Ice
Cold plunges & ice baths
Cold-water immersion has gone from athletes' recovery trick to a $60,000-a-year home purchase for some people. Here's how to buy one without overspending, the two real paths, what each costs to run, and which units are worth it.
Portable ice baths
No chiller, no electricity, you add ice. The cheapest way to test whether the habit sticks. →
Chiller tubs
Cold water on demand, all year, no ice. A real appliance, with a running cost to match. →
Start cheap, upgrade if it sticks
Most people who love cold plunging a year in started with a $150 tub and a few bags of ice. The gear that matters, a chiller, insulation, filtration, is worth buying once the habit is real, not before. If you're new, begin with a portable ice bath; step up to a chiller tub when the ice runs start to annoy you.
What it costs to run
A portable tub costs nothing in electricity, the cost is ice. A chiller draws roughly 1-1.5 kWh while cooling, about $20-50 a month for most owners. Plunging more often barely changes it, because the cost is in holding the water cold, not your time in it. Our cost-to-run calculator gives you a real figure for your electricity rate.
How cold, how long?
Most protocols land around 50-59°F (10-15°C) for 2-5 minutes, colder and shorter as you adapt. The evidence for benefit is real but the ideal dose isn't settled, we walk through what the research actually supports, and where it's overstated, in the contrast therapy protocol. A word of care: cold immersion stresses the cardiovascular system, if you have a heart condition or are pregnant, talk to your doctor first.
Pair it with heat
Cold on its own is half the ritual. Ending a sauna on a cold plunge, heat, then cold, is where the practice lives, and it's the one thing we cover that sauna-only and plunge-only sites don't. We've matched the two into complete sauna + plunge packages at four budgets, so the heat and cold sides fit the same space and power rather than being two separate purchases.