There isn't one number. There's a benchmark, a grade-based discount off it, and regional adjustments on top, three layers stacked together, which is exactly why the same material can get two genuinely different, both honest, quotes on the same day.
Refined primary metal trades on global exchanges, the London Metal Exchange for copper and aluminium, and that price is the starting reference point every scrap quote works down from, even though scrap itself isn't traded there directly.
Scrap trades at a discount to the refined benchmark, and how large that discount is depends entirely on purity and contamination. Bare bright copper wire sits close to the benchmark; mixed, insulated, or painted material sits well below it.
Local demand, freight cost to the nearest buyer or export port, and AUD conversion all shift the number a specific seller is actually quoted, even for identical material graded the same way.
The London Metal Exchange is the reference point most of the world's copper and aluminium pricing ultimately traces back to, refined metal trades there in US dollars per tonne, and that figure becomes the anchor everyone downstream, mills, processors, yards, works from. Copper is also commonly referenced against COMEX, the US futures exchange, which trades in cents per pound rather than dollars per tonne, one reason copper prices you see quoted can look inconsistent between sources until you check which exchange and unit they're actually using.
Steel doesn't have an equivalent single global benchmark the way copper and aluminium do, it's priced far more regionally, driven by whichever mills are actively buying nearby and how urgently they need feedstock. That's a genuine structural difference, not an oversight, steel scrap moves in bulk to local furnaces far more often than it crosses oceans the way high-value copper often does.
Most sellers who get two different quotes assume one buyer is lowballing them. Usually the real explanation is simpler: grading isn't a perfectly objective science, and purity, contamination, or form can reasonably be read two different ways by two different people, that read is the biggest single input into the discount applied off the benchmark price.
That's not an argument for distrust, it's an argument for getting more than one assessment before treating a single quote as the market price. A structured listing that multiple verified buyers can see and bid on solves this directly, instead of one grading call, you get several, and the discrepancy between them becomes visible instead of hidden.
Understanding these three layers changes the shape of a negotiation. Instead of asking "is this a fair price," which invites a vague, hard-to-challenge answer, you can ask specifically what grade the buyer is assessing your material as, and whether that assessment matches what a live reference price would suggest for that grade. That's a concrete, checkable question a buyer has to answer directly, not a general one they can deflect.
It also reframes what a "better price" from a second buyer really means. It's rarely that the first buyer was dishonest, it's more often that their grading assessment or their regional cost structure differed. Knowing that going in means you can ask a second buyer to explain the difference rather than simply assuming one of the two is wrong, and it's exactly the reasoning behind listing material where multiple buyers can assess and bid on it directly.
This page explains the general mechanics behind any scrap price, benchmark plus grade plus region. For ScrapTrade's own live, transparent reference point built on top of that same logic, see the ScrapTrade Price Index, or check today's actual numbers directly on the calculator.
The London Metal Exchange is where refined copper, aluminium, and several other metals trade globally in US dollars per tonne, setting the world reference price. An Australian buyer converts that figure to AUD, applies a grade-specific discount for scrap versus refined metal, then adjusts for local freight and demand, three separate steps between the number on a screen in London and the number quoted at an Australian yard.
Almost always a grading difference, not dishonesty. One buyer's visual assessment of purity or contamination can differ from another's, and that assessment is what the discount off the benchmark price is actually based on.
No, and expecting one is the most common source of frustration for new sellers. There's a benchmark for refined metal, then a grade-specific discount, then regional and buyer-specific adjustments on top. The number that actually applies to your load is the product of all three, not a single published figure.
Directionally, yes, materials like copper and aluminium move with global benchmarks converted to AUD. Locally, freight cost to a buyer or export port and regional demand (a nearby EAF mill needing steel scrap, for instance) add a layer global benchmarks alone don't capture.
Directly, and it's easy to overlook. Since global benchmarks are quoted in US dollars, a weaker Australian dollar makes the same USD benchmark price translate to a higher AUD number, and a stronger AUD does the reverse, independent of anything happening to the metal itself. A seller checking a reference price today and comparing it to one from months ago should account for currency movement, not just the metal's own price change.
It comes down to how the metal is reprocessed. Copper's insulation has to be stripped before clean remelting, which is genuine added cost passed back as a lower price. Steel is comparatively forgiving of paint and minor contamination during processing, so its grade-based discounts are usually smaller.
Check a live reference price before accepting any single quote, and where possible, get more than one buyer looking at the same material. ScrapTrade's calculator gives a current reference point, and listing lets multiple verified buyers assess and bid on the same load rather than relying on one grading call.
Metal is a globally traded commodity, and commodity prices respond quickly to shifts in industrial demand, currency movements, and supply disruptions in a way retail pricing generally doesn't. A single mine closure, a policy change, or a demand surge from a growing industry like EAF steelmaking can move prices meaningfully within weeks, not years.
Indirectly, through construction and manufacturing activity cycles rather than a fixed seasonal pattern. Periods of higher building activity tend to lift demand for structural steel and related materials, but unlike agricultural commodities, there's no reliable calendar-based pattern to plan around specifically.
Rarely worth it for most sellers, timing a commodity market is notoriously hard even for professional traders, and storage, security, and the risk of price movement in the wrong direction usually outweigh any potential gain from waiting. Selling once you have a solid reference point for a fair price is usually the more reliable approach than trying to predict where the market goes next.
For a business with recurring volume, checking before each significant sale is reasonable practice, prices can move meaningfully within weeks for volatile materials like copper. For an occasional seller, checking immediately before a sale is generally sufficient, since older data loses relevance quickly in a fast-moving commodity market.
List once and let verified buyers grade and bid on your material directly.
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