Is a sauna business profitable?.
Is a sauna business profitable? How full your sessions need to be to break even.
“Do saunas make money?” is one of the first things people ask when they think about opening one. The honest answer depends on four numbers you can work out before you buy anything. Here they are, worked through for one example sauna.
Updated · 4 min read
The short answer
A sauna can make money, but most of what decides it is in your control before you open: how many sessions you run, how full they are, what you charge and what each session costs you to staff and heat. Nobody publishes reliable profit figures for Irish or UK saunas yet, so be wary of anyone quoting one. The useful number is your own break-even: how full your sessions need to be before the sauna pays its costs.
This guide works through one example, line by line, so you can swap in your own numbers. Every figure in it is an assumption for the arithmetic. It is not a forecast for any real sauna.
The example sauna
- 8 seats in a shared sauna, 15 sessions a week (three a day, five days a week).
- €18.00 a seat, inside the range of €16 to €35 that a 2025 spas.ie survey found for a typical Irish session.
- A site on private land paying the landowner 12% of takings. The British Sauna Society says operators on private land commonly agree “a percentage of takings (often around 10–15%)”, a flat fee, or a minimum fee plus a percentage (BSS land and site agreements guide).
- A wood-fired stove at an assumed €6.00 of logs per session.
- Someone on site for every session, 1.5 hours each including heating up and clearing down, paid Ireland’s minimum wage of €14.15 an hour, before employer PRSI (National Minimum Wage Order 2025). In the UK the National Living Wage is £12.71 from April 2026 (GOV.UK). If you staff it yourself, this line is your own pay.
What each seat leaves you
Start with one seat, because it shows what every extra guest is worth.
| Per seat | Amount |
|---|---|
| Guest pays | €18.00 |
| Booking fee (2%, inside the price) | −€0.35 |
| Card processing (Stripe, 1.5% + €0.25) | −€0.52 |
| Landowner’s share (12%) | −€2.16 |
| Left from each seat | €14.97 |
Card processing is for a standard European card. Some cards cost more. That €14.97 has to pay for everything else before any of it is yours.
What it costs to open the door
Some costs arrive whether one person books or eight. Each session costs about €27.23 in logs and staff time. At 15 sessions a week that is about €1,770 a month. Then there are costs that come every month regardless:
| Each month | Amount |
|---|---|
| Insurance (placeholder: get a broker’s quote) | €150 |
| Repayments on the sauna and trailer | €400 |
| Water, waste, marketing and accounts | €200 |
| Total with sessions | €2,520 |
These are placeholders for the arithmetic, not typical prices. Insurance varies a lot with the site, cold water access, wood fire and cover limits, so get a quote before you sign anything.
Break-even: how full is full enough?
Divide what it costs to open by what each seat leaves: €2,520 ÷ €14.97 is about 169 seats a month, out of about 520 on offer. The example sauna breaks even when its sessions are 32% full, roughly 2.6 guests in every session of 8.
| Sessions full | Seats sold a month | Takings | Left each month, before tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30% | 156 | €2,808 | −€185 |
| 50% | 260 | €4,680 | €1,372 |
| 70% | 364 | €6,552 | €2,929 |
A sauna that is a third full most weeks is roughly paying its way. A sauna at half full has about €1,372 a month left. Every guest after break-even adds €14.97.
The three levers that matter
Fill the sessions you already run
Going from 50% to 70% full adds about €1,557 a month in the example. A €2 price rise at 50% full adds about €439. An extra guest in a session you’re already running costs you almost nothing. This is why regulars, packs and memberships matter so much: they fill the quiet weekday mornings that a sunny Saturday never will.
Cut the sessions that never fill
Each staffed session costs about €27.23 before anyone books. Dropping from 15 to 10 sessions a week means you need about 129 guests a month to break even instead of 169, as long as most of your guests move to the times you keep. Look at your bookings after a month and stop running the times that sit empty. Set a minimum number of guests for a session to go ahead, and tell people when you’d cancel.
Charge a little more
An extra €2 a seat (€20.00) lowers break-even from 32% to 29%. Check the new price against the saunas near you first. Our sauna pricing guide shows what other saunas advertise.
What this example leaves out
- Your own time beyond sessions: bookings, messages, cleaning, social media and repairs.
- Tax. Income or corporation tax, and VAT once you pass the registration threshold. Ask an accountant early.
- Weather and seasons. Outdoor saunas close for storms, and many are quieter in summer. Model a bad month, not an average one. Our guide to storm closures covers what to do with the bookings.
- Buying the sauna. The repayments line stands in for it. See what a commercial sauna costs and buying a sauna trailer.
- Permits and pitch fees, which depend on the council and the site. See starting a sauna business in Ireland and running a mobile sauna.
- Private hire, packs and vouchers. They change the mix and bring money in early, which helps cash flow. Packs and vouchers bought now are sessions you owe later.
Before you sign for a site
The British Sauna Society’s advice on land is blunt: “For most sauna operators, the sauna itself is not the hardest part. Land is.” It suggests starting with short trial agreements and avoiding “long leases before you understand your numbers” (BSS land and site agreements guide). A share of takings suits a new sauna because the landowner shares the risk of a slow start. In writing, even informally, agree:
- how long the trial lasts and how much notice either side gives
- how and when the landowner is paid, and how takings are reported
- who pays for water, power and any damage
- whether the landowner can host another sauna nearby
If you’re in the UK, the British Sauna Society also publishes a guide to setting up as a sauna operator.
Run your own numbers
Put your seats, sessions, price and heater into the free sauna profit calculator. It works in euro or sterling and shows what booking and card fees take. Then visit the saunas nearest your spot at the times you plan to sell, and count who is there.
Questions
Do sauna businesses make money?
Some do and some don’t, and there are no reliable published profit figures for Irish or UK saunas. What decides it is how full your sessions are, what you charge and what each session costs to run. In our worked example of an 8-seat sauna at €18.00 a seat, the sauna breaks even when sessions are about 32% full.
How full does a sauna need to be to break even?
Divide your monthly costs (staff, fuel, insurance, repayments and so on) by what each seat leaves after booking fees, card fees and any landowner’s share. In our example that is about 32% of seats. Your number will differ with your costs and price.
How much do landowners charge to host a sauna?
The British Sauna Society says operators on private land commonly agree a percentage of takings, often around 10 to 15%, a flat daily or monthly fee, or a minimum fee plus a percentage. Council land and council beach schemes set their own fees.
Is a mobile sauna business profitable?
It can be, on the same arithmetic: seats × sessions × how full × price, less staff, fuel, pitch and insurance. A trailer lets you move to a better site if one doesn’t work, but towing, pitch permits and weather add cost. Run your own figures in the sauna profit calculator before you buy.
What is the biggest cost of running a sauna?
In most staffed saunas it is the time someone spends on site for each session, including heating up and clearing down. That is why sessions that rarely fill cost more than they earn, and why trimming them often helps more than cutting prices.