If your Easter basket looks a little… malnourished this year, congratulations, you’re not imagining things. According to new data from InvestorsObserver, Americans are paying dramatically more for candy while getting significantly less of it. Prices for five popular Easter candies have jumped 67% since 2020, while household candy budgets have crept up a modest 15%. The result? A family sticking to roughly the same $93 budget from 2020 is now hauling home about 40% less candy by weight. Nothing says holiday cheer like paying premium prices for what feels like a sampler platter.

To match the candy haul from 2020, families would now need to shell out around $155 in 2026, about $62 more for the exact same sugar rush. The culprit isn’t one big shocking price hike, but a series of smaller increases that quietly stacked up over time. Some years saw no change, others jumped 12% or even 22%, but the end result is what matters: the average price per ounce climbed from $0.37 to $0.62. As InvestorsObserver analyst Sam Bourgi put it, it’s the classic “boiling frog” effect, except in this case, the frog is your wallet, and it’s already fully cooked by the time you notice.

And just to keep things interesting, the Easter aisle has also embraced shrinkflation, because why stop at higher prices when you can also give people less product? Cadbury Mini Eggs, for example, quietly dropped from 10 ounces to 9 ounces without changing the price. Meanwhile, price ranges that once sat neatly between $3.49 and $3.99 have ballooned to anywhere from $4.79 to $8.29, turning candy shopping into a guessing game. The standout offender: Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, which saw a staggering 107.8% increase in price per ounce over six years complete with a brief price drop just long enough to give shoppers false hope before spiking again. Data and analysis in this report are credited to InvestorsObserver, which, unfortunately, confirms your suspicion that the Easter Bunny might now be working on commission.