In 2025 the pre-roll became the largest cannabis category in Canada by revenue, at C$1.43 billion across 77.2 million units and roughly 34 percent of the total market. Dried flower, the format the industry was built around, slipped into second place. The figures come from Headset, which tracks point-of-sale data across four provincial markets. This post sets out what the numbers say, where they disagree with Ontario's own reporting, and what a format shift of this size does and does not tell you about how Canadians buy cannabis.
The headline figures
Headset's 2025 data puts the pre-roll category ahead of flower on revenue for the first time.
| Measure | 2025 figure |
|---|---|
| Pre-roll category revenue | C$1.43 billion |
| Units sold | 77.2 million |
| Share of total cannabis market | About 34 percent |
| Category growth, 2025 | 6.3 percent |
| Category growth, 2024 | 7.6 percent |
| Dried flower change, 2024 | Down 3.7 percent |
| Dried flower change, 2025 | Down 1.6 percent |
Two details are easy to miss. Pre-roll growth is decelerating, from 7.6 percent to 6.3 percent. And flower's decline is also slowing, from 3.7 percent to 1.6 percent. This is not a category collapsing. It is a slower rearrangement that happened to cross over in 2025.
Inside the category
The pre-roll category is not one thing. Headset's segmentation shows it splitting along two lines: single-strain rolls containing flower alone, and rolls containing added concentrate.
| Segment | Revenue | Units | Average price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hybrid single strain | $531.9 million | 31.6 million | $16.84 |
| Infused | $523 million | 20.6 million | $25.40 |
| Indica | $170.2 million | 11.5 million | Not reported |
| Sativa | $139.7 million | 10.2 million | Not reported |
| Mixed strain | $40 million | 1.4 million | $29.62 |
Hybrid single-strain and infused rolls together account for roughly 75 percent of category revenue, at about 38 and 37 percent respectively. Infused pre-rolls grew 7.2 percent year over year and carry an average price of $25.40, well above the $16.84 average for a hybrid single strain.
That price gap is the structural fact underneath the revenue crossover. Infused rolls sell fewer units than hybrids, 20.6 million against 31.6 million, and still generate almost identical revenue. What separates the two is a concentrate added at production. We go through what those materials are, and how they differ, in infused pre-rolls, decoded.
Ontario is half the national pre-roll market
Headset's provincial split puts Ontario at $724 million in pre-roll sales in 2025, growing 7.2 percent, and roughly half of all Canadian pre-roll revenue across the markets it tracks.
| Province | Pre-roll revenue | Annual growth |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario | $724 million | 7.2 percent |
| Alberta | $354 million | 9.6 percent |
| British Columbia | $298 million | Essentially flat |
| Saskatchewan | $56 million | 12.2 percent |
Ontario is therefore both the largest pre-roll market in the country and a middling one for growth. Saskatchewan and Alberta are growing faster from smaller bases, and British Columbia has stopped growing.
Where the Ontario numbers disagree
The Ontario Cannabis Store publishes its own annual data, and it does not produce the same figures. OCS reported $2.28 billion in total Ontario legal sales in 2025, up 6 percent, broken down as follows.
| Category | Sales | Share | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dried flower | $839.3 million | 37 percent | Down slightly, under 1 percent |
| Non-infused pre-rolls | $479.4 million | 21 percent | Up 11 percent |
| Vapes | $433.3 million | 19 percent | Up 14 percent |
| Infused pre-rolls | $274.5 million | 12 percent | Up 12 percent |
| Edibles | $92 million | 4 percent | Not reported |
Add the two Ontario pre-roll lines together and you get $753.9 million, against Headset's $724 million. Both are defensible. Headset works from retail point-of-sale data with its own segmentation, while OCS reports wholesale distribution through the provincial channel using its own category definitions.
More importantly, on the OCS figures dried flower is still the largest single Ontario category at 37 percent, because OCS reports infused and non-infused pre-rolls separately. Combine them, as Headset does, and pre-rolls lead in Ontario too, at 33 percent against flower's 37 percent, which is close but does not cross over.
So the crossover is real at the national level Headset measures, and in Ontario it depends on whether you treat pre-rolls as one category or two. That is a definitional choice, not a dispute about facts.
What the shift says about how we buy
Four observations that the data supports, kept separate from the ones it does not.
The unit of purchase has got smaller
A pre-roll is sold as a finished item. There is no grinding, no rolling and no papers. That removes several steps and, for a shopper, converts an open-ended quantity into a discrete one. OCS distributed 34.6 million pre-roll units in Ontario in 2025, making them the most distributed unit type in the province.
Price per unit is doing the work, not price per gram
An infused pre-roll at $25.40 is expensive per gram by any measure. It sells anyway, at 20.6 million units, because the comparison people appear to be making is against another single item rather than against an eighth.
Excise is charged by weight, which bends the shelf
Cannabis excise duty is a flat charge per gram of flowering material with a floor of $1.00, rather than a percentage of value. A product that delivers more cannabinoid content per gram therefore carries proportionally less duty relative to its price. That is a structural pressure toward concentrate-containing formats across the whole market, not a consumer preference. We work through the full arithmetic in where your ten dollar gram actually goes.
Flower did not go away
Dried flower fell 1.6 percent nationally in 2025 and under 1 percent in Ontario. At $839.3 million it remains the largest single line in the OCS breakdown. A format that lost first place by a few points of share over two years has not been abandoned.
What the numbers do not say
Three limits, stated plainly.
- They do not say anything about quality. Revenue share measures what was sold. It is not a ranking and does not carry information about any individual product.
- They do not cover the whole country. Headset tracks four provincial markets: Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. National totals derived from it should be read with that in mind.
- They do not explain why any one person buys what they buy. Aggregate point-of-sale data records outcomes, not reasons. Every causal reading of it, including the four above, is an inference.
The short version
- Pre-rolls reached C$1.43 billion and 77.2 million units in 2025, about 34 percent of the market, passing dried flower on revenue.
- Flower fell 3.7 percent in 2024 and 1.6 percent in 2025. Pre-roll growth slowed from 7.6 to 6.3 percent.
- Infused rolls generated $523 million at an average price of $25.40, up 7.2 percent, on 20.6 million units.
- Hybrid single-strain rolls generated $531.9 million at $16.84 average on 31.6 million units.
- Ontario is the largest pre-roll market at $724 million, about half the national total, growing 7.2 percent.
- OCS reports infused and non-infused pre-rolls separately, so on its figures dried flower is still Ontario's largest single category at 37 percent.
- Excise charged flat per gram is a structural pressure toward formats containing concentrate.
If you want the format explained rather than the market, pre-rolls explained covers singles, packs, infused and hash rolls, and what the 2026 numbers say takes the wider view.
Our hours and address are on the visit page, and what is on the shelf is listed under all products.
Sources
- StratCann, Pre-rolls now lead Canada's cannabis market, on Headset 2025 data, 4 June 2026: stratcann.com
- StratCann, Ontario cannabis sales top $2.28 billion in 2025, 28 May 2026: stratcann.com
- Ontario Cannabis Marketplace: By The Numbers, 1 January to 31 December 2025: doingbusinesswithocs.ca
- Cannabis Law Report, Infused and hybrid joints control nearly 75% of Canada's pre-roll market, on Headset segment data: cannabislaw.report
- Canada Revenue Agency, Excise duty rates for cannabis products: canada.ca