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For short-stay hosts

What a wet amenity
does to your rate.

We pulled 484 live Gold Coast and SE QLD listings and measured what a spa does to the nightly rate, controlled for bedroom count. It is a real premium, and it is smaller than the numbers sauna sellers quote you. Those are the figures below, and we say plainly where our data runs out.

Run your numbers Read the objections first
First-party data · 484 listings · Aug 2026

The premium is measured.

Listings with a spa, against listings without, on the same dataset and split by bedroom count. This is the effect a wet amenity has on what you can charge.

2 bedroom
+12%
3 bedroom
+23%
4 bedroom
+9%
+23%
3-bedroom spa premium

The strongest effect we measured, and the size of property most short-stay owners on the Gold Coast actually run.

+9% to 23%
Measured spa premium

Median nightly rate for 2 to 4 bedroom listings with a spa versus without, same dataset, controlled for property size.

+14.3%
AirDNA, independently

Their figure for hot tubs across thousands of listings sits inside the band we measured here. Two datasets, two methods, same answer.

What we are not claiming. We are not telling you a sauna adds 30% to your nightly rate, and we are not going to invent a number to sell you something. The premium above is measured on spas, because that is the wet amenity our dataset can actually see. We do not know what share of Gold Coast listings have a sauna. We audited our own figure for that and found it unsound, so we pulled it rather than leave it up. We hold no data at all on cold plunges. And we have no first-party evidence that a wet amenity lifts occupancy as opposed to rate, so we have not assumed it anywhere on this page.

Run your numbers

Your figures, not our promises.

Set this to your actual rate and occupancy. The uplift defaults to 10%, the conservative end of what we measured, not the top of it. Move it if you disagree.

$486
60%
10%
$14,998

Median 2bd on the Gold Coast is $486/night and 3bd is $775, from the same 484 listings. Occupancy is yours to know; we have not assumed it for you. Installed, our builds are $8,998 for The Cube (2 people), $13,198 for The Cube (4 people), $14,998 for The Cube (2 people) with the plunge and $18,198 for The Cube (4 people) with the plunge. The slider starts on the 2-and-plunge pair. A concrete base, any electrical run and delivery are quoted on top, the first two after we see the site.

$10,644
Additional revenue per year
Nights booked219
Extra per night$49
Payback period1.7 years

Straight answers

The objections, answered honestly.

Including the ones where the answer is not what we would prefer it to be.

Will guests actually use it?
Some will, some won't, and the same is true of your pool. That is not really the mechanism. The sauna earns its keep in the search filter, the photos and the listing title, where it is the thing that makes someone stop scrolling. It is a reason to choose you over the identical place two streets over. Usage is a bonus; the booking is the return.
What is the maintenance, really?
Real, ongoing and modest. We are not going to tell you it is zero. Cedar needs periodic cleaning, and re-oiling or staining on a cycle to keep it sealed. Budget it like you budget pool servicing, at a lower frequency. Hosts who get burned are the ones sold a "maintenance-free" amenity that turned into a weekend job.
How long will it last?
A well-built western red cedar sauna lasts 15 to 25 years, and longer with consistent maintenance. Cedar's natural oils repel water and deter insects, which is exactly why it is the standard timber for wet, hot applications rather than a style choice. Our builds are specified for back-to-back guest turnover, not for one owner using it on weekends.
Is it compliant in Australia?
This is where most grey imports fall over. Ours are supplied 240V, 50Hz, with an Australian plug, and heaters and controllers specified against AS/NZS. An adapter on a 110V unit is not compliance. Ask any supplier for their certification in writing before you pay a deposit, including us.
What about safety and insurance?
Compliant heater, controller and timer, plus clear signage, are the baseline and we supply them. Beyond that, you need to confirm cover with your own insurer, because policies differ and we are not qualified to give you insurance advice. Any supplier who tells you "it's fine, don't worry about it" is telling you something they cannot possibly know about your policy.
What does it cost to run?
Electricity per session, which depends on your heater size, tariff and how long it runs. We would rather give you a measured figure for the exact model you choose than a flattering estimate here. Ask us and we will send the heater's rated draw so you can put it against your own tariff.
Does it add to my property value?
Honestly: we do not have credible Australian resale data, and the "$5,000 to $20,000 added value" figures circulating online all trace back to companies selling saunas, mostly in the US. We are not going to repeat a number we cannot stand behind. What is reasonable to say is that it is a desirability feature that helps a property stand out. Treat any dollar figure you are quoted with suspicion.
Why not just add a spa like everyone else?
You can, and it will probably work. That is what the +9% to 23% in our data is measuring. But you would be buying into the amenity 55% of your competitors already have, at which point it stops being a reason to book and starts being a thing you need so you are not the odd one out. The sauna is the same category of benefit at a fraction of the saturation.
Dune Living Next step

Send us your listing.

We will tell you which build suits the space, what it costs installed, and what we think it will and will not do for your rate. If we think it is wrong for your property we will say so.

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Sources. Nightly-rate figures are our own analysis of 484 live Gold Coast and SE QLD Airbnb listings captured August 2026; medians are controlled for bedroom count, small-sample rows are excluded, and the spa split comes from the structured amenity field rather than a text classifier. We published an amenity-penetration figure here previously and withdrew it on 2026-09-03 after an audit showed the sample it was drawn from had been filtered in a way that made the number circular. The independent hot-tub ADR figure is from AirDNA. Cedar service life is a material property consistently reported across independent sources. We have deliberately excluded nightly-uplift claims published by sauna manufacturers, since every one we found was made by a company selling saunas and none published a method or sample.