Gibson Les Paul Price Guide (updated March, 2023)

Gibson Les Paul electrics are not particularly cheap, though models like the Junior and Studio have given buyers a broader price range to work with. The Epiphone Les Pauls are primarily the economy line, but note that Epiphones are not listed in this price guide. We're focusing entirely on Gibson Les Pauls.

We've included as many as possible from popular retailers, including various colors and versions of any one Les Paul that are available.

Price range was set to $1000 all the way up to $10000.

These prices update in real time and include the following vendors:

• Sweetwater
• Guitar Center
• Musician's Friend
• ZZounds
• Samash

While we often include products from Amazon and Walmart in our price guides, neither retailer carries Gibson products.

Price changes will sometimes happen in groups, though it depends on a number of factors that can't really be predicted. Most of the Gibson Les Pauls are very long-standing models and have been around for decades, which makes a change in price, particularly a decrease, more unlikely. 

But if anything changes, this page will track it. If you have questions, feel free to jump into the comments section below.

Gibson Les Paul Price Comparison from Multiple Retailers

As a reminder, the table is sorted by price going low to high, with a the vendor logo and title also displayed. You can checkout photos and the product page for any Gibson Les Paul by clicking on the orange Browse button.

Price Alert

If you're looking for a particular price, you can add it here to the alert tool and it will email you when any of the guitar's in this list reach that price. It can be between the price of two guitars, though it typically works best when you're looking for a lowest price overall for a single product.

We aren't yet able to structure these pages to show price alerts for individual products, but that's something we're working on for future versions.

Price History for Lowest Priced Gibson Les Paul (from above list)

Again, we can't yet separate price history among particular products within a list. We would need a separate table for each product, which would be a lot more annoying for you to sift through. Instead, this graph charts the lowest price Gibson Les Paul overall, which many of you might be interested in anyway. It also gives you a general idea of which direction the Gibson market is moving.

How do I find Gibson Les Paul prices?

Browsing major retailers is the simplest way to find Gibson Les Paul pricing. On most major retail websites you can sort by brand and then even by body types within that brand.

This will at least give you a rough estimate of what you can expect to pay and which Les Paul version you need to target.

For example, the Les Paul Custom is going to be way more expensive than the Les Paul Studio.

A brief look around Sweetwater or Musician's Friend will help you start making those distinctions.

Then, every time you see a Les Paul Custom you'll know more of what to expect.

You can also check used markets like Reverb and eBay. But keep in mind, those prices will change more and will depend on a number of factors, primarily the following:

Used Gibson Les Paul Price Factors

• Year version (2017, 2018, etc.)
• Condition of the guitar (acceptable, good, mint, etc.)
• Mindset of the seller (just want to get rid of it, trying to turn a profit, etc.)
• Inventory/rarity: How many of the guitar you're looking for are available on the used market?
• Demand: How many people are looking for this particular guitar?

New Gibson Les Paul Price Factors

All of these factors impact the used market a lot. And some of them even impact the new Les Pauls. Here are the new model price factors to keep in mind:

• Commodity costs: Price of tonewood, metals, and electrical components can change
• Timing of new versions: New year Les Paul models will be more expensive and old year models will go down in price before they're replaced
• Types of pickups used: Pickup type and quality contribute significantly to the price of Les Pauls
• Amount and detail of body carving
• Quality of tonewood
• Inventory (same as used market)
• Demand (same as used market)
• Retailer and manufacturer profit margin

Gibson Les Paul price points will make a lot more sense when you know which factors to pay attention to. Every price, price difference, and price movement happens for a reason.

The best way to find pricing for these guitars is to just browse and pay close attention to the aforementioned factors.

What are the best Gibson Les Pauls?

Our favorite Gibson Les Paul to recommend is the Studio model, which you can read more about in the following article:

Read more: Best Gibson Les Paul overall

It's important to understand that when we recommend a best option of any particular product within a category, we are basing that on several factors, primarily the following:

• Lowest possible price
• Highest possible quality
• As many high-dollar features as possible
• Personal experience
• The product that would be most ideal for the largest number of people

In short, we're looking for value, where value is defined as the intersection of the lowest possible price with the highest possible level of quality.

Value is defined as the intersection of the lowest possible price with the highest possible level of quality.

This means that the best of any one product category is not going to simply be the most expensive. If it were, finding it would be easy. The most expensive is the highest quality option, but usually comes with a prohibitive price tag.

Value and the Les Paul Studio

So getting back to the Gibson Les Paul Studio:

The Studio satisfies all of the requirements listed and is what we would consider the highest value Gibson Les Paul that will be the most ideal option for the largest number of people.

Hopefully all that makes sense.

Live List of the Top Gibson Les Pauls Based on Customer Rating

If you'd like to see what the community has to say, these are some of the currently highest-rated Gibson Les Paul models based on buyer reviews.

Which features are the most important?

Now we can get into more specific features that are important when it comes to the Gibson Les Paul. This includes a lot of what we mentioned in the above tables, but we'll add some more detail here and re-list the others for people that have skimmed to this section.

• Humbucker type/brand/quality
• Humbucker arrangement (usually dual humbuckers but not always)
• Tone, volume, and pickup switching arrangement
• Tonewood species/quality
• Body design (solid, semi-hollow, hollow)
• Body carving
• Type of finish
• Hardware quality
• Interior electronics quality

Among this list, pickups, body carving, and tonewood type play the biggest role in determining cost. Pay particularly close attention to those as you shop.

How are these prices determined?

Prices are set by the manufacturer based on what it costs to build a Gibson Les Paul. From there, the resellers that have agreements with Gibson will set their price point based on MSRP and/or a recommended price from the manufacturer.

That resell price is what you end up paying as the consumer. 

But at the end of the day it's quality that has the final say in what a Gibson Les Paul costs. Since they meet a high quality standard, they're also prone to meet high prices.

As always, you get what you pay for.

Questions and Comments

Do you have questions or thoughts about our Gibson Les Paul price guide? If so, feel free to jump in via the comments section below and we'll help out as much as possible.

We'll see you there.

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