About SoakVerdict

SoakVerdict exists to answer one question honestly: which inflatable hot tub is genuinely worth your money, and which one is right for your garden, your group and your bills. We do that by filling tubs and measuring them, not by copying spec sheets.

Why we started SoakVerdict

Inflatable hot tubs have gone from a novelty to a fixture in British gardens, and the advice available to buyers has not kept up. Too many roundups rank tubs by bubble count and price, ignore the figures that actually decide whether you enjoy and can afford a tub, and never seem to have filled the products at all. We started SoakVerdict because we wanted a hot tub site that did the unglamorous work: setting tubs up in a real garden, filling them from cold, timing how long they take to heat, measuring how fast they lose that heat, and metering what they cost to run over a month.

The result is a small, focused site that covers the inflatable hot tubs most people in the UK actually consider, from the budget four-seaters to the premium rigid-frame models, and tells you plainly which suits which buyer. We would rather review six tubs properly than list sixty we have never touched. Every recommendation here comes with the measurements behind it, the downsides spelled out, and a clear statement of who a tub is, and is not, for.

Who writes SoakVerdict

SoakVerdict is written and tested by Lewis Carter, our outdoor leisure tester. Lewis has spent years reviewing garden and outdoor kit, and inflatable hot tubs in particular, setting them up in his own back garden through every season a British year throws at them. He has lived with more than thirty tubs across his own and friends' gardens, which means he has experienced the slow winter heat-ups, the surprising running-cost differences and the small build niggles that only show after weeks of real use, not a quick unboxing.

That hands-on background is the whole point. Lewis does not score a tub from its packaging; he fills it, heats it, soaks in it, meters it and times it, and only then writes the review. When a review says a tub lost 1.4°C an hour with the lid on or cost £42 a month to run, that is a figure he measured, not one he read off a box. You can read more about his testing approach on our how we test page.

How we stay independent

SoakVerdict is funded by affiliate commissions: when you click a link to a retailer such as Amazon and buy a tub, we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. This is how we pay for the testing and keep the site free to read, and we are completely open about it, as our affiliate disclosure sets out in full. Crucially, that funding pays for the site; it does not buy a place in our rankings.

We are not paid by manufacturers to feature or favour their tubs, we do not accept payment for higher positions, and our order is decided entirely by how the tubs perform against our criteria. If the best tub for you is the cheapest one, that is what we will tell you, and our reviews always name a tub's faults as readily as its strengths. We buy or independently source the tubs we test, and our verdicts would read exactly the same whether or not a single reader ever clicked an affiliate link.

What we cover, and what we do not

We focus on inflatable hot tubs that are genuinely available and supported in the UK, from brands including Lay-Z-Spa, CleverSpa, Intex, MSpa, Wave and Bestway. We cover the questions that matter to real buyers: heat retention and running cost, capacity and size, AirJet versus HydroJet, cold-weather use and the basics of setup and water care. We do not review rigid fixed spas, swim spas or commercial equipment, because they are a different purchase with different priorities, and pretending otherwise would not help you.

Our promise to readers

Our commitment is simple: every recommendation on this site is one we would make to a friend or a member of our own family. We will always tell you the truth about a tub, including the parts that are inconvenient, the running cost surprises, the slow winter heat-ups and the build niggles, because those are exactly the things you most need to know before you spend a few hundred pounds. We will never let an affiliate relationship change a verdict, and we will say plainly when a cheaper tub is the better buy. If a tub is not worth recommending at all, we leave it off the list rather than pad the page.

If you have a question we have not answered, or you think we have got something wrong, we want to hear it; honest feedback makes the site better. You can reach us through the contact details we keep up to date alongside our legal pages. In the meantime, the best place to start is our buying guide, which walks through every choice, and our main comparison of the best inflatable hot tubs, which gives you our ranked picks with the measurements behind them.