How closely do Coles and Woolworths price?

September 2026

Priced from the week of 2 Sep 2026 · 34 items × 7 capitals = 238 comparisons.

Updated 15 Sep 2026: the September figures were re-checked after we found that Woolworths member prices (a "Was $X" tag with no saving recorded) had been counted as regular prices. The shelf-price matching rate is unchanged at 47%. We now also publish a regular-price basis, which removes any comparison where either chain's price carried a recorded saving or a member-price tag that week, or was carried forward from another week's capture: 54% in September (108 of 200) against 57% in August. An earlier version of this note, published the same day, gave 53% (108 of 202): it still counted two pairs where one price had been carried forward from another week. The plain-language paragraph was rewritten on the same date.

By city

Items priced identically, out of 34, per capital. The regular-price columns count only the pairs where neither chain's price carried a recorded saving or a member-price tag that week, or was carried forward from another week, so they are counted out of fewer pairs.

By category

Identical rate and median price gap this month, and the cumulative rate over the 13 published months (September 2025 to September 2026).

Items

Over all 91 comparisons to date (13 months × 7 capitals), the items that matched in at least nine comparisons out of ten — and the items that have not matched once to date.

Items that have not matched to date, or rarely match, can differ by assortment rather than by pricing: where the two chains' cheapest qualifying products come in different pack sizes or brands (rolled oats, sausages, tomato pasta sauce, toilet paper), the line prices differ even when the unit prices are close. Fresh produce mismatches are like-for-like (loose bananas against loose bananas).

Direction

Where the two were not identical: how many lines each chain undercut the other on, and the median gap on those lines. August 2026 in brackets.

The 6 largest Woolworths undercuts this month (median gap across the capitals where Woolworths was cheaper): Washed potatoes $2.50 (2 capitals); Greek-style natural yoghurt $2.50 (1 capital); Brown onions $1.60 (4 capitals); Vanilla ice cream $1.45 (6 capitals); Chicken breast fillets† $1.00 (2 capitals); Tasty cheese block† $0.90 (7 capitals).

† Woolworths' price on this item carried a member price or a recorded saving in at least one of the capitals counted, so the gap is promotional rather than a difference in regular prices.

September 2026 in plain language

Archive

Every published month, newest first. Each month’s full report (Markdown) and its data (JSON) are the committed files this page renders from; the per-item prices every figure is counted from are the Basket Test CSVs.

A month is published only after its report passes every check in the repository and a second, independent count agrees with it; the archive never changes a published month silently — every re-run is dated on the page.

Method

• Same basket, same stores and the same eight rules as the Basket Test — this page adds one count on top of it.
• “Identical” means the same price to the cent for the same item in the same city on the run date. “Identical” compares the price for the specified quantity: for items sold by weight, the unit price applied to the spec; for packaged items, the shelf price of the cheapest qualifying pack. Two chains can be identical on a by-weight item while their pack prices differ.
• Regular-price basis: the same comparison with every pair removed where either chain's price carried a recorded saving or a member-price tag that week, or was carried forward from another week's capture — so a special on one side, or a stale price, cannot count as the two chains pricing differently, or the same.
• Prices are the chains’ published prices for the named stores, not shelf audits.
• The page reports how often prices match. It does not say why.
• Every number above traces to a line in the committed monthly report; the per-item prices behind them are the CSVs published on the Basket Test page.