Outdoor saunas UK: every model compared

A garden sauna is the one building in the garden made for the months when the rest of it sits empty. Choosing one is harder than it should be: prices are spread across two dozen retailers, heaters are sometimes included and sometimes not, and the height decides whether it can go where you want it. So we list every outdoor sauna we can find for sale in the UK, with the numbers that matter, checked against each retailer’s own page.

Find your kind of sauna

Not sure which? Start with how to choose a garden sauna, or see our best garden saunas: one pick for each kind of buyer, chosen by rules we publish. Short of space? There’s a list of every small garden sauna under 4 m².

Every outdoor sauna for sale in the UK

Search by name, or narrow the list by type, heat source, seats, whether a heater is included and whether the sauna is 2.5 m high or lower (the height that matters if it will sit near a boundary). Every model links to the retailer’s page, where you can confirm the price before you buy.

Prices include VAT. Each row shows the date we checked it against the retailer's own page; the latest check was 30 September 2026. Prices change: the retailer's checkout price is what counts. Height chips show the retailer's stated height: green 2.5 m or lower, amber taller. That's before your base, and it isn't a planning check (see why 2.5 m matters). “Not recorded” means we could not confirm the figure on the retailer's page.

Two things catch buyers out. 237 of these listings are sold without a heater, so the ticket price is not what you’ll pay: our sauna heater comparison shows what one adds. And a price that looks low per seat can hide a small room: compare the size column, not just the seat count.

Garden sauna types compared

The shape you choose decides most of the price, how much room it takes up and how long it takes to heat. Here’s how the 489 listings break down.

“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.

Cabins are the biggest category, with 199 models, and the dearest: you’re buying a small building, often with a changing area. Barrels come next, with 144: the round shape leaves less empty air above the benches to heat. Pods and cubes sit in between. Outdoor infrared saunas run at lower air temperatures and cost the least to run, wood-fired saunas need no heavy electrical supply, and sauna tents pack away: the tent alone starts at £795, or £1,495 with a stove.

Planning a cold plunge next to it? We compare 92 cold plunge tubs and ice baths too, with and without a chiller, and cover setting up a sauna and cold plunge together.

After dark

Most of the use happens in the evening. Switch the heater on, from the house if it has a Wi-Fi controller, and by the time the washing-up is done the sauna is hot. Water on the stones, a hiss, a roll of steam.

In January you step out into the frost with steam lifting off your shoulders, sit on the step or stand under a cold garden shower, then go back in. It's the garden building made for the dark half of the year.

Illustration

Plan it with our calculators

Free tools, all built on the same data:

What a garden sauna costs

The median across every listing is £6,295, and the middle half of the market sits between £4,500 and £10,400. Tents and infrared cabins are cheapest; cabins with changing rooms and verandas are dearest. The garden sauna cost guide breaks the price down and covers the extras (base, electrics, delivery and assembly) that the ticket price leaves out.

Running one is cheaper than most people expect. At the current Ofgem price cap of 26.32p per kWh, a session in a sauna with a 6 kW heater costs about £1.97, and with a 9 kW heater about £2.96: that’s a 45-minute heat-up, then an hour with the heater on half the time. Try your own numbers in the running cost calculator. We also publish the UK Sauna Price Index every quarter, tracking median prices by type.

Heater included, or not?

Only 29% of listings include a heater in the price. The rest either leave the choice to you or sell the heater as an add-on, which can add several hundred pounds or more. When you compare models, filter the table to “Heater included” or budget for one separately.

Where a sauna comes with a named heater, it’s usually a Harvia (60 listings in our data), and HUUM is the other big name for heaters bought separately. See Harvia heaters and HUUM heaters for every model and price, or use the heater size calculator to work out the output you need.

Will it need planning permission?

In England and Wales a garden sauna is treated as an outbuilding, so it may not need a planning application if it meets every permitted development limit. The one that trips people up is height: within 2 metres of a boundary, the whole building, base included, must be no more than 2.5 metres high. Of the listings where the retailer states a height, 86% are 2.5 m or lower before a base, marked with a green chip in the table. Your council has the final say.

Scotland, Northern Ireland, listed buildings, conservation areas and flats have different rules, and electrics are notifiable work. Check your own garden against the published rules with the planning permission checker, or read installing a garden sauna for all of it from the official sources.

Where to buy: UK sauna retailers

These are the retailers with the most listings. Delivery is almost always kerbside, so plan how you’ll move a pallet that can weigh several hundred kilograms to the end of the garden.

Policy text is quoted or closely summarised from each retailer's site on 30 September 2026. Terms change, so confirm at checkout.

Compare all 23 on delivery, warranty and finance in UK sauna retailers compared, or read our guides to Steam & Oak, Finnmark Sauna, Vidalux, CenturaHeat, Waltons, Summerhouse24, Palmako, Polar Recovery and Costco.

Garden sauna questions, answered from the data

How we check every price

Each listing was read from the retailer’s own product page on 30 September 2026. We record only what the retailer states: where a figure isn’t given, the table says “Not recorded” rather than guessing. An independent re-check of a random sample found that every sampled price we could compare matched the live page. The full method is on our methodology page.

The whole dataset is free to download as CSV or JSON under CC BY 4.0, and every change is logged in the changelog.

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