CannActuality
Cannabis research for product development
Research Brief · Category Deep-Dive
Two independent trackers tell the same story at different windows. Custom Cones USA's 2026 State of the Pre-Roll Market report, built on Headset point-of-sale data from 15 states, put 2025 pre-roll sales at $3.6 billion across 383.2 million units — a 15.9% market share, revenue up 9.8% and units up 18.6% while the broader market grew 1.5%. BDSA's more recent window, the 12 months ending July 2026, puts the category at $4.4 billion, up 13%, and the fastest-growing major category ahead of vapor pens at 6%. Revenue has more than doubled since 2021 in the Headset series. This is not a niche format decision any more; for most licensed brands, pre-roll architecture is the portfolio.
The category is also unusually open: more than 7,100 distinct brands recorded pre-roll sales in BDSA's 12-month window, and the top 10 brands together account for only about 21% of dollars. Format fit can still beat scale — a point Headset's California data makes independently, below.
Start with the single, because the data does. In BDSA tracking the single 1-gram remains the largest format in the category at 29% of all pre-roll dollars ($1.25 billion in the 12 months ending July 2026). Custom Cones USA reaches the same conclusion in the 2025 Headset data: the 1-gram single was the top-selling individual product format at $1.44 billion, and the 1-gram package size moved nearly 210 million units through the first 10 months of 2025.
Its role, however, has changed. BDSA splits that 1-gram single into an uninfused portion that was flat year over year and an infused portion that grew 9% — in other words, the single holds its ground as the trial and entry format, but it is not where incremental dollars are coming from. A line without a credible 1-gram single has no front door; a line that is only a 1-gram single is standing still in a category growing at double digits.
Underneath the single, the volume segment is single-strain hybrid: 175.6 million units and $1.3 billion in revenue in 2025, the unit leader for the fifth consecutive year in Headset data, with infused second in units at 144.6 million. Together, hybrid single-strain and infused account for more than 84% of category revenue and nearly 84% of units. That concentration is the brief's central constraint: variety beyond those two segments is assortment breadth, not the core business.
If the single is the anchor, the multi-pack is the engine. In the 2025 Headset data, multi-packs reached 48.5% of pre-roll products — up from 46.8% in 2024 and 37.7% in 2021 — accounted for 90 of the top 100 products (up from 78 in 2024), and, for the first time, made up more than half of the 63,552 new pre-roll products launched in 2025. Among manufacturers surveyed by Custom Cones USA, 72.4% said they sell multi-packs, with five-packs the most common configuration.
BDSA's 2026 window shows the same shift in dollars, not just SKU counts:
| Format (BDSA, 12 months ending July 2026) | Sales | Share / growth |
|---|---|---|
| Single 1-gram | $1.25 billion | 29% of pre-roll dollars; uninfused portion flat, infused portion up 9% |
| 5-pack of 0.5-gram (2.5 grams total) | $683 million | 16% of pre-roll dollars; infused portion up 23%, uninfused up 18% |
| 5-pack of 0.7-gram, infused | About $87 million | Up 44% year over year |
| 10-pack of 0.35-gram, uninfused | About $60 million | Up 55% year over year |
| 14-pack of 0.5-gram, uninfused | About $53 million | Up 29% year over year |
The 2.5-gram five-pack deserves its status as the default core format. It leads the multi-pack field in both trackers: $612 million and 17.2% of total pre-roll revenue on nearly 24 million units in the 2025 Headset data — across 9,817 distinct products in that one configuration — and the second-largest format overall in BDSA's 2026 window. Half-gram units inside a five-pack are the repeatable unit of the category; the even smaller 70mm, roughly 0.3-gram “dogwalker” format is the other established building block, sold primarily in multi-packs and growing as the small-format end of the same ladder.
California confirms the direction at state level. Headset's January–August 2026 California data puts multi-packs at 65% of pre-roll category dollars in the state, with multi-pack units up 10.2% — nearly double the growth rate of singles — in a period when California pre-roll overall grew 7.3% in units and 4.5% in dollars. In the largest US market, the multi-pack is no longer the challenger format; it is the majority format.
An infused pre-roll combines flower with a concentrate in the same product. The question product teams actually face is not whether to have an infused tier, but where it starts — and the data now gives a clear answer: it starts at the category's centre, not at its edge.
In the 2025 Headset data, infused generated $1.68 billion, or 47% of category revenue, up from $1.44 billion the year before, with the fastest growth in the category — units up 27.8% and revenue up 16.4%. In BDSA's window ending July 2026, infused then passed uninfused outright at $2.22 billion versus $2.15 billion, growing 17% against 10% for uninfused, after crossing 50% of pre-roll dollars in October 2025 and holding above it every month since. BDSA also reports that brands selling infused generated about 41% more monthly revenue per brand than brands selling uninfused in July 2026, from a smaller competitive field.
Geography sets the ceiling and the pace. Infused share of state pre-roll dollars in July 2026 was 71% in Michigan, 69% in Arizona, and 64% in California, with BDSA noting Michigan has held near that level for a year — suggesting a practical ceiling near 70% in mature markets. Newer markets are converging quickly: New York moved from 45% to 54% infused share and Illinois from 41% to 50% in the same BDSA window. A brand entering a mature market without an infused offer is entering without the majority segment; a brand entering a newer market should expect the infused share to arrive during its first planning cycles, not after them.
Inside infused, type is the differentiation decision. Among classified infusion types in BDSA's 12-month window, diamonds are by far the largest at $699 million, up 34%, for 42% of classified infused dollars. The faster growth is in live and solventless-leaning types from smaller bases: live resin up 49% to $96 million (about 6% of classified infused dollars) and rosin up 36% to $88 million. The pattern for product teams is therefore split: diamonds are the proven volume type today; live resin and rosin are where premium differentiation is being built, at roughly one-seventh of diamonds' current scale.
Two cautions belong in the same section. First, premium is compressing: on an equivalised per-gram basis, BDSA measured infused pricing down 9.5% year over year against 6.4% for uninfused, with Michigan, Arizona and Nevada each down about 27% — so an infused tier built only on a price premium, with no format or type distinction, is building on a shrinking gap. Second, California diverged in early 2026: Headset's January–August data shows non-infused pre-roll growing 10.6% in California against 0.5% for infused. Nationally infused leads; in the most mature market, the uninfused multi-pack had the stronger recent run. State-level data, not the national headline, should set the mix in each market.
CannActuality briefs are market research and education for licensed cannabis vendors. They are not legal, medical, or investment advice, and they make no health or benefit claims about cannabis products. Figures are as reported by the cited publishers. Intended for adults 21+.