How much does an electric skateboard cost?

Every figure below is a price a shop is asking today, in that shop's own currency. Rows cannot be compared against each other — see why we never convert — but each row describes its own market completely.

Electric skateboards — 336 complete machines

The shape matters more than the midpoint. A tenth of the boards we read cost under US$379 and a tenth cost more than US$2,299: that is a factor of 6.1 between the cheap end and the expensive end of the same product category. Anyone who answers this question with a single number is hiding that spread, and the spread is the answer.

The same measurement, same method, on everything else the shops we read sell that carries a motor and a rider.

Electric scooters — 1,001 complete machines

Electric bikes — 2,633 complete machines

Electric unicycles — 189 complete machines

Read in one currency at a time, the ordering is stable and unsurprising: scooters start cheapest, boards and bikes overlap heavily through the middle, and unicycles have almost no budget end at all — there is no such thing as a cheap unicycle, because the cheap ones are not sold by the shops that sell the others.

This is the whole difficulty of the question, and it is worth being explicit because getting it wrong is how a number like this becomes nonsense.

A catalogue does not distinguish a board from a part. Searching a shop for “electric skateboard” returns the board, its spare battery, its replacement wheels, a carrying handle, a rail guard and a branded flag — and several of those are titled more confidently than the board is. An average taken over that is not the price of a board; it is the price of a shop's inventory page.

So a product counts here only if all of the following hold:

• Its family is the body of the machine — a deck for a board, a frame for a bike. Wheels, motors, drive, straps and clothing are excluded by classification before anything else is asked.
• Its title says it is motorised, or its brand only ever makes motorised machines. Both rules are needed. Landyachtz and Arbor make push longboards and a few electric models, so their titles must say so; Evolve and Onewheel make nothing that is not electric, so their model names are enough.
• Its title does not name a part. Chargers, battery packs, remotes, decks, conversion kits, wheel sets, helmets, bags and stands are refused even when the family and the brand both pass.
• It is above a floor of $180 for boards. Below that the object is something else with a board's name on it.
• It is not second-hand. Used boards are listed on this site and priced like anything else; they simply do not belong in a measurement presented as the price of a new machine.

The filter is deliberately severe, and it costs us real boards. Five complete machines carry the word “Deck” in their names — “OWNBOARD Electric Skateboard AT1W Deck 39″ (Assembled)” is one, assembled and rideable — and we cannot tell them apart by title from bare decks written the same way. We lose those five rather than publish one bare deck as a complete board. Missing something is recoverable; a table where a set of tires sits between two machines is not.

• It is not what you will pay. It is what is being asked, before shipping, before duty, before any code at checkout. Shipping on a 20 kg machine is frequently the second-largest number on the invoice.
• It is not a market share weighting. Every listed model counts once, whether it sells thousands or none. A market flooded with cheap models nobody buys would pull this median down, and we cannot see sales.
• Only 59 of these 336 boards are carried by two or more independent shops. For the rest there is one price because there is one shop — see which brands can actually be compared.
• A currency is a market, not a unit. The Australian median is far above the American one, and almost none of that gap is the exchange rate — Australian shops in this corpus carry a different, more expensive part of the catalogue.
• Owning one costs more than buying one: what the parts cost.

What is a reasonable budget for a first electric skateboard?

The lower quartile of complete boards sits at US$500 and the tenth percentile at US$379, so a first board below US$500 is squarely inside what the market offers rather than a bargain-hunt. Below US$200 nothing we read qualifies as a complete machine at all.

Why is the median so much higher than the cheapest boards?

Because the distribution is long-tailed. A tenth of boards cost more than US$2,299 and the dearest we read is US$6,990 — a factor of 35 between the ends of the same category. Any single number hides that, which is why this page leads with the spread.

Does this include shipping and duty?

No. It is what is being asked on the product page, before shipping, before duty and before any code at checkout. On a machine weighing twenty kilos, shipping is frequently the second-largest number on the invoice.

Are these new or used prices?

New. Second-hand listings are tracked and priced like anything else on this site, but they are excluded from this measurement — letting them in would pull down a median presented as the price of a new machine.

How do you tell a complete board from its accessories?

By classification first, then by the title, then by the brand. The family must be the body of the machine; the title must say it is motorised, or the brand must be one that only makes motorised machines; and the title must not name a part. The filter is deliberately severe and it costs us real boards — five complete machines carry the word “Deck” in their names and are lost to it. Missing something is recoverable; a table where a set of tires sits between two machines is not.