Harley Benton's 223 acoustics cost 7.3% less on average, its 280 basses 5.8% less and its 730 electric guitars 4.2% less. Bass guitar sets fell the furthest: all 77 got cheaper, by 13% on average.
| Section | Models | Average change |
|---|---|---|
| Acoustic guitars | 223 | −7.3% |
| Electric basses | 280 | −5.8% |
| Electric guitars | 730 | −4.2% |
| Effects pedals | 92 | −2.0% |
| Ukuleles | 74 | −1.8% |
| Guitar amps | 52 | −1.0% |
The cuts reach the models people actually buy. The D-120VS, the highest-ranked Harley Benton dreadnought in our ranking, went from €106 to €89 ($100). The Custom Line CLD-15M went from €219 to €179, and the CST-24 in Purple Burst, the brand's top ST-style guitar in our chart, from €314 to €289. Not everything moved: the TE-20MN still costs €89 ($100), exactly what it did in August 2025.
The single biggest cut is the DNAfx GiT multi-effects pedal: €149 then, €98 ($110) now, a third off.
Only 32 Harley Benton prices went up. The biggest jump belongs to the left-handed MS-60LH set, from €179 to €229.
Squier went the other way
Squier, Fender's budget brand, is Harley Benton's most direct rival, and over the same period it moved in the opposite direction. Of 184 Squier models on sale in both snapshots, 127 got more expensive and 20 got cheaper, an average of 3.8% up.
The Affinity line rose the most: 36 of its 46 models went up, by 5.9% on average. The Affinity Jaguar went from €249 to €290 and the Affinity Jazz Bass from €245 to €282. Classic Vibe models rose 2.8% on average and Sonic models 2.6%, though a few Classic Vibes got cheaper: the Classic Vibe '70s Stratocaster HSS Hardtail in Mocha dropped from €469 to €377.
Fender itself barely moved. 235 Fender models got cheaper and 221 pricier, an average change of 0.3% up.
Epiphone looks cheaper, but there's a catch
On the same like-for-like listings, Epiphone is 5.1% cheaper: 42 models down, 1 up. Part of that is old stock being marked down before new versions arrive. The Thunderbird '64 bass in Inverness Green went from €799 in August to €499 in September, then disappeared from the catalog.
On October 14, Thomann listed 27 new Epiphones, among them updated versions of the ES-335, Casino, Riviera and Sheraton with rosewood fingerboards. They cost 28% to 39% more than the old versions, which are still on sale: the old ES-335 in Cherry is €499, the new one €679. The full comparison is in this week's new arrivals.
The rest of the store
Seymour Duncan pickups fell the most of any big brand: 440 of 457 are cheaper, by 14.6% on average. Cymbals went the other way and are 2.8% pricier as a whole. Istanbul Mehmet is up 9.3%, Istanbul Agop 6.1% and Meinl 2.7%, and even Zultan, Thomann's own cymbal brand, is 4.4% more expensive. So this isn't Thomann cutting all of its own brands at once: Millenium drums are 1.6% cheaper, the t.bone microphones 0.8%.
| Brand | Models | Cheaper | Pricier | Average change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seymour Duncan | 457 | 440 | 4 | −14.6% |
| Mooer | 218 | 120 | 0 | −9.9% |
| Behringer | 388 | 238 | 21 | −5.3% |
| Epiphone | 78 | 42 | 1 | −5.1% |
| Harley Benton | 1,628 | 866 | 32 | −4.4% |
| Gibson | 358 | 177 | 27 | −3.0% |
| Ibanez | 526 | 232 | 31 | −2.1% |
| Yamaha | 1,068 | 321 | 158 | −1.0% |
| Fender | 656 | 235 | 221 | +0.3% |
| Roland | 214 | 53 | 96 | +2.2% |
| Meinl | 473 | 74 | 342 | +2.7% |
| Squier | 184 | 20 | 127 | +3.8% |
| Zultan | 302 | 55 | 149 | +4.4% |
| Istanbul Mehmet | 171 | 4 | 167 | +9.3% |
What it means if you're shopping
If you were waiting for Harley Benton to get cheaper, it already did, and the new prices have held for two months. The Squier Affinity line costs 5.9% more on average than in August 2025, so the gap between the two brands is wider than it was. And if an Epiphone ES-335, Casino or Riviera is on your list, check the old listing before it sells out. On the ES-335, what the new version adds is a rosewood fingerboard, Grover tuners and a gig bag.
How we measured. Two sources: the August 6, 2025 snapshot of Thomann's partner feed stored in our catalog, and the same feed recorded every night since August 17, 2026. Only products that were in the 2025 snapshot and are still on sale count, 29,744 of them, and we compare their euro prices by Thomann article number. A product replaced by a new version under a new number (like the Epiphones above) isn't in the averages. Each model counts once, whatever it costs. Dollar prices are converted at the European Central Bank rate of October 16, 2026: $1.1253 per euro.
Denis Kataev runs AudioFu. Every night the site records the prices of more than 38,000 instruments and studio tools at Thomann, and he writes about what those numbers show: what got cheaper, what just arrived, and which discounts are real.
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