How closely do Coles and Woolworths price?

You are reading the August 2026 report from the archive. Go to the latest month (September 2026).

August 2026

Priced from the week of 5 Aug 2026 · 34 items × 7 capitals = 238 comparisons.

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 12 published months (September 2025 to August 2026).

Items

Over all 84 comparisons to date (12 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.

The 6 largest Woolworths undercuts this month (median gap across the capitals where Woolworths was cheaper): Greek-style natural yoghurt $2.30 (1 capital); Vanilla ice cream $1.45 (6 capitals); Toilet paper $1.20 (7 capitals); Red capsicum $0.54 (1 capital); Strawberries $0.50 (7 capitals); Sausages $0.50 (3 capitals).

August 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.