Choosing the Best Sauna in 2025: Why Context Matters More Than Sales Pitches

Looking for the best sauna of 2025? You’ve probably seen the top 3: Radiant Health, Heavenly Heat, and Clearlight. But what you may not know, is there are unique needs or requirements for your situation that may make one better for you than another. But sauna companies will never talk you out of something, which is why we don’t make brand recommendations without taking your unique situation into account. Fact is, some sauna companies offer models and features that better suit your needs, regardless of what we like or use ourselves.

Clearlight VS Heavenly Heat VS Radiant Health

Man these are tough choices, there’s great things about all of them. As you guys know I’m super biased toward the Radiant Health, it’s just hard to go to other things when I’ve had such a great experience with them in multiple states and climates.

But these other companies are making it hard too, because there are great things about them all. I truly don’t think you can go wrong with any of them. Every single one passes all my tests over the last few years, and in many cases exceed the criteria we were originally looking for.

That said, let’s talk about some situations where you might see clips from me saying one of these are bad saunas for you.

I think a lot of social media nowadays shows a 10 minute or even a 1 minute video of something I said, or someone else said, and folks see that and think it’s the general consensus across the board.

When in fact, it’s not at all, it was singled out for someone else’s unique situation, and then this information gets perpetuated out of turn in other formats and people think it’s gospel across the board.

Read the transcript >

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Transcript

All right, tons and tons and tons of questions from you here in the group. You know, everyone’s trying to choose the best sauna for them. You see one little clip or you see a short or you see a video or you see a live stream answer or you see this and you see that and it creates this bad info, right?

Because you might not get the right sauna for you, even though, you know, somebody shared with you an opinion or you ask, you know, like, what’s a good sauna for this or what are your thoughts about that? And you get 20 people that just throw out a brand, but no one’s really considering, you know, what your needs are.

And so the biggest thing that I see that’s unanswered is the clear light versus heavenly heat versus radiant health, which are kind of like the top three, right? And guys, these are, these are tough choices. There’s great things about all of them. And as you know, you know, I can be super biased towards the radiant health.

It’s just hard to go to other things when I’ve had such a great experience with them multiple times, multiple States, multiple years. You know, this is not a new thing. I also have friends and family with them. That’s quickly being run down by heavenly heat though.

I mean, they have new product offerings that you just can’t get from any other brand. And I want to, that’s one of the things that I want to talk to you guys about. You think that there’s like a, well, for one thing, people don’t understand media businesses, right?

Media business is very different than having like a store where you just sell stuff. So we get paid based on eyeballs reach how well our metrics do, uh, partnerships, referral programs, ad rates, all this kind of stuff. But what you don’t know is that every single one of these, all these companies on the planet have the same offerings.

So like you could wipe out the top five or 10 recommended saunas tomorrow and replace them with another 10 or five, whatever brands that we’ve never even seen before. And all the stuff.

that we do here on YouTube or for certified saunas or for any of the business stuff doesn’t change. Like it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. They all offer the same thing. So most of the time when you hear that, Oh, that’s just recommended because that’s who they work for.

Oh, that’s just recommended because that’s who they get paid for. That’s the most naive thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I just let it go. I don’t say anything because it just shows how inexperienced that salesperson is or whatever, right?

They’re kind of like pigeonholes. So they can’t make their product any better. They can’t offer better service and it’s their livelihoods. They’re just trying to close you on something today.

But the fact of the matter is there’s, there’s options and opportunities for every single thing out there on the market, right? Do you really think that because we make a YouTube video on one brand versus another that YouTube pays us less? Stop and think about that for a second.

I really want you to think about that. I don’t really mention it very often, but it’s true yet. It’s so easy for you guys to buy into these convincing stories where, you know, some sauna company that hounds you 17 times a day to try to buy their thing is like, Oh no, you shouldn’t look at that because you know, that’s just that, that all those videos you see are just from somebody that works for the company or he’s paid to say that or this, that, and the other.

Did you ever stop to think for a second that it’s usually those people that are saying those types of things that are the culprit, right? Because their company offers the same exact ad rates as the next one, right? Their company offers the same exact referral program as the next one.

Their company offers the same incentives as the next one, right? When you’re the media business, you just call them up and be like, Hey, we do this for such and such. Uh, we’d like to do that with yours. Okay.

But it’s not, you know, things have changed so much. You don’t even have to do that. You just go into the Google shopping network and add them as a thing. So the other thing is you think that just because someone doesn’t like

something that the thing that they do like makes them money. And I would like you to stop for a second and really consider the fact that I try to monetize every single thing that I can and you should know I make money from bad reviews. There’s people that are going to buy those saunas anyway.

So if you don’t think for a second that I monetize that on the Google shopping network or from the YouTube ads or from every opportunity that we have available, right? You’re kidding yourself. It’s, you know, but it doesn’t, there’s no incentive to change your integrity, right? Yeah.

There’s companies out there that will fly you out and take you to this and put you up in a hotel, take you to five star dinners, offer to put you on salary, just all this crap. Right. But you know what’s happening. Like, you know, you’re just being bought.

It’s not like you even like the product. You’re just doing it because you know, whatever. Well, I’m not in that position, right? I didn’t get started in this as a job.

I didn’t get started in this to start a sauna store. I got started in this because I had health troubles and if you can’t tell, right, this is not my only means of income. I would not be able to do what I’ve done if this was my only source of income.

So the other stuff that I do, my investment portfolio, all my, you know, everything that I’ve been involved in over the years, it’s not outlined for people on YouTube because it’s personal. It’s not really anyone’s business, but if you can’t read between the lines and you need someone to spell it out for you, here it is.

Like if you go buy some sauna that I don’t like, my life doesn’t change at all. Right? Whereas if you call some sauna salesperson and ask them to do a comparison for you and they tell you that every single sauna under the sun sucks except for theirs, why do you think that is?

Even if you call a dealer or a sauna store or God knows these dropshipping places, it’s because that’s the only brand that they can sell. That’s the only license that they’re, they’re in an exclusivity agreement. They’re not allowed to talk about other brands or they.

is their store or whatever. You know what I mean? This is their livelihood. Well, things are not always what they seem.

And so if you just take a second, look and think for a second, generally people that are saying, Oh, so-and-so is just a talking head, or so-and-so is just paid by some company or so-and-so is this, that, and the other. Well, hang on a second. If your product was so good or your service was truly better, or if you really offered a better price or some, some type of advantage for people to work with you, buy from you, you know, do anything with you.

Why would you need to say anything like that? Right? Just think about that. Cause you know, you guys send me a lot of inquiries and you want me to refute stuff, but I just don’t bother because it’ll eventually work itself out.

You’ll eventually see through these people. Cause nine times out of 10, the majority of people that say, do you ever hear me talk like that? I don’t talk like that about individual people. Now I might say something about like that about a brand or a model or a type of sauna.

Why? Because it’s false advertising, right? And you have to remember everything that you see on YouTube, I did not get for free. A couple of things, some stuff I get for free, but I still have to buy things just like you in a lot of cases.

So you can say that it’s pay to play, or you can say that it’s biased. Of course I’m biased. You know, if I gave you, it’s like, I’ve been telling you, if I gave you the Lexus to drive for five years, and then I put you in a 2025 Kia, are you gonna like the tech package?

Sure. It’s much improved. Are you gonna like the car? Probably not.

It’s never going to drive like a Lexus ever. So if you, I mean, to expect me not to be biased after you’ve put me in the Lexus of saunas, and then you stick me in a Kia right in 2025 or beyond is ridiculous, right? And so anyone, anyone that just uses that as the talking piece to try to like talk you into their sauna or their technology, you’ve got to read between the lines and see what’s.

happening with these people, right? So anyway, I could go on and on about this for days because this has happened for years and years and years. And you think just because I don’t say anything about it, that there’s not an awareness to it. Of course, every single week, it’s the same damn emails every single week.

It’s the same type of customer who called some place and they emailed them a bunch of stuff. And who are they talking about in the email? Me. You think that I don’t see them?

Of course I do. But you know what? People are going to do what they’re going to do. So, you know, I’m not here to talk people out of anything, right?

I really don’t want to talk you into anything. You know, I just want to be the guide that shows, you know, makes things demonstrable because you’ll never be able to test all the saunas that we have or that I’ve been in, right? You just won’t get that opportunity in your life at best.

You’re going to try two or three of them before you have to make a decision on which one to buy. So you, our job is to make it as demonstrable as possible to show you and say, Hey, these are the things that you know, you see in the marketing report, but this is how it actually feels, right?

This is, this is the real world use of them. So anyway, we’re way off track, but I think, you know, in these best of sauna video series that, that Aaron wants to do, I think this is really important to have like a preamble or a prequel to, to let you guys know that these things go on because it does make a difference, you know, but this clear light versus heavenly heat versus radiant health versus, you know, all these other brands and, um, these companies are making it hard because there’s great things about all of them.

I don’t drink. I don’t think, I truly don’t think that you can go wrong with any of them. You know, every single one of them passes all my tests over the last few years. Uh, in many cases, exceeding the criteria that we’re originally looking for.

Now, some cases it’s model by model. You know, if you’re a person that has chemical sensitivity, do I recommend you go get a full spectrum sauna that has.

glued to the back of the metal heater guard? Probably not. Can the majority of people, you know, buy that, use that, and never know the difference unless I told them? Sure.

So you have to have situational awareness to what someone’s needs are. You have to take into account, you know, what does somebody really need for their family? Because it might not be the same as me. That’s why you always see me ask.

Everyone just says, oh, what’s a good brand? I don’t respond to those. I don’t just throw out a brand because that’s bad advice for somebody. So that said, let’s talk about some situations where you might see clips of me saying, you know, one of these are bad saunas for you, right?

News, you know, how could you even say such a thing? Matt, your most recommended brands are a bad sauna for somebody. But it’s true. It’s 100% true.

And this is why I think information that you get from sauna stores, sauna dealers, sauna companies, right, is not that great. Because they’re always going to tell you that theirs is the best for you. When is the last time that you ever had someone talk you out of something?

Yet I do it every single day. That’s the difference, right? If you really think that someone is out to get you, well, start paying attention to that. I think a lot of social media nowadays shows a 10 minute or even a one minute video of something someone said, something I said, something anybody said.

And folks see that and they think it’s like the general consensus across the board. When in fact, it’s not. It’s not at all. It was singled out for someone else’s unique situation.

And then this information gets perpetuated out of turn in other formats. And people think it’s gospel across the board. That’s not how it works, unfortunately. Although I wish it did because it would make it a lot easier for me sometimes.

If I could just say, hey, go, you know, go get this brand. It’s the same one that I told my mom to get or my cousin to get or my buddy to get or, you know, just anyone. So let’s go over some examples here where you might see me saying one sauna is bad for someone versus one sauna is good for someone else.

This may not be the video that you that you want.

been, but that series is coming. I just want to offer context because one second, it’s almost like, you know, somebody feels off the rails sometimes because one second you hear, Oh, that’s a good brand. And then the next second you hear, Oh, that’s a terrible choice. You should choose this and you can’t make heads or tails of it.

And here’s why. Okay. Let’s just take a size or an install requirement or anything like that, uh, into account. So some brands on the market just don’t offer saunas that you can plug into a regular outlet.

Like you can run a vacuum cleaner on without having to call an electrician and upgrade, you know, the wiring. So if you live in a condo, if you live in a townhouse, if you anything like that, those are out for you, right? It’s just not worth the hassle.

Another thing is the size. If you’re looking for a corner sauna to talk into, you know, the corner of a, of a spare bedroom and you still want to keep a queen size bed in there, you’ve got to have a door that’s on a 45. You’ll never be able to get in and out of the thing because the rectangle sticks out too far into the room.

Right? So if you’re a person that needs that, guess what? You just eliminated like 50%, 40% of the options on the market because some companies just don’t make a corner sauna. So you could see a video clip of me saying, Hey, you know, here’s the new heavenly heat eco.

And it’s absolutely phenomenal. It’s amazing. It’s one of the fastest preheats on the market period, right? Quicker than tons of other things yet.

They just don’t make a corner sauna. So in the next breath, you could see me talking to someone else and saying, Hey, heavenly, he’s probably a terrible idea for you because you see that and you think, Oh, one is good and one is bad. No, no, no, no, no, no.

That’s not how it works. Just like in the Facebook group, you know, if you just watch YouTube videos, you think that I hate Costco saunas, right? It’s not the case. They have their place.

You just have to know what you’re getting. Everyone just wants them to be something that they’re not. So they convinced themselves that

This is what it is, but it’s just not the case. So you see my videos and they seem overly harsh yet every single week I specifically tell people to buy a Costco sauna, right? In the Facebook group, people will post a link. They find something on Facebook marketplace.

It’s some eight year old sunlight and whatever sauna or some shit like that. And they’re like, should I buy this for $2,500 or, or $1,500, whatever the price ranges are, or should I buy a Costco sauna for $1,700 to $2,200? And I’m specifically in there all the time saying, buy the Costco sauna, buy the Costco sauna, do not buy the old sunlight.

Why? Because the older sunlight has have high EMF also. So if the brand new Costco has, you know, if EMF is like someone, one of your deciding factors, you’re not getting anything better, but you’re buying an old sauna that’s known to possibly have issues, right? And with the Costco thing, if you don’t like it, you can send it back.

So it’s, it’s plain as day, but you don’t get the context of that. If you just saw my Costco review video, it’s me in the Kia and I’m craving the Lexus because you’ve, you’ve had me in it for the last five years. So of course I’m going to be biased against it, right?

You’re not getting the context of where the opinion and the usage comes from, but you can have another person in the sauna group and saying, Hey, I’ve got a $2,000 budget and it’s either 2000 or nothing. And in the next 10 years, I’m not going to use heat therapy. I’ll say, go buy whatever you can afford.

Go buy a Costco sauna. Hey, check out the life pro. It has better heater coverage. No, it’s not perfect build quality.

Neither is the Costco. No, they’re not perfect on EMF. No, they’re not perfect on, you know, all these other things that people care about, the build quality, the control panel, the way the slats line up, the, you know, the creeks and how, how thin the wooden walls are.

And just like all this stuff, guys, you’re not going to get a $10,000 sauna for 2000 bucks. It’s just not going to happen. Just like you’re not going to get the Kia or you’re not going to get the Lexus for the.

Kia price. Even though the newest Kia has the greatest technology and the tech package and it integrates with your phone and it does this and it shows you GPS on the screen and all this fancy shit, but it’s never going to drive like the Lexus, just like the Costco Sana is never going to perform like a higher end Sana that has better heat coverage.

Why do you think all these pictures are in my background on my screen? What do you think this is? These are snippets that I use to show people the difference between heat coverage because you think that a lot of times it’s the price that determines the build quality and all this other stuff, which a lot of times it does, but that’s not really our highest criteria.

Our highest criteria is what kind of sweat are you getting? What kind of infrared coverage is the body receiving in this thing? If you’re going to throw out, you know, budget and all these other metrics and yada, yada, yada, um, at least focus on what you’re in there for.

You know what I’m saying? So that’s, that’s the most important thing. Second on the list is outdoor saunas. You know that these conversations, these Q and A’s take a wild turn.

Somebody will start out saying, you know, should I buy a clear light or a sunlight or should I buy a heavenly heat or radiant health or should I buy a clear light or radiant health or should I buy it? Whatever. Just put whatever brand in there that you want to health may just all these other brands.

It doesn’t matter guys. Within five minutes, we realized that they want to put it on an uncovered patio and they thought that because one company told them that they could just buy a cover and put it on there and that would be fine. That they’d take an indoor sauna from any sauna company and stick it outside in the elements in Florida, in the sun exposure and in the bouncing rain.

Not a good idea. That’s not, it’s not going to last very long. If you go in the Facebook group, you’re going to see, I have pictures of you saunas here in central Florida that people are selling down the street from me and they’ve been outside for two years and they look like absolute hell.

Not only that, not only that, they have moisture damage inside on the floor.

about a foot up the sauna where the cover doesn’t, you know, stop bouncing rain from coming in and doing this and doing that and everything else. So you can go from, you know, oh Matt likes this brand or this brand is that, and then you go through all this stuff and it’s back and forth and then you realize, well I should probably have an outdoor sauna with a weatherproof roof.

If we really want this thing to last, that’s really what we should focus on. If we’re not gonna build a supplemental roof structure over the top, we don’t have a covered patio, or we don’t have, you know, a place where we can protect it from sun exposure. An indoor sauna has an open roof, so if you get any moisture in there it’s gonna fry the electronics.

It just is. So you can listen to the sauna salespeople all day long that can tell you, that’ll tell you, oh you can put an indoor sauna outside, you just have to buy this thousand dollar cover, it’ll be fine. It’s not gonna be fine. We’ve seen it over and over and over and over.

So now all of a sudden you have me, who likes this and likes that and is biased towards this and biased towards that, in the same breath I’m saying do not buy that. That’s a terrible idea for you. Right? Because then we get the context of what your situational needs are, what your family’s needs are, what you’re looking to do, and we realize, yeah I love this brand and I love this model and I told you that I thought it was great for you, but now that you explained the entire situation none of these are a good fit for you.

Right? That’s what a lot of sauna companies aren’t willing to tell you because they don’t want to lose the sale. Right? They’re not in it for the same reasons.

They’re not, they don’t have the same, you know, structure of advice. Their end result and what they’re looking to do, you know, is totally different. If you buy some sauna that I don’t like, my sleep doesn’t change tonight. Whereas a sauna salesperson, theirs does.

That’s the difference. So the next thing on the list is remote control apps. You know, people will buy saunas just because you have the ability to control them remotely. Some sauna companies have a decent program for this.

Some sauna companies fail miserably at this. Some of them have issues with connectivity.

where it seems great, you have a smartphone app, or you have a countdown controller on the screen. There’s all different variations of this. Some of them need to be hooked up to Wi-Fi, some of them only work off of Bluetooth, some of them are proximity limited, where you have to be within the network in order for it to work, which people buy that and they’re absolutely furious because they’re like, oh, what’s the point of having a remote control app if I have to be on my property in order for it to work, which is completely insane.

By the same token, there’s a lot of companies that just don’t offer any of this. So if that’s a criteria, a brand that I love or would recommend based on everything else you said, is out the window for that. And so maybe something else is a better fit for you, and that’s okay.

But there’s all these things that come into play when it’s, I can’t answer these questions when you just say which one is better than another one. That’s what it comes down to. Because you could say, oh, well, I have three kids and I would like to get the kids integrated into our healthy lifestyle and take them in there with us.

We need a four or five person sauna. Well, guess what? You just eliminated the other 40% because they just don’t make that. So you could take everything that I said up until now and throw that out the window because your needs are different.

So what everyone wants me to do, which I’m willing to help you, you just have to give me time, is basically assess what their needs are and tell them what the best options based on using them. Because if they felt confident with just reading the brochure or talking to the salesperson, they would have just bought it already, right?

And I’m not blaming you. I’m the worst. I am the most guilty person on the planet when it comes to this. I wasted five or six months talking to sauna salespeople.

This was like damn near 10 years ago now, eight years ago. And I could not make a decision. I was in analysis paralysis. They were all telling me this.

My spidey senses were going off. Half of them said, oh, our sauna is the best. None of the other ones could do you any good. What did that do?

It paralyzed.

because I was like, well, I don’t know if I believe them, what they’re saying seems to be true. But later, years later, I would go and try the saunas that they were talking about, and it was crap, right? None of the stuff that they said in the little brochure made any sense or made any difference in my sauna session, right?

And I’m, I’m coming from living in a high rise in a downtown area that had a traditional sauna in it, and I’d go down there and use it, and it was great. I never really noticed. I mean, it felt good, never really noticed anything. But when I found myself in the functional medicine doctor’s office, and she said I needed a detox like yesterday and all this sauna stuff, I wasn’t bought in on that, man.

I wasn’t ready to spend $6,500 to do this or to do that. So the interesting thing is, you know, I, in order for me to really help you, in order to say this is the best brand for you, we’ve got to know a little bit about your situation. So join the Certified Sauna Community.

There’s 30,000 people in there. You don’t have to take it from me. You can get advice from all of us. Describe your situation as much detail as possible, and we’d love to help you.

I hope this makes sense. Just wanted to provide a little bit of context, why I don’t jump in and just say, oh, buy a clear light, buy a radiant health, buy a heavenly heat, buy a sunlight, and buy this, buy a health mate, right? Because there’s, there’s too many situational differences, and I’m not about that.

We actually want to provide, you know, good, helpful advice here, and you know, it’s really important to keep the integrity with that. So we’ll see you in the next one. If you have questions, put them in the comments below. If you have a video request for next week, let me know, start a post in the Certified Sauna Community on Facebook, and we’ll see you there.