StogieSpy Research
We track every price we can find, every day, and keep the history. Most of what gets written about cigar pricing is assertion. This is what the numbers say when you go and count them.
A three-part series · July 2026
A hand-rolled robusto leaves the factory for a couple of dollars and reaches a shelf in Denver at twenty. We priced every layer in between — the leaf, the rollers, the five years of aging, the excise tax — and ranked them by how much they take.
Every premium cigar brand in America combined spent $2.2 million on tracked advertising across five and a half years. Retailers outspent them sixteen to one. We followed the money to the trade show floor and found the rate card.
We measured what singles, 5-packs, and boxes actually cost across 83 retailers, then worked out whether you should be buying cigars today to smoke in five years. One answer argues against what a price comparison site is supposed to tell you.
How this research works
Every figure in these articles is either sourced to a named publication or measured from our own catalog. We label which is which, and we publish the method alongside the number.
Price claims come from live retailer data with the sample size and filters stated. Where we modelled something rather than measured it, the article says so in the same breath.
Every comparison uses total landed cost per cigar — box price plus quoted shipping, divided by count. A cheap box with $28 freight is not a cheap box.
We earn commissions on some purchases. It does not affect which retailer we show as cheapest, and the ranking logic is the same whether or not a link pays.