Pre-Rolls Dethrone Flower: Cannabis's New $3.6B Top Category in 2026

For the first time in the legal history of the U.S. cannabis industry, flower is no longer king. According to the Custom Cones USA 2026 Pre-Roll Market Report — the most comprehensive single source of data on the segment — pre-rolls have officially surpassed packaged flower as the highest-selling cannabis product category by unit volume. The pre-roll market hit $3.6 billion in revenue in 2025, sold more than 383 million units, and now commands a 15.9% share of total U.S. cannabis sales. Pre-roll revenue grew 9.8% year-over-year while unit sales jumped 18.6%, both figures dwarfing the broader cannabis market's anemic 1.5% growth rate.

The handoff between flower and pre-rolls has been coming for years. What is striking about the 2026 data is how quickly it crystallized once it started, and how thoroughly infused pre-rolls — a sub-category that barely existed five years ago — drove the change.

The Numbers Behind the Pre-Roll Takeover

Custom Cones USA's report pulls from BDSA, Headset, and proprietary brand-level data to construct one of the most granular pictures of any cannabis category available. The headline figures land hard. Flower, which once routinely captured 40% or more of cannabis revenue, has been losing share for six straight quarters. Concentrates, vapes, and edibles have all gained — but the most consistent winner has been pre-rolls.

Three statistics tell the whole story. First, pre-roll unit growth (18.6%) is more than 12 times the broader market growth rate (1.5%). Second, multi-pack pre-rolls — bundles of 3, 5, 7, or 10 — now make up 48.5% of all SKUs, and 90 of the top 100 best-selling pre-roll products are sold in some kind of bundled format. Third, infused pre-rolls — joints with kief, hash, distillate, or rosin added to the flower — account for $1.68 billion of the $3.6 billion in total pre-roll sales. That is 47% of the category, and it is the fastest-growing slice of the entire cannabis market.

For context: in 2020, infused pre-rolls were a niche curiosity stocked by a handful of premium brands. In 2025, they sold 1.68 billion dollars worth of product. That is one of the fastest product-class transformations cannabis has ever produced.

Why Pre-Rolls Are Winning

Three forces converged to produce the takeover. The first is convenience. Flower in jars or bags requires grinders, papers, and time. Pre-rolls are ready to use. As the cannabis customer base has aged into an older, more affluent, and more occasional-use cohort, the friction of preparing flower has become a real purchase barrier. A consumer who buys cannabis once a month for a weekend trip is more likely to grab a five-pack of pre-rolls than a quarter-ounce of buds.

The second is the price-to-experience math of infused pre-rolls. A high-quality 0.5g infused pre-roll typically retails between $10 and $18 and delivers an experience closer to a concentrate session than a flower joint. For consumers chasing potency without committing to the equipment and learning curve of dabs or vape pens, infused pre-rolls hit a sweet spot. They feel premium, they hit harder, and they fit into existing rituals.

The third is multi-pack economics. Pre-rolls in bundled formats produce higher transaction values for retailers and stronger margins per gram for brands compared to single-stick SKUs. Once dispensaries figured this out around 2022, the on-shelf real estate allocated to multi-packs expanded aggressively, and brands followed. Today, walking into a typical adult-use dispensary in California, Michigan, or Massachusetts, you will see entire wall sections devoted exclusively to pre-roll multi-packs and sample variety packs.

The Top Pre-Roll Brands of 2025

The Custom Cones USA report names two clear category leaders. California-based Jeeter led the segment in revenue, generating more than $253 million in pre-roll sales — making Jeeter, by some measurements, the single largest cannabis product brand in the country measured by category share. Michigan-based Dragonfly Cannabis led on units, moving 22.6 million pre-rolls during the year. The two brands represent different ends of the strategic spectrum: Jeeter dominates on premium price points and infused product mix; Dragonfly is built on Michigan's high-volume, lower-price-point market and the multi-pack format.

Below the top two, the brand landscape is more fragmented than in flower. Pre-rolls are operationally accessible — any decent flower brand can build a credible pre-roll program with the right co-packer — and that has produced a wide bench of regional contenders. Stiiizy, PUFFCO Pre-Rolls, Pacific Stone, Pure Beauty, and Cookies are all generating meaningful pre-roll revenue. Increasingly, MSO platforms like Curaleaf and Cresco are putting muscle behind their house pre-roll lines as well.

What Pre-Roll Dominance Means for the Broader Industry

The implications of the pre-roll takeover ripple in several directions. For cultivators, it means more demand for trim, smalls, and B-bud — flower not pretty enough to package whole but perfectly usable in a pre-roll grind. That has helped support wholesale prices for product that once moved at deep discounts. For accessory companies, it means rising demand for industrial pre-roll machinery, cones, and tubes, which is where Custom Cones USA itself sits and why the company invests so heavily in market research.

For dispensary buyers, it has shifted shelf logic. Pre-roll sections used to live near the register as impulse-purchase real estate. Today, they often anchor the main shopping floor, with infused, single, multi-pack, and budget tiers all merchandized like a beer cooler. For brand managers, the writing on the wall is clear: a flower-only company in 2026 is an incomplete cannabis brand. Almost every meaningful new product launch in the last 18 months has either been a pre-roll or has been packaged with one.

For marketing and compliance teams, pre-rolls present a particular challenge. Their portability and discreet appearance can run afoul of regulators worried about diversion, public consumption, and youth access. Several states have introduced packaging restrictions and quantity limits specifically targeted at pre-roll multi-packs in 2025 and 2026.

Custom Cones USA's 2026 Forecast

The report projects total U.S. pre-roll revenue between $3.8 billion and $4.0 billion in 2026, and surpassing $5.2 billion by 2030. Within those numbers, the infused sub-category is expected to keep outpacing the segment as a whole, potentially reaching 55%+ of total pre-roll revenue by the end of the decade. Multi-packs are expected to continue gaining share. And new product formats — solventless rosin–infused pre-rolls, terpene-isolate pre-rolls, and CBN- or CBG-spiked sleep pre-rolls — are flagged as the next wave of category innovation.

If the broader cannabis industry's growth stays soft, the pre-roll story will look even more important by relative comparison. Custom Cones notes pointedly that pre-rolls have grown faster than nearly every other consumer-packaged-goods category tracked by mainstream retail data — including ready-to-drink beverages, salty snacks, and craft beer — across the same period. That is a competitive context cannabis brands and investors should not ignore.

Key Takeaways

• The Custom Cones USA 2026 report confirms pre-rolls are now the highest-selling cannabis product category by unit volume, generating $3.6 billion and 383 million units in 2025.
• Pre-roll unit growth (18.6%) outpaced the broader cannabis market (1.5%) by more than 12x, with multi-packs and infused formats driving the surge.
• Infused pre-rolls — at $1.68 billion in 2025 sales — now represent 47% of the category and are growing fastest.
• Jeeter ($253M revenue) and Dragonfly Cannabis (22.6M units) are the leading brands, with regional players gaining ground.
• Custom Cones forecasts $3.8–$4.0 billion in pre-roll revenue in 2026 and $5.2 billion by 2030.

Compare pre-roll brands and use our cannabis dispensary directory to find a dispensary near you carrying the top sellers.