2026 WHOLESALE MARKET & AVAILABILITY UPDATES

Updated: March 21, 2026
I have some good news and some bad news  The good news is the market is officially on the rebound, and that's something I'm hearing from friends industry wide, not just those in our microhabitat that is crested geckos.  The bad news is we're almost certainly not going to have enough geckos to go around this year.

From what I'm hearing, bulk prices (at the distributor level - the guys who supply stores) have literally doubled, and some have tripled, year over year.  That said, they're still slightly lower than what they were pre-covid, so it's not exactly all rainbows and butterflies just yet. This is more like the part where you finally see light at the end of the tunnel.  Prices still need to come up a bit more to be sustainable for breeders to continue producing large numbers of them. That said, I expect prices will continue to rebound throughout this season.  We probably won't see a severe shortage and prices spiking to above historic norms this season, but I believe a shortage and slightly inflated prices are almost an inevitability before the market actually stabilizes.  Having said that, I am already hearing murmurs of "everything" becoming harder to get, so shortages and price spikes could start for some species this year, but most likely not until next season for crested geckos.  Availability wise, there will almost certainly be some scarcity, both here and market wide, in 2026. 

Another compounding factor for us will be our production numbers.  Because it was cheaper than it had ever been to hold geckos back, I have replaced a substantial portion (not most of, but a lot) of my breeding collection over the past two years. This means we'll have a relative ton of first-year breeders going into the rotation this year and next, which usually results in reduced output of viable eggs.  Production should really wind up going from 2026 into 2027, as good egg production of those new breeders starts outpacing the production capacity of the older geckos they replaced. 

As far as pricing goes, we will always be competitive, but I hope we never see captive bred reptiles as cheap as we've seen them the past few seasons - for us, that was below what they cost to produce at times.  When selling at or below cost, you're relying on retail to make up for it, and you're getting dangerously close to losing money.  Breeders won't take that risk if there has been no profit to justify the risk for multiple seasons - which is precisely where a lot of breeders are now. This is when scarcity and price increases start to take effect, which is starting to happen right now across the industry. How fast and how severe that will be, I have no idea because I've never seen prices get so low and I don't know how many breeders reduced production or by how much.  We'll always stay competitive on price, as is necessary with the numbers we hatch, but I would expect to see a bit of volatility in the broader market, as breeders start increasing prices according to their own judgement.

For those of you who are worried about not having geckos to sell, my advice is to buy them when you can. If you hold out for a deal like you got last year, you're probably not going to have geckos to sell this year - and definitely not as many as you could sell, if you had stocked up.   In my opinion, prices will be more likely to go up than down at any time over the next 12 months, regardless of seasonality - meaning even this summer, which is when you normally see a dip in prices, if there's going to be one that year.  When wholesale inventory gets scarce, seasonality doesn't play much of a role in pricing because there never comes a point where supply outpaces demand, meaning you're not likely to see prices dip this summer, like we did the last few.

Updated: January 2026

Happy New Year Everyone!

It's definitely that time of year on the wholesale side. :-)  In order to prevent sticker shock and give you guys fair warning, I wanted to post this in early January as a heads up and an explanation for all of our awesome customers who rely on us for geckos.  Prices are indeed going up - but only to 2019 levels.  They'll still be significantly lower than where they were from 2021-2023, but higher than they were in 2024-2025.

To understand what has been going on, it helps to know the history of the market, what's happened since the pandemic and why our prices have been so low in recent years.  This will be especially informative to any of our resellers who haven't been selling crested geckos for 7+ years to know what normal is.

• From the early 2000's up until 2020, wholesale crested gecko prices were roughly $20 each on average on the wholesale side of the business.  I can only remember 3 seasons, prior to the pandemic, when prices dipped by as much as 20-30%.

• In 2021, we saw prices skyrocket up to 50% over where they had been for roughly 20 years. They got so high that I immediately predicted there would be overproduction and a price crash when "covid is over", having no idea how soon that would be.

• By the middle of 2023, we watched life mostly return to normal, along with the demand for reptiles, wristwatches, trading cards and every other non-essential item you can think of.  The crash I predicted happened quickly.
  
  This return to normalcy caused the entire reptile industry to have a surplus of wholesale animals that they couldn't sell fast enough and didn't have room to house, so prices tanked almost instantly, as everyone's spring eggs started hatching. Prices on wholesale hatchlings quickly dipped to 50% of what they were before the pandemic.  This crazy dip in prices was necessary to move the excess inventory that none of us knew would be a problem to sell until it was too late.  For reference, prior to 2023, 30% was the biggest dip I'd ever seen and 20% was considered a crash.

• Because we produce enough geckos that it's necessary we compete with other large producers' prices, I decided to leave the regular website prices at mid-2023 levels and used the cart system's "sale price" feature (along with bundle offers) to discount geckos to however low we needed.  Since then, I've been super aggressive in our discounts to avoid getting stuck with excess gecko inventory - sometimes selling geckos at below actual cost just to know I won't need a new building in the middle of this downturn.

Here's where we are now...

• We have still sold out two seasons in a row (2024 and 2025), so demand for geckos is still solid.  In fact, 2024 and 2025 were consecutive record-breaking years in terms of website order volume, which is a good sign, but that's not the full picture.

• The problem is that revenue and profitability have been way down, due to prices being artificially low and also the steadily rising cost of doing business.  Long story short, our 2024-2025 sale pricing has never been sustainable and probably weren't really necessary - I just didn't want to take a chance of making things harder on ourselves.
• Going into 2026, we've sold off enough geckos and inventory is low enough that can afford to house some surplus babies, if necessary - meaning we won't need to sell them at or below cost this season - and I really don't plan on it.  

• Regular prices on the website are now back down to 2019 prices.
  This is why, for the first time in over 2 years, you'll no longer see a sale price and regular price shown at all times throughout the wholesale section. Wholesale prices shouldn't fluctuate too much this year from where they currently are, except in the way of volume discounts (aka bundle offers) when hatch numbers are back up to full speed this summer.

PRO TIP
Always Price Your Geckos Based on Replacement Cost (and Availability)
When selling off any remaining gecko inventory that you bought at 2025 prices, it would be wise to price your geckos based on what it costs to replace that inventory, not what you happen to have paid.  Another thing to consider is that this is the time of year that prices naturally go up, due to it being the slowest time for hatching.  This means you also have to consider seasonal scarcity and demand being at it's historical highest point of the year.