Stainless steel scrap is priced as nickel ore wearing a different name. Work out the nickel in a pound of each grade and the whole price ladder falls out: 304 at 8 percent nickel holds about $0.60 of it, 316 at 12 percent holds about $0.91, and magnetic 430 holds none, which is why it sells near mild steel. Market quotes for those grades sit almost exactly on those numbers.
Scrap Price Today market analysis, written from exchange settlement data, mill and refiner pricing practice and published policy documents. Figures are examples; today's numbers are on the live scrap price board.
That is the test worth doing before you accept any stainless quote, and it takes one multiplication.
Prove it: contained nickel against market price
Nickel is $16,632 a tonne on our benchmark, which is $7.54 a pound. Multiply that by the nickel content of each grade and add the iron balance at light iron rates.
| Grade | Nickel content | Contained nickel per lb | Plus the iron balance | Theoretical total | What yards actually quote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 316 | 12 to 14% | $0.91 to $1.06 | $0.12 | $1.02 to $1.17 | $0.62 to $1.20 |
| 321 | About 10% | $0.75 | $0.12 | $0.87 | Usually with 300 series |
| 304, the 18/8 grade | 8% | $0.60 | $0.12 | $0.73 | $0.32 to $0.80 |
| 301 | About 7% | $0.53 | $0.12 | $0.65 | Usually with 300 series |
| 430 and 409, ferritic | None | $0.00 | $0.13 | $0.13 | $0.15 to $0.60, often near shred |
The theoretical column is what the metal contains. The quoted column is what someone will hand you, and the gap between them is the yard's processing, baling and shipping margin. Published market data describes that spread against the nickel exchange as running roughly 92 to 95 percent, which lines up with the table above.
Our own indicative stainless board sits at $0.57 a pound, which is about 79 percent of the theoretical 304 figure. That is a reasonable place for a reference price to sit, and it is derived from the same nickel benchmark rather than from a survey.
The identification sequence
Run these in order and stop as soon as you have your answer.
Step one, the magnet. Austenitic grades, meaning 304 and 316, barely attract a magnet. Ferritic grades like 430 and 409 pull strongly. If a neodymium magnet snaps on hard, you are not holding a 300-series alloy and it will be bought closer to shred.
Step two, the caveat to step one. Cold working and welding can make normally non-magnetic stainless slightly magnetic. A bent lip on a sink or a weld seam can register even on genuine 304, so test a flat undisturbed area.
Step three, the spark test, if you have a grinder. Austenitic stainless throws short orange sparks with few or no forks. 304 gives brighter, branching sparks; 316 gives duller ones because of the molybdenum.
Step four, the source. Kitchen and food equipment, architectural trim and sinks are usually 304. Marine hardware, chemical processing equipment and medical items are more often 316. Automotive trim and some appliance panels are commonly 430.
Step five, for anything serious. A handheld analyser reads the actual composition. Yards buying in volume use them, which is why guessing at the scale is a losing game against someone who is not guessing.
Why 316 is worth separating and 430 is worth separating harder
The usual advice is to split 316 out because it pays more. True, and typically 30 to 50 percent more on published comparisons.
The bigger loss runs the other way. If magnetic 430 goes into a bin quoted as 300 series, the buyer will grade the whole bin down when it fails the magnet, and you lose on the 304 as well as on the 430. One published market commentary is blunt that yards profit from sellers who cannot tell the two apart.
So the order of operations is: pull the magnetic material out first, then split 316 from 304 if you can, then worry about everything else.
Form matters almost as much as grade
Two loads of identical 304 can price very differently.
Solid plate, pipe and thick section pay best because they are dense and easy to handle. Thin gauge sheet pays less. Turnings and swarf are quoted separately and much lower, with one national listing showing them at $0.15 a pound against $0.37 to $0.45 for solid 300 series.
Attachments are the other half of it. Iron brackets, heavy grease, rubber seals and plastic all move material to a dirty grade, and a stainless sink with its steel clips still fitted is not a clean stainless sale.
Where you sell moves the number more than you would expect
Published averages for mixed stainless in two US metros recently sat at $0.58 and $0.43 a pound. Same alloy, same country, a 35 percent difference.
That gap is local demand and the number of competing buyers, the same force our local prices analysis measures across countries. It is also why a quote should be checked against the nickel arithmetic above rather than against what you were paid last time.
Where stainless has been
Our derived stainless series is up 10.1 percent over twelve months but down 5.4 percent over three months and down 16.5 percent over five years. Nickel drives all of it, and nickel has been the weakest of the major exchange metals in that period.
So stainless is not participating in the copper story. Anyone holding stainless waiting for the rally that copper has had is waiting on a different metal entirely, a divergence set out in our five-year price history.
The short version
- Test with a magnet on an undisturbed flat area before anything else.
- Keep magnetic stainless completely separate from 300 series.
- Split 316 from 304 where you can identify it; it is worth 30 to 50 percent more.
- Remove iron attachments, seals and grease.
- Keep turnings apart from solid material.
- Multiply the nickel price by the grade's nickel content to sanity-check any quote.
What this metal pays around the world
Scrap is a global market priced in US dollars, but what reaches a seller depends on trade position, freight to the nearest consumer and how many buyers compete locally. The table below converts the same grade into each market’s own currency and units at the day’s exchange rate, and shows the factor we apply.
| Market | Local price | USD per lb | Market factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turkey | ₺64.32 / kg | $0.59 | 1.04 |
| Germany | €1.14 / kg | $0.58 | 1.02 |
| United States | $0.57 / lb | $0.57 | 1.00 |
| China | CN¥8.27 / kg | $0.56 | 0.98 |
| Canada | C$0.79 / lb | $0.55 | 0.97 |
| United Kingdom | £0.91 / kg | $0.55 | 0.96 |
| Australia | A$1.71 / kg | $0.54 | 0.95 |
| United Arab Emirates | AED4.38 / kg | $0.54 | 0.95 |
| Saudi Arabia | SAR4.38 / kg | $0.53 | 0.93 |
| India | ₹112 / kg | $0.52 | 0.92 |
| Bangladesh | ৳136 / kg | $0.50 | 0.88 |
| South Africa | R17.77 / kg | $0.48 | 0.85 |
Method
The nickel benchmark is from our own series, published monthly at source and documented on the editorial policy page, with live figures on the board. Nickel content percentages are the standard published ranges for each grade rather than an assay of your material.
Market quote ranges are collected from published yard and buyer listings and vary widely by region and date, which is why they appear as ranges and why two sources for the same grade can disagree by a factor of two. The theoretical column is deliberately a calculation rather than a price: no yard pays contained value, and the difference is their cost of doing business.
We do not buy stainless or take referral fees, and we publish the nickel derivation precisely so any quote you are given can be checked against it.