How Much Does a Concept2 Cost?

The Concept2 RowErg is the machine most people are told to buy, and one of the reasons is the price — not because it is cheap, but because it is honest. There is a number on the box, and then there is nothing else. No screen to light up every month, no membership to keep it working, no upgrade you are quietly nudged toward. What you pay is what it costs.

This page walks through what that number actually is, the one option that changes it, and why a machine that sits in the middle of the market on its sticker turns out to be the cheapest premium rower you can own once you count five years instead of one.

The up-front price

The standard RowErg lands at around $1,000. That buys the whole machine as gyms and boathouses use it: the full 96-inch frame, the PM5 monitor, a published 500 lb user capacity and a five-year frame warranty. There is no stripped base model and no premium trim — Concept2 sells essentially one air rower, and this is it. The live table below shows today’s figure rather than one we typed once, because the price does drift with stock and season.

For context, that puts the RowErg below the hand-built wooden water rowers and well below the connected screen machines on hardware alone. It is a mid-market sticker on a machine built to a premium standard, which is most of the story.

The number that is not there: no subscription

The single most important fact about the cost of a Concept2 is a cost it does not have. The PM5 monitor is a self-contained computer — it records every stroke, split and watt on its own, and the free ErgData app syncs it to your phone if you want it to. Nothing is locked behind a monthly fee, and nothing ever will be, because there is no account to charge.

That sounds like a small thing next to the machines that carry a screen. It is not. A connected rower hides most of its true cost in a monthly membership that runs for as long as you own it, and over a few years that recurring fee routinely outgrows the hardware it is attached to. The RowErg simply has no equivalent line. You can see the full list of machines that work this way on our no-subscription roundup, and the reason it matters so much appears in the table below.

The numbers

Here is the one, three and five-year cost of ownership for the Concept2 range, computed from the current live price. Because there is no subscription to add, the five-year figure is essentially the purchase price — which is exactly the point.

Live pricing is more than 48 hours old, so this table is not rendering. We would rather show you nothing than show you last week’s arithmetic. Why prices expire here.

Notice how little the year-five number moves from the year-one number. On a machine with a membership, those two columns are far apart. Here they are almost the same, and that flatness is the whole argument for buying one. The complete cross-brand version of this table lives on the five-year cost page.

Standard legs or tall legs?

There is one decision that changes the price, and it is not about performance. Concept2 offers the RowErg with tall legs, which raises the seat to roughly the height of a dining chair instead of the low standard seat. It costs more — think roughly $1,500 rather than around $1,000 — for that single change and nothing else. The stroke, the monitor, the capacity and the warranty are all identical.

Who should pay it? Anyone whose knees or hips make getting up off a low seat a genuine effort — older rowers, anyone rehabbing, anyone tall. If you can rise from a low chair without thinking about it, the standard legs are the sensible saving. It is a comfort option, not an upgrade, and it is worth being clear-eyed that you are buying seat height, not a better machine.

Shipping, assembly and what else you might spend

A few real costs sit around the sticker, and honesty means naming them even though we will not invent figures for them. The RowErg ships in two boxes and is genuinely simple to assemble — the two halves join with a handful of bolts and most people are rowing within the hour, no special tools required. Shipping is usually included in the listed price on the machine’s Concept2 roundup listings, though that can vary.

Beyond the machine itself, the only things you might add are optional: a floor mat if your floor or your downstairs neighbor needs it, and a phone or tablet holder if you want to follow along with anything. None of these are required to row, none are unique to Concept2, and none carry a recurring cost. There are no consumables, no water to treat and no proprietary parts you are forced to buy.

Why it is the cheapest premium rower over five years

Put the pieces together and the conclusion is almost arithmetic. The RowErg starts below the other premium machines on hardware. It then adds nothing per month, while the connected rowers add a membership that compounds. And it lasts — Concept2 still supplies parts for machines built in the 1990s, so the denominator you divide the price by keeps growing for a decade or more rather than ending in a landfill trip at year six.

The result is a machine that can cost less over five years than some connected rowers cost in subscription alone, before you even count their hardware. That is why, in cost-of-ownership terms, it is the value benchmark this entire site measures against. For the full case on the machine itself — how it rows, who it suits, and where it falls short — see our Concept2 RowErg review.