How much should you spend on a longboard? If you’re asking this question, you may be a novice seeking to buy your first longboard. You can acquire a longboard for as low as $50, but you’ll probably soon regret your choice. Also, buying a cheap longboard can merely discourage you from longboarding as your riding experience will not be very nice.
So how much do nice longboards cost? Anywhere between $150 and $400. If you’re new to longboarding, though, you should definitely buy a longboard in the $150 to $250 area.
Factors that will assist determine how much you should spend include:
Longboard brand
Longboard size/riding style
Deck construction
Trucks upgrade
Wheel size upgrade
Bearings upgrade
Longboard pricing by brand
Here’s a brief summary of how much longboards cost for some of the best companies on the market that manufacture trustworthy, reliable, excellent products.
The price ranges below are based on the usual list pricing ignoring any specials. Also, I only included “regular-sized” longboards, leaving off little cruisers and giant dancers (see later part) (see later section).
Arbor longboards: $150 – $210
Landyachtz longboards: $170 – $250
Loaded longboards: $290 – $360 (exclusing the $500 Chubby Unicorn Blood Slayer)
Globe longboards: $150 – $230
Sector 9 longboards: $140 – $225
Rayne longboards: $200 – $250
Omen Longboards: $160 – $250
DB longboards: $140 – $310
Dusters California: $145 – $230
Moonshine longboards: $250 – $340
Impact of deck structure on longboard cost
Longboards built with bamboo often cost more than all-wood boards. Even for a longboard ultrasonic cavitation machine of a particular brand and model that comes in multiple constructions, expect to spend more for the bamboo version than for the maple one. Case in point, Landyachtz’s Bamboo Chief costs $15 to $20 more than the Maple Chief variant.
In addition to materials utilised for the deck core (e.g. maple versus bamboo) the technology and manufacturing technique employed for production has a big influence on longboard costs. Loaded’s longboards, for example, feature a highly developed combination of vertically laminated bamboo and triaxial fibreglass linked using epoxy glue to achieve a high-performance flex and a super durable composite deck. These decks cost substantially more than normal maple wood decks.
A nice illustration of this is to compare the pricing of the Loaded Tan Tien against the maple build Arbor Catalyst, two popular freestyle and freeride focused mid-sized longboards. The Loaded costs approximately double the price owing in large part to the superior technology that goes into the deck.
Impact of deck size on longboard cost
I indicated before the pricing ranges for each brand excluded longboards with extremely tiny and very huge sizes. The rationale is that the cost of much smaller and much bigger longboards are correspondingly below and beyond the “regular longboard” pricing range.
City cruisers (aka mini-cruisers) with lengths of 32″ or less often cost less than a standard longboard — you may or may not really call them “longboards”. The fact that there’s less material going into their construction definitely influences the price, but most importantly these mini-cruisers cater to longboarders searching for a portable and economical board for agile city riding.
At the opposite end of the scale, huge dancing longboards are often pricier costly than conventional longboards. Again, a lot more material goes into these decks, and longboarders who are into dance expect to pay a premium price for these big boards with abundant area for boardwalking. See my piece on the top 5 dancing longboards.
Here is the usual cost of the most popular dance longboards on the market:
Loaded Bhangra: $360
Landyachtz Stratus: $200 – $400 (maple versus bamboo hollowtech) (maple vs bamboo hollowtech)
Rayne Whip: $260 – $360
Bustin Daensu: $280
DB Dancefloor: $320
Loaded Tarab: $425
You normally don’t need to pay more than $250 for that first longboard – unless you’re already enthusiastic about the sport and you want something high-performance and very durable to accompany you in your progress.
If what you want is a tiny cruiser for urban riding, on the other hand, your budget may be in the $130 – $150 for a decent board. Mini-cruisers are tiny and agile yet decent ones come with quality TKP or RKP trucks and smaller yet high-performance wheels.
If you’re into longboard dancing, plan to dish out the big dollars, from $260 and up (excluding promos) for a bigger sized, premium dancer with good carving trucks (e.g. Bear Grizzlies) and quality medium-sized wheels (60-70mm) (60-70mm).
Finally, if you opt to modify your setup with high-end trucks, larger wheels, and/or high-performance bearings, anticipate to bump up the cost of your full longboard by $20-$100 for each of these. My advise is to ride your longboard for a bit before deciding on what to update.
