The median garden sauna in the UK costs £6,295. The middle half of the market sits between £4,500 and £10,400. Here's what moves the price, and what isn't in it.
A garden sauna in the UK costs anything from £795 for a tent to £44,999 at the top end, but most people spend between £4,500 and £10,400. Those figures come from the 489 saunas in our dataset, priced on each retailer’s own page on 30 September 2026. This guide shows what each type costs, what the ticket price includes, and the extras (heater, base, electrics, delivery, assembly) that it often doesn’t. To add them up for the sauna you have in mind, use our garden sauna cost calculator.
Garden sauna prices by type
| Type | Listed | From | Median | Middle half | Median per seat | Heater included |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sauna tents | 15 | £795 | £1,895 | £1,750–£2,800 | £374 | 80% |
| Outdoor infrared | 10 | £2,410 | £5,095 | £3,250–£6,850 | £2,200 | 100% |
| Barrel saunas | 144 | £2,000 | £5,272 | £3,900–£6,700 | £1,126 | 28% |
| Cube saunas | 86 | £2,151 | £5,267 | £4,050–£7,500 | £1,325 | 37% |
| Sauna pods | 26 | £3,995 | £6,999 | £5,550–£10,100 | £1,804 | 12% |
| Cabin saunas | 199 | £1,999 | £9,429 | £5,700–£15,700 | £2,236 | 22% |
| Sauna and tub sets | 9 | £16,450 | £18,480 | £17,450–£21,000 | £2,953 | 11% |
“Middle half” is the range covering the middle 50% of prices (25th to 75th percentile), which ignores the very cheapest and dearest listings. Cubes are listed on the sauna pods page.
The type you choose sets the price more than anything else:
- Sauna tents are cheapest: median £1,895.
- Barrel saunas are the value choice for a permanent sauna: median £5,272.
- Cubes and pods cost about the same as barrels: median £5,747.
- Outdoor infrared saunas: median £5,095, for a small cabin.
- Cabin saunas cost most, median £9,429, because you’re buying a small building.
- Wood-fired saunas (any shape that takes a wood stove): median £7,522.
Price per seat
Seat counts are the retailer’s own, and a six-seat sauna is a squeeze for six adults, but price per seat is still a fair way to compare. Across all listings that state seats, the median is £1,496 a seat. Barrels are the cheapest permanent sauna per seat (£1,126); cabins the dearest (£2,236).
| Seats | Models | From | Median price | Median footprint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 seat | 1 | £3,995 | £3,995 | 1.6 m² |
| 2 seats | 34 | £2,000 | £4,878 | 2.2 m² |
| 3 seats | 30 | £2,150 | £4,975 | 3.4 m² |
| 4 seats | 118 | £2,300 | £5,993 | 5.2 m² |
| 5 seats | 15 | £5,000 | £12,550 | 10.1 m² |
| 6 seats | 120 | £2,500 | £7,950 | 5.9 m² |
| 7 seats | 1 | £5,721 | £5,721 | 8.9 m² |
| 8 seats | 20 | £5,781 | £9,091 | 6.8 m² |
| 10 seats | 1 | £29,299 | £29,299 | — |
125 listings did not state a seat count.
The table leaves out sauna tents and combined spa buildings, which would skew it.
What the ticket price includes
This is where comparisons go wrong. Read the listing for each of these:
- The heater. Only 29% of listings include one. The median sauna with a heater costs £4,946; without, £6,242, plus the heater.
- Stones. Often sold separately from the heater.
- The roof covering. Some cabins are priced without shingles or felt. Steam & Oak’s listings, for example, note on some models that the roof covering is sold separately.
- Delivery. Usually free to mainland UK, but kerbside only; remote postcodes cost extra.
- Assembly. Almost always extra, or DIY.
- The base and electrics. Never included.
The heater: what it adds
If the sauna comes without a heater, you’ll need one. Two ways to see what it adds:
- Retailers’ own option prices. Steam & Oak prices several saunas with and without a heater. On those listings, adding a Harvia electric heater of 4.5 kW to 8 kW adds about £449 to £600, depending on the model, a Harvia M wood stove about £500 to £770, and a FinSteam gas heater about £1,700 to £2,600.
- Heaters bought separately. Across the 59 electric heater listings in our sauna heater comparison, prices run from £355 to £2,300, median £649. Some need a separate controller, which adds more.
Size the heater to the room with our heater size calculator.
Delivery
Most retailers offer free delivery to mainland UK, but the small print matters: delivery is usually to the kerb, on a pallet or in a crate, and moving it into the garden is your job. Some retailers offer crane offloading; some charge extra for the Highlands, islands and Northern Ireland. The delivery terms for each retailer are on UK sauna retailers compared.
Assembly and installation
Most garden saunas are sold as kits for self-assembly. Where retailers state a price for putting it up, these are the figures:
| Retailer | What they say |
|---|---|
| Quick-garden | Assembly service £350 on its HELGA barrels; price on request for cabins |
| Steam & Oak | Construction service “starts at £500” |
| Nuovo Luxury | Assembled on site: +£800 to +£1,000 on the models where it’s offered |
| Polar Recovery | Professional assembly of sauna cubes £1,200 to £2,000, depending on location |
| Summerhouse24 | Assembly team: e.g. +£1,820 for a cabin, +£2,100 for a barrel; DIY “typically 1-2 days” |
| Waldenhaus | Not included: “Two people, one weekend” |
These don’t include the base or the electrics.
The base
A sauna needs a firm, level, free-draining base a little bigger than its footprint. The usual options are paving slabs on a sub-base, a concrete pad, a gravel-filled plastic grid, or a timber frame on concrete pads. The right one depends on your ground and the sauna’s weight, and the sauna maker’s instructions come first.
We don’t publish a typical price for a base because we haven’t found figures we can source; it depends on the size, the ground and who lays it. Get two or three quotes, or price the materials if you’ll do it yourself. Installing a garden sauna compares the options.
Electrics
An electric sauna heater needs its own circuit from your consumer unit, and in most gardens that means running a cable out to the sauna. It’s notifiable work under Part P, so use a registered electrician who can certify it.
Two estimates from one retailer give a sense of scale. Steam & Oak’s listings suggest budgeting “£400–£1,200 for a garden supply” for an electric heater, and on one 9 kW model estimate “£800–£1,500” for a 50 A circuit. The real figure depends on the distance from the house, whether your consumer unit has capacity, and the heater’s supply. Get a quote before you order the sauna. Wood and gas heaters avoid the electrical circuit, but a wood stove needs its flue fitted to the maker’s clearances, and a fixed gas installation should be fitted by a Gas Safe registered engineer (by law, all gas engineers must be on the register).
Sources: IET: Part P (England and Wales) - Frequently asked questions; Gas Safe Register: Frequently asked questions. Checked 30 September 2026.
What it costs to run
At the Ofgem price cap of 26.32p per kWh, a session in an 8 kW electric sauna (45-minute heat-up, an hour’s use, heater on half the time) costs about £2.63. Twice a week, that’s about £274 a year. An infrared sauna costs less. Try your own numbers in the running cost calculator.
Infrared sauna prices
Outdoor-rated infrared saunas start at £2,410, with a median of £5,095 across the 10 we list. Hybrids, with both infrared panels and a traditional heater, cost more. They usually need a dedicated circuit too. See outdoor infrared saunas.
Portable sauna prices
A sauna tent with a stove starts at £1,495, and the tent alone from £795. Gas-fired tent packages cost more than wood-fired ones because the heater is the expensive part. See sauna tents.
Paying in instalments
Several retailers offer finance. What their pages said on 30 September 2026:
- Finnmark Sauna: “0% Finance Available*” through Novuna Consumer Finance.
- John Lewis: interest-free over 24 months shown on sauna pages.
- Wayfair UK: Klarna, 0% APR over 18 months shown on product pages.
- Quick-garden: Omni Capital finance over 12 to 48 months at 14.90% APR.
- Vidalux: PayPal Pay in 3, or V12 Finance over 3, 6 or 12 months on purchases over £500.
- Waltons: Zopa finance at checkout.
Terms change and depend on your credit, so check the APR, the total you’ll repay and any fees at checkout. Credit, including buy now, pay later, is borrowing, and missed payments can harm your credit record. We don’t arrange credit, we aren’t paid for finance, and we’re not financial advisers.
Putting it together
For a typical four-seat barrel bought without a heater, the budget looks like this:
| Item | From our data or retailers’ statements |
|---|---|
| Four-seat barrel, no heater | median £5,150 |
| Electric heater, 6 kW to 8 kW | about £480 to £600 as a retailer option, or from £355 bought separately |
| Delivery | usually free to mainland UK, kerbside |
| Assembly | DIY, or £350 to £2,100 where retailers quote |
| Electrics | Steam & Oak’s estimates: £400 to £1,500; get a quote |
| Base | get a quote |
| Total, before the base | about £6,050 to £9,350 |
The low end assumes you assemble it yourself and the cable run is short; the high end, paid assembly at the top of the quoted range and the top of the retailers’ electrics estimates. Put your own figures into the garden sauna cost calculator, which fills in the price from our data for the type and size you choose.
Buying one with a heater included is simpler: the median four-seat barrel with a heater is £4,612. We track these prices every quarter in the UK Sauna Price Index, and our best garden saunas page picks the best value in each category.