Apiece means for each one or per item. When something costs five dollars apiece, each item costs five dollars. If you and two friends order hamburgers that cost eight dollars apiece, you each pay eight dollars for your own burger.

The word helps clarify that a price or amount applies separately to every single person or thing, not to the group as a whole. If concert tickets are twenty dollars apiece for four people, the total cost is eighty dollars (twenty times four). But if tickets are twenty dollars total for four people, everyone together pays just twenty dollars.

You'll often hear apiece when dividing things equally. If a teacher gives every student three pencils apiece, each student gets three pencils.

It's particularly useful when you want to emphasize that each individual gets the same amount or pays the same price.