Research /Research
New Jersey Does 83% of New York’s Weed Sales With Half the Stores
$966 million in legal sales so far this year from about 310 dispensaries. Here’s what’s happening across the Hudson — and why so many of the busiest stores sit near the state line.
Last week I broke down New York’s legal market: an estimated $1.17 billion in sales this year across 630 stores. New Jersey is the obvious comparison — the market next door, a PATH train or bridge away for a lot of New Yorkers, and one that started adult-use sales about eight months before New York did.
So I ran the same model on New Jersey, using Lit Alerts’ New Jersey data sets for January 1 through September 8, 2026: daily, category, brand and store-level sales estimates built by sampling dispensary menus. Same caveat as last time: these are estimates, not register data.
Half the stores, most of the money
Through September 8, New Jersey’s dispensaries sold an estimated $966 million — about $3.85 million a day. New York, over nearly the same stretch, did $1.17 billion. That puts New Jersey at roughly 83% of New York’s sales with about half as many stores.
The per-store math is where it gets interesting. The average New Jersey dispensary has sold about $3.1 million this year; the average New York store is closer to $1.9 million. Even the typical Jersey shop — the median store, at $1.66 million — isn’t far off the New York average.
It isn’t evenly spread. Eighteen New Jersey stores have already sold more than $10 million this year. At the other end, 111 of the 312 stores we track are under $1 million.
Steady growth, softer prices
Daily sales climbed from $3.51 million a day in January to $4.14 million in July, and the first eight days of September ran at $4.13 million — about 18% above January.
| Sales per day | |
|---|---|
| Jan | $3.51M |
| Feb | $3.69M |
| Mar | $3.57M |
| Apr | $3.77M |
| May | $3.97M |
| Jun | $3.96M |
| Jul | $4.14M |
| Aug | $4.1M |
| Sep 1–8 | $4.13M |
Like New York, the growth is coming from volume, not price. The average item sold for $36.95 in January and $33.74 in early September — down 8.7%, a slightly steeper slide than New York’s 7.6% over the same months.
| Average item price | |
|---|---|
| Jan | $36.95 |
| Feb | $36.86 |
| Mar | $36.52 |
| Apr | $35.38 |
| May | $35.63 |
| Jun | $35.52 |
| Jul | $35.43 |
| Aug | $34.92 |
| Sep 1–8 | $33.74 |
Friday is still the whole game
Fridays average $4.9 million in New Jersey, Saturdays $4.35 million. Monday is the slowest day at $3.31 million, with Sunday right behind at $3.36 million. And just like New York, the biggest day of the year was April 20, at $6.42 million — about two-thirds above a normal day.
| Average daily sales | |
|---|---|
| Mon | $3.31M |
| Tue | $3.4M |
| Wed | $3.59M |
| Thu | $3.93M |
| Fri | $4.9M |
| Sat | $4.35M |
| Sun | $3.36M |
Jersey buys more flower
The category mix looks a lot like New York’s, with one big difference: flower. Flower is 39% of New Jersey’s dollars, versus 33% in New York. Pre-rolls are 16% of Jersey’s dollars (New York: 20%), vapes 28.5% (28%), edibles 10% (12%) and concentrates 3.7% (3%).
| New Jersey | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Flower | 39.3% | 33% |
| Vapes | 28.5% | 28% |
| Pre-rolls | 15.6% | 20% |
| Edibles | 9.7% | 12% |
| Concentrates | 3.7% | 3% |
Pre-rolls are still gaining ground. Over the last 30 days they were 28.4% of all units sold, up from 26.5% for the year, at an average of $20.57. Flower, vapes and edibles all got a little cheaper over the same window.
The multi-state operators own the shelf
New Jersey’s brand list is long — 774 brands have sold product this year — but the top is dominated by multi-state operators. The top ten brands took 31.6% of dollars. Ozone (Ascend) and Rythm (Green Thumb) are tied at the top with about $39.7 million each, followed by Fernway at $37.7 million, Legend (TerrAscend) at $32.1 million and Select (Curaleaf) at $25.4 million.
| Estimated sales | |
|---|---|
| Ozone (Ascend) | $39.7M |
| Rythm (Green Thumb) | $39.7M |
| Fernway | $37.7M |
| Legend (TerrAscend) | $32.1M |
| Select (Curaleaf) | $25.4M |
| Garden Greens | $24.1M |
| Savvy (Verano) | $23.6M |
| Simply Herb (Ascend) | $22.9M |
| Kind Tree (TerrAscend) | $22.2M |
| Find (Curaleaf) | $21.6M |
The biggest stores sit near the state line
I mapped New Jersey’s 25 biggest dispensaries. Nine of them are within five miles of a state line: Apothecarium in Phillipsburg on the Pennsylvania border, Ascend in Fort Lee at the foot of the George Washington Bridge, and a run of stores along I-295 across the river from Philadelphia. Those nine did roughly $140 million this year.
The biggest store in the state, Ascend Cannabis in Rochelle Park, did an estimated $33.0 million — 3.4% of all New Jersey sales from a single location, less than a mile off I-80. Zen Leaf in Neptune ($25.0 million) and Apothecarium in Phillipsburg ($23.3 million) round out the top three.
Big stores matter more here. New Jersey’s top 25 dispensaries took 38% of the state’s sales. In New York, the top 25 took 24%. Every store in New Jersey’s top 25 is within four miles of a major highway.
North Jersey and the Shore
Bergen, Passaic, Essex and Hudson counties — the part of the state closest to New York City — account for about $233 million, or 24% of sales, across 89 stores. Bergen County alone did $96.5 million from 19 stores, more than $5 million a store. The Shore stores we track (53 of them, from Keyport and Freehold down to Waretown) did another $174.8 million, or 18%.
About the data
Sales figures are Lit Alerts estimates built from sampled dispensary menus for January 1 – September 8, 2026. They are not point-of-sale data and not official state totals. Distances on the map are straight-line to the legal state boundary and the nearest primary road. New York comparisons come from my New York analysis, which uses the same Lit Alerts method.
