What Makes Boats So Expensive?

One question we get all of the time is, What makes Boats So Expensive?  Boats are expensive compared to cars for several reasons.  One reason is low production volume.  The most popular ski and wake boats sell in volumes of a few hundred per year while Ford sold 900,000 F150’s last year.  Because of this, every boat part has higher production costs.  

MasterCraft and Malibu are the two largest manufacturers of ski and wake boats.  Combined they sell around 8,000 boats world wide per year.  Ferrari sells 20% more units per year, so does Lamborghini.  Most of the smaller wake / ski manufacturers make fewer than 500 total boats per year.

Boats are mostly hand built requiring much higher labor costs per unit.  With such low production numbers, many labor-saving technologies are simply not cost effective.

Another big reason for high boat prices are the buyers!  As much as it is hard to believe, most of us don’t need to own a boat.  We see buyers every week complain about boat pricing and then add thousands of dollars of metal flake accents, stereo upgrades, and LED cockpit and underwater lighting to their order.  The boats selling are giving the manufacturers motivation to find and add cool features rather than scale back on content in an attempt to lower new boat pricing.

If we limited boats to just what was required to make a wake (or not) and pull a rider, pricing would be substantially less.  The problem is the last 10% - 15% of the purchase price is frequently the expense that helps get the buyer excited enough to pay new boat pricing.