Because we publish a website to help aspiring musicians choose a guitar, we get a lot of questions about guitar pricing.  Because we too are always trying to figure out how to get the best deal possible (why do you think Fretbase pays its expenses using an Amazon Credit Card?), we thought it might be useful to explain some of the key terms related to guitar pricing and how we incorporate that terminology into Fretbase.  We’ll work our way down from the biggest numbers to the smallest.  For our examples, we’ll take a look at the Epiphone Casino – consistently one of the most popular guitars on Fretbase.

Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)

This is the “official” retail price of the guitar.  More specifically, this is the price that manufacturers set as the price that retailers list as the MSRP of the guitar.  As you can see on Musician’s Friend, the MSRP of an Epiphone Casino is $1,042.  Let me cut to the chase on MSRP.  Nobody – and I mean nobody – should ever pay MSRP for a guitar because nobody even sells new guitars at this price.  If you are the type of person that insists on paying MSRP for a guitar, please contact me here at Fretbase so I can set up a private garage sale for you.

Minimum Advertised Price (or Street Price)

Because guitar retailers would often advertise highly discounted prices to compete for customers and because manufacturers want to keep prices as high as possible, manufacturers started requiring their retailers to sell their guitars with “Minimum Advertised Price.”  This is sometimes referred to as MAP.  At Fretbase, we refer to this as the “Street Price” of the guitar because that is the price you actually see on the street.  As you can see at Guitar Center, the Street Price of the Epiphone Casino is $599 (a whopping $443 less than the MSRP).  MAP is usually at least 30% less than the MSRP for a guitar and all retailers will usually be willing to sell a guitar at MAP.

The thing to know about MAP is that this is the minimum price that a retailer can *advertise* a guitar for sale.  Retailers are free to sell guitars cheaper than MAP.  Many guitar retailers like My Favorite Guitars and Maury’s Music will encourage you to contact them directly for their best price.  They do this because they can’t list their lowest price on their website.  But they will share it quickly if you call or e-mail them.

The Price You Pay

The price you ultimately pay for a guitar is the price that you and the retailer agree on.  In our experience, retailers will usually be willing to negotiate a price that is somewhere between 10-15% off of the Minimum Advertised Price.  This is not always the case but it is often true that this can be negotiated in the store.  In other words, we’d expect you to be able to get an Epiphone Casino in a store for $550 or less.  And the online retailers will usually offer coupon codes to get you a similar discount.  So in short, when you are looking for a new guitar you should be able to pay 10% less than the Minimum Advertised Price or Street Price.

A Note About Custom Guitars

With guitarists developing more specific tastes, lately there has been a proliferation of custom guitars.  Because retailers don’t compete on custom guitars and also because they are a little more expensive to make (since an assembly-line type manufacture can’t be deployed), custom guitars are generally about 15-25% more expensive than an equivalent non-custom model.  They can also be more difficult to sell used.  For this reason, we recommend custom guitars only (a) when the customization is one that you can’t live without and (b) when the custom is part of a larger run that allows you to get the guitar at a price that is in the ballpark of a similar stock model.

We hope that price will never get in the way of the guitar of your dreams.

If you still have any questions about guitar pricing, please let us know in the comments.