Research · October 2026
The State of Saunas in America 2026
What 412 verified sauna listings across 31 US cities tell us about how America sweats — infrared vs. traditional, the cold plunge boom, and what a session actually costs.
412
verified listings
31
cities covered
22
states
25%
publish their pricing
Infrared won
Three out of five venues in our directory offer infrared — nearly double the share of traditional dry saunas. The modern American sauna is overwhelmingly an infrared box, not a cedar room.
Includes gym/spa/hotel locker-room saunas, which are dry heat by convention
Cold plunge went mainstream
44% of listings now offer cold plunge, and 39% explicitly sell contrast therapy — hot-cold cycling as a packaged product, not a DIY locker-room ritual. Dedicated contrast studios (SweatHouz, Perspire, and dozens of independents) are the fastest-growing venue format in the directory.
Half the market isn't a "sauna business"
Dedicated sauna studios and bathhouses are just under half of all listings. The rest of America's sauna capacity lives inside gyms, hotel spas, and day spas — which is why "gym with sauna" is one of the most searched sauna queries in the country.
Nobody posts prices
Only one in four venues publishes any pricing on their website. Among the 36 studios offering intro deals, the median first-timer price is $35 — the industry's standard foot-in-the-door. Pricing opacity is the norm, which is exactly why we collect it where we can.
Where the heat is
The Sun Belt dominates: Nashville, Phoenix, Tampa, and Dallas lead our coverage, mirroring where new contrast studios are opening fastest.
Cite this research
Journalists and bloggers: you're welcome to cite these findings. Link back so readers can explore the underlying directory.
400 of 412 listings link to an official website (97%). Every venue was verified against its official site and an active map listing before publication.
Methodology
This report is based on the Sauna Scout directory as of October 2026: 412 listings across 31 US metropolitan areas. Each listing was verified by a researcher against the venue's official website (amenities must be stated there, not on aggregators) and an active map listing at the published address. Venues that failed verification were held back, not published.
"Traditional" is tagged only where the official site explicitly describes a dry, Finnish, or wood-fired sauna — except gym, spa, and hotel locker-room saunas, which are dry heat by convention and tagged as such. Percentages reflect our directory's coverage, which skews toward metros we've researched so far, not a census of every sauna in America.