One of the latest home status symbols — cold plunges — can really help you chill, but the prices are stiff.
Thanks to social media, most people know about the routine where someone takes a dip into near-freezing water. There’s typically a shiver followed by carefully controlled breathing. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and Joe Rogan have adopted it into their wellness routines to help with inflammation and physical recovery.
Though store-bought inflatable tubs can be bought for under $100, cost is not an issue for wealthy homeowners looking for a more luxurious treatment, decking out personal spas that mimic the swanky amenities found in upscale gyms — $15,000 cold plunge and all.
Consulting firm Grand View Research predicts the global market for cold plunges will expand by nearly $100 million by 2030 to $426 million. Though the therapy is said to date back hundreds of years, dedicated tubs are still a new product to American consumers, and they are gaining popularity in a design-forward era where they’ve become a must-have in lavish homes, according to industry professionals.
Architect Mark Richardson noted an uptick since 2020 in requests for home wellness spaces, as the pandemic spurred demand. The projects have grown steadily, now taking up more than half of his Austin, Texas, firm’s workload, and each one includes some kind of cold plunge.
“Now it seems like almost every other client is looking for that kind of treatment space somewhere,” Richardson said in an interview.
The projects run the gamut based on what type of plunge Richardson’s clients specify. Options include a highly custom and integrated tub, or an off-the-shelf unit placed in a well-designed area. The plunges are often paired with a sauna for that hot-and-cold body shock experience. “We’ve had maybe one instance with just a sauna,” said Richardson. “If they want one, they want the other.”
In the Hidden Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, builder Jason Steele’s latest speculative home, priced at $20.9 million, includes a massage room, sauna, steam shower and freestanding cold plunge. It’s aimed at the upper echelon of earners Steele builds to sell to, such as celebrities and athletes.
“It’s gradually becoming more of a requirement than more of a fun feature for a lot of these people,” said Steele, who installed a $9,990 cold plunge add-on in the house to a bathtub from Hydro Systems.
Demand for wellness
There’s been a hole in the home appliance market for aesthetically pleasing cold plunges to meet the needs of high-end homebuyers with high-end taste. Over the past five years, more manufacturers have tried to capitalize on that interest.
When Roseville, California-based Plunge presented an ice bath product on “Shark Tank” in 2022, the firm became inundated with sales. The majority of orders were — and continue to be — for its sleek, angled All-In Plunge, a significant step up in design compared to the do-it-yourself options that were more common when Plunge launched in 2020.
“At that time, this market of cold plunge wasn’t really even a market,” said Ryan Duey, Plunge’s CEO and co-founder, in an interview. “Our product was a unique one at the price point it came in at and the aesthetic design.”
The All-In Plunge sells for nearly $9,000. Average bathtubs cannot get to the 59 degrees and below required for a proper cold plunge, making it necessary to purchase a unit with a built-in chiller unless using ice to drop the temperature.
“Health and wellness as a category, which is a very broad thing, we’re just a small subset of this category, is a major growing sector in the U.S. economy and world economy, and that’s not slowing down,” said Duey. “Health and wellness is in vogue.”
According to business consultancy McKinsey & Co., the wellness market in the United States expands by 10% annually and was valued at $480 billion in 2024.
John Seaman, a business owner and social media influencer with more than 120,000 followers, used a deep freezer to cold plunge. Instead of spending on a pricey unit, he did what many online do: fill a freezer with water and ice. He eventually purchased a Plunge unit for about $5,000, which now sits adjacent to his home gym in a 1,500-square-foot space.
“I do a lot of stupid stuff to my body,” said Seaman, who enjoys running marathons and racing dirt bikes. He said cold plunges are popular at the finish line of these events.
Despite all the enthusiasm for cold plunges, the health benefits remain largely anecdotal, according to Rachele Pojednic, an adjunct lecturer of human biology at Stanford University and research director at national wellness spa Restore. Much of her work is focused on physical recovery.
“When you get into the water, it dramatically lowers your core temperature and it also has this very acute inflammatory reduction, which in some cases can be helpful,” Pojednic said.
But plunging can also defeat the purpose of exercising, which strains muscles to make them stronger, Pojednic added. She said the mental health benefits of cold dips gain the least amount of attention but could hold the most potential.
“The only way you can stay in the water is if you take really big, deep, purposeful, calming breaths, and I think that is the real magic of these therapies,” she said.
New manufacturers
Most cold plunge products are sold by brands focused on the specific therapy, such as Plunge, Renu, or BlueCube. But manufacturers with more diversified product lines, from pizza ovens to faucets, have jumped in.
Industry, California-based Empava launched a hot and cold plunge indoor tub at this year's residential construction design show in Las Vegas, priced at about $8,000. Plumbing goods giant Kohler announced its first cold plunge late last year, one of the first major companies in the bath space to do so.
The Kohler, Wisconsin-based manufacturer's ice bath is priced at $15,000.
“They basically made it look like a Ferrari,” said Utah-based custom home builder Aaron Adams of Adams & Co. Construction, who builds homes for clients priced between $4 million and $8 million. “It’s the nicest cold plunge I’ve ever seen in person. But they’ll be worth it.”
Adams said all of his clients request cold plunges in their custom homes. In Park City, Utah, some new developments have even been built with cold plunges as a feature to lure affluent buyers. Velvaere, a wellness-focused residential project, includes a “sanctuary space” with cold plunges and a sauna.
Adding these amenities is becoming a normal conversation for new homes, said Plunge's Duey.
Both Hydro Systems and Plunge noted an increase in requests for cold plunges in commercial spaces, such as hotels, gyms, and spas, furthering the awareness of cold plunging and its reputation as an aspirational fixture. Kohler’s ice bath was even designed in partnership with a spa, Remedy Place, with locations in New York and Boston.
“It just keeps growing and growing, and we’re not really sure when the end is in sight at this point,” said Ken Steinhardt, Hydro Systems' marketing director. “We see this even expanding more from just professional athletes in their facilities to people with disposable incomes in their homes, to now we’re getting a lot of requests from spas, whether it’s a hotel with a spa or standalone spa, where they’re even wanting to add cold plunge as a therapy.”