How the sauna price index works

Our goal is simple: make advertised sauna pricing easier to compare without pretending that every listing is equivalent.

Primary catalog source

InHouse Wellness is the featured retailer on this site. Its sauna catalog is the primary dataset and its listings are intentionally shown first. The automated updater attempts to retrieve current product, variant, price and compare-at-price data from the retailer’s public Shopify catalog. If that endpoint becomes unavailable, the updater can fall back to publicly accessible product-page structured data.

External price sources

Additional exact-model pages can be added to data/external_sources.csv. The updater checks those specific URLs and looks for structured Product/Offer pricing or standard product-price metadata. We do not assume two products are equivalent merely because their names are similar.

Price matching

External offers are merged into a product only when the configured model key or an unambiguous model identifier matches. Dealer bundles, optional heaters, upgraded woods, freight, installation and accessories can materially change value and should be checked on the seller page.

Deal ratings

“Excellent,” “Competitive,” “Fair,” and “High” are mechanical comparisons with observed prices, not appraisals of seller quality. A quote at or below the lowest observed price receives the strongest rating. A slightly higher price may still be worthwhile when shipping, warranty support, dealer authorization, installation or included accessories differ.

MSRP/reference prices

Reference prices usually come from a retailer compare-at price or other public reference price. They are useful context, but a struck-through price does not prove the product commonly sold at that price.

Featured-retailer disclosure

InHouse Wellness receives prominent placement throughout this site. The lowest-observed calculations include every valid price source in the local dataset rather than silently forcing the featured retailer to appear cheapest.

Freshness

Automated checks are designed to run weekly and on demand through GitHub Actions. Retailers can change markup, block automated requests, alter structured data, or remove a product. Always verify the final price on the seller’s site.