Latest analysis
Austin Air HealthMate: the dearest to buy, and $0 in filters across five years
Five years costs about $1,049: $844 to buy, $205 in electricity and nothing in filters, because the filter is rated for five years. There is no…
Research-led analysis · United States
The sticker price is not what it costs.
We model what home wellness equipment actually costs to own: purchase, installation, electricity and consumables over five years. Then we tell you which one wins, and why the cheapest one to buy usually is not it.
Verifiedevery figure carries the source it came from, printed next to it
Modelledfive-year cost including electricity and consumables, not just the sticker
Independentno paid placements, no sponsored rankings, no brand approval of drafts
Honestwe say when we could not verify something, and when a claim is thinner than it looks
Updated this month
What we would actually buy
Replace the IDs below with your own analysis IDs from Analyses → All Analyses.
[hgl_roundup ids="1,2,3"]
Why we do it this way
A $299 air purifier can cost more than a $549 one
Filters, electricity and replacement schedules routinely add more than the purchase price over five years. Almost nobody publishes that number, so we calculate it on every product, show the working, and let you sort by what a thing actually costs.
What we cover
Four categories, one method
Air & Water
Filtration that earns its filter cost
Air purifiers, reverse osmosis, whole-house systems and softeners. The category where consumables quietly double the price over five years.
Sauna & Cold Therapy
The real running cost of heat and ice
Infrared and traditional saunas, cold plunge tubs, chillers. Big purchases where electricity is the line item nobody publishes.
Non-Toxic Home
Materials, certifications, and marketing
Cookware, mattresses, furniture, paint and textiles. We check what a certification actually covers before we repeat the claim.
Light & Circadian
Measured output, not marketing lumens
Red light panels, circadian lighting and sunrise alarms, compared on irradiance at a stated distance rather than on claims.
Latest analyses
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Austin Air HealthMate: the dearest to buy, and $0 in filters across five years
Five years costs about $1,049: $844 to buy, $205 in electricity and nothing in filters, because the filter is rated…
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Alen BreatheSmart 75i: the lifetime warranty requires you to keep paying
Five years costs about $1,331, the most of these six. The Forever Guarantee is real, but it is conditional on…
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Coway Airmega 250: $89 filters put it $260 above the Mighty over five years
Five years costs about $913: $399 to buy, $158 in electricity and $356 in filters. It cleans faster than the…
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Coway Airmega Mighty: one filter set, two different schedules
Five years costs about $651: $240 to buy, $191 in electricity and $220 in filters. The set is sold as…
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Levoit Core 400S: the cheapest of these six to own, at $584 over five years
Five years costs about $584: $190 to buy, $94 in electricity and $300 in filters. Levoit publishes the honest 4.8…
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Coway Airmega 400: the filters are 48% of what you pay over five years
Five years costs $1,069: $390 to buy, $163 in electricity, $516 in filters. The filters are 48% of the total,…
Methodology
We do not test. We verify, and we model.
Verifyevery figure checked against manufacturer documentation and certification listings, with the source printed next to it
Modelfive-year cost of ownership: purchase, install, electricity at the US average rate, and consumables
Compareevery product scored against the others in its category on the same five criteria
Disclosewhere a number came from, what a certification does not cover, and where the evidence is thin
We are transparent about the limits of that. We have not felt the build quality of a sauna or heard how loud a purifier is on high. What we can do is catch the $900 of filters hidden behind a $299 sticker price, and say plainly when a manufacturer will not publish a number. Read the full methodology.
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