Piano Buyer is a consumer guide to buying, selling, and maintaining new, used, and restored acoustic pianos and digital pianos, and is published online twice a year (Spring and Fall). It is the successor to The Piano Book and the Annual Supplement to The Piano Book.

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For those not familiar with it, The Piano Book: Buying & Owning a New or Used Piano, by Larry Fine, first published in 1987, was, for many years, the principal consumer guide to buying an acoustic piano in the United States and Canada. The most recent, fourth, edition was published in 2001 and, though out of date in its coverage of new pianos, is still in print. An Annual Supplement was published each year from 1996 to 2008 to keep the information on brands, models, and prices of new pianos up to date. In 2009, Piano Buyer was created to bring The Piano Book and Annual Supplement into the 21st century.

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At first published both online and in print, Piano Buyer became online-only in 2019, with the best articles from the previous decade saved in printed form in the book The Best of Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer. All the old feature articles are also available free online. A smaller book, Piano Buyer Model & Price Supplement, containing only models and prices of acoustic pianos, and prices and specifications of digital pianos, is published in print form semiannaully.

Piano Buyer is supported by advertising, but is editorially independent of any manufacturer or dealer.

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Piano Buyer is a hybrid book/magazine/website. The “book” part consists of a collection of how-to articles on the many aspects of buying a piano. Because piano buyers need this information all at once, not over a long period of time, most of these articles remain relatively unchanged from issue to issue. Our aim is to provide only the most useful and important information, succinctly stated, and to address the topics of broadest interest, so that you can be on your way to enjoying your piano as quickly as possible. For those readers desiring more, there is plenty of interesting material of a more technical or specialized nature in The Piano Book and, from time to time, on this website.

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The “magazine” part of the publication consists of feature articles of more temporary interest, model and price data for new acoustic and digital pianos, and advertisements, all of which will be updated as necessary with each issue. The model and price data for both acoustic and digital pianos is also available in free, searchable databases, accessible from the website’s main menu.