The Producer Price Index (PPI) is a family of indexes that measures the average change over time in selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services. PPIs measure price change from the perspective of the seller. This contrasts with other measures, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), that measure price change from the purchaser's perspective. Sellers' and purchasers' prices may differ due to government subsidies, sales and excise taxes, and distribution costs.

There are three main PPI classification structures which draw from the same pool of price information provided to the BLS by cooperating company reporters:

    Industry classification. A Producer Price Index for an industry is a measure of changes in prices received for the industry's output sold outside the industry (that is, its net output). The PPI publishes approximately 535 industry price indexes in combination with over 4,000 specific product line and product category sub-indexes, as well as, roughly 500 indexes for groupings of industries. North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) index codes provide comparability with a wide assortment of industry-based data for other economic programs, including productivity, production, employment, wages, and earnings.
    Commodity classification. The commodity classification structure of the PPI organizes products and services by similarity or material composition, regardless of the industry classification of the producing establishment. This system is unique to the PPI and does not match any other standard coding structure. In all, PPI publishes more than 3,700 commodity price indexes for goods and about 800 for services (seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted), organized by product, service, and end use.
    Commodity-based Final Demand-Intermediate Demand (FD-ID) System. Commodity-based FD-ID price indexes regroup commodity indexes for goods, services, and construction at the subproduct class (six-digit) level, according to the type of buyer and the amount of physical processing or assembling the products have undergone. The PPI publishes over 600 FD-ID indexes (seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted) measuring price change for goods, services, and construction sold to final demand and to intermediate demand. The FD-ID system replaced the PPI stage-of-processing (SOP) system as PPI's primary aggregation model with the release of data for January 2014. The FD-ID system expands coverage in its aggregate measures beyond that of the SOP system by incorporating indexes for services, construction, exports, and government purchases.

For more information, visit: https://www.bls.gov/ppi