What determines the price of a snake?

• Supply: Supply is a reasonably easy idea to understand. The more common something is, the lower the price will be. Common "products" are easily found and suppliers must keep prices low to compete with other suppliers. On the flip side, when there is a shortage of something, the price will rise to reflect that.
  
  
• Demand: As we all know, the more demand there is for something, the higher the price will be. This is no exception in the snake hobby. Newly discovered "morphs" are coveted by hobbyists and breeders alike. Even though the prices of some of these snakes might seem extremely high to some, others are more than willing to pay the high prices to work with the latest morphs.
  
  
• Looks: A lot of captive bred snake species will sell for a "price range" rather than a fixed price. The best looking ones selling for more and the more average ones selling for less. It kind of comes down to demand in a lot of ways. People like nice looking snakes and will pay a bit more for the ones with bright colors, more white, neat patterns and etc.
  
  
• Sex: Generally, females will cost a bit more when it comes to most snake species. This is because breeders NEED females in order to breed and that makes females more in demand. If someone has 3 snakes, 2 are males and 1 is a female, this person can only produce ONE clutch. But if he had 1 male and 2 females, he could produce twice as many clutches. The average person with a "pet snake" probably doesn't care what sex their snake is but people interested in breeding snakes do. Therefore, more demand for females make the price of females higher than males.
  
  
• Reproduction: Reproduction can be broken down into two categories...
  
  
  • How difficult a species is to reproduce.
    
    
  It is a fact that some snakes are easy to breed successfully in captivity and others are not. The species that are easy to breed, are usually being bred en mass by the less experienced breeders. These species are available in abundance and their price reflects this.
  
  The more difficult species are left to the experienced breeders who have both the knowledge and time to devote to these often expensive projects. When breeders are successful at reproducing these species, the list of buyers is long and the demand is high. The time and effort that goes into breeding these species and the demand for the offspring is reflected in the high price.
  
  

• How prolific their reproduction is.

A prime example of this is the Albino Burmese Python. In the early-mid 80's, one of the most influential breeders in the hobby, Bob Clark, imported the very first Albino Burmese Python into captivity. By the late 80's the first captive bred Albino Burmese Pythons were made available on the market and they commanded a high price. However, since Burmese Pythons are capable of have such large clutches of eggs, the prices dropped season after season until the point that you can now purchase an Albino Burmese Python for almost the same price as the normal colored ones.