Where to Sauna in Portland This Winter, and What You're Actually Paying For

If an hour in a hot cedar room costs about the same wherever you book it, why does one Portland sauna come to $17.50 an hour and another more than twice that?

Across the city's public saunas this winter, the heat is close to a commodity. You pay more for what comes after it: the cold plunge, a river, a soaking pool, or a glass of vermouth on the other side of a greenhouse door. The newest example arrived last month, when a mobile sauna moved onto the back patio of a new bar on Belmont. Pricing by what surrounds the heat also gives you a practical way to choose where to spend dark evenings between now and spring.

The per-hour figures divide each operator's listed price by its listed session length. They are a rough way to compare, since a quote from any of these places will differ once memberships, private bookings and peak pricing come in.

Löyly shows what the heat alone costs

Löyly is the closest Portland has to a plain sauna. A two-hour visit at either location is $35 Monday through Thursday and $40 Friday through Sunday, and the price includes a towel and robe along with showers, a locker room and a lounge. Among the timed sessions, that is the lowest hourly rate on the list. In its March 2026 profile, Willamette Week listed weekday visits at $30, so the weekday price has gone up $5 since spring.

The same Willamette Week piece explains why Löyly can charge less. It has no soaking pools and no cold plunge. Cooling down happens under cold showers and overhead pull-chain buckets. The paper described the Northeast MLK location as the larger one, with a social sauna, and the Southeast 21st Avenue location as smaller and quieter, with a steam room and a garage door that opens.

For anyone who wants a dependable midweek reset close to home, that tradeoff can be the right one. Everyone else on this list is charging for something extra on top of the heat.

Ebb & Ember charges for the river

Ebb & Ember is the clearest example of a sauna priced on its cold side. It floats at Elevated Tides Marina in the North Portland Harbor, and between rounds of heat, guests climb down into the Columbia. The Oregonian reported it as the city's first floating sauna when it opened to the public on Jan. 1, 2026. That makes this its first full winter on the water.

Its pricing has changed since launch. In January The Oregonian listed social sessions at a flat $49. Ebb & Ember's site now splits the week in two. Off-peak runs all day Monday through Thursday and Friday before 5 p.m., at $49 per person. Peak runs from 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday and on holidays, at $59. A social session lasts 1 hour and 45 minutes with a 15-minute transition, and up to eight guests can book one. The shorter sunrise and moonlight sessions run one hour for $39, which works out to the highest hourly rate on the boat. Private bookings for up to 10 guests cost $449 off-peak and $539 peak.

The operator describes social sessions as shared, unstaffed and self-guided, with "the awareness and courtesy of the guests" setting the atmosphere. Ebb & Ember is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., so the dark hours on either side of a November day are covered. The Oregonian, citing the sauna's guidelines, says guests should bring:

1. A bathing suit
2. Two towels
3. A non-metallic water bottle

The same article quotes the sauna's FAQ on Portland weather: "Rain and mist only enhance the experience." In January The Oregonian reported memberships ranging from $99 to $299 a month. It also reported that the three Portland residents who founded Ebb & Ember plan floating offices, wellness studios and event spaces next.

SaunaGlo and Knot Springs build out the cold and add more water

Two other operators spend more on the contrast side, and they price it in different ways.

SaunaGlo, on the Willamette waterfront in downtown Milwaukie, sits just outside Portland's city limits. It calls itself a public community sauna and cold-contrast lounge. The cold side includes a cedar-barrel cold plunge, a waterfall bucket and a "Viking" shower, and it's open seven days a week. A public day pass is $34, and a weekday matinee before 2 p.m. is $24. Neither has a time limit. No time limit changes the math. Stay for a long afternoon and your hourly cost drops below Löyly's. SaunaGlo is the one place here that charges for a full plunge circuit without putting a clock on it.

Knot Springs, at 33 NE 3rd Ave., Suite 365, is the most expensive option on the list. You also get the most for the price. A two-hour visit costs $69 to $89 and includes warm and hot pools, a steam room, a sauna, a cold plunge and a deck overlooking the river. It's open every day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Hour for hour, Knot Springs costs roughly double Löyly. That gap pays for the pools and the view, since the sauna is only one of five things on the menu.

Secret Sauna at Patufet charges for the evening around it

The newest arrangement in the city takes this pattern one step further. Madeline Kenney and Chris Perry opened Patufet, a Catalan-inspired vermouth bar and cafe in a pink house at 2511 SE Belmont St., on Oct. 8. Eater Portland reported that through April, the bar's sheltered rear patio hosts Secret Sauna, a mobile wood-fired cedar sauna you can book by the session. Showers and changing rooms are set up inside a converted greenhouse, and chairs circle a firepit.

Secret Sauna's own pricing sits in the middle of the range. Social sessions are $30 for 60 minutes and $40 for 90 minutes, offered Thursday through Sunday. There's no plunge or river. The site lists the wood-fired cedar sauna, outdoor showers and a lounge. The extra here is the house next door.

According to Eater, Patufet was keeping hours from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday in October. It is meant as a place to linger, not a dinner reservation, built around Barcelona's tradition of fer el vermouth: a sip of something, small plates and company. Eater reported vermouth starting at $12, most wines by the glass at $13 to $14, $5 craft beer, and pizzelle cookies from $2. The food menu, which included maritozzo mini sandwiches with Normandie butter and anchovies, French potato salad and meat and cheese from Cowbell, changes week to week. Inside, Eater described a brick fireplace with bookshelves on either side, an upright piano at the end of the standing bar, and a room called "the Chapel," where artist Emily Parkinson painted vermouth herbs in lime wash on emerald walls under Brianna O'Brien's gold-starred blue ceiling.

"Wanting to host people in a cozy, safe space was the goal anyway," Kenney told Eater. The sauna and the bar keep the same Thursday-through-Sunday rhythm. So a 90-minute session followed by a $12 vermouth by the fire costs about what one peak-hour social session on the Columbia does, and the second hour of your evening happens indoors with the piano.

Matching the evening to the place

All of this makes choosing simpler, because each place leans toward a different kind of night:

• A weeknight reset with no extras: Löyly, at either the NE MLK or SE 21st Avenue location, Monday through Thursday.
• A cold-water plunge: Ebb & Ember. An off-peak booking, Monday through Thursday or Friday before 5 p.m., keeps a social session at $49.
• A long, unhurried afternoon: SaunaGlo's $24 weekday matinee before 2 p.m., with no time limit.
• A full circuit with pools and a view: Knot Springs, open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.
• Sauna, then a drink: Secret Sauna at Patufet, Thursday through Sunday, through April.

All five operators take bookings or sell passes on their own sites, and prices change with the season. Check before you go, especially for Friday night through Sunday.

If you'd like to talk through which corners of Portland put a Belmont patio or a river plunge within easy reach of home, Spurlock & Co. would be glad to start a conversation.