Why Are Office Chairs So Expensive?
If you’re shopping around for an office chair, some of the prices can make you do a double-take. Since when have office chairs cost close to $1,000 if not more than that? You’re stunned. You can’t help but wonder, why are office chairs so expensive?
The price of an office chair is a combination of factors, everything from the features offered to the materials used, the comfort, customization, and design. The brand reputation also impacts how much you’ll pay.
In this informative article, I’ll go through the factors that influence an office chair one by one. I’ll also discuss whether it’s worthwhile to buy a more expensive office chair or if you should go with a cheaper one instead.
Let’s get started!
Why Are Office Chairs So Expensive? The Major Factors Explained
When you see a price tag on an office chair, be that in a store or online, keep in mind that that price is due to an amalgamation of factors that may include all or most of the following.
Brand Reputation
Have you ever heard of Furmax? Not to knock the brand or anything, but more than likely, no, you haven’t.
That explains why you can find office chairs by Furmax on Amazon for under $40. They’re a small brand without much name recognition.
If Furmax charged $500 for one of their chairs, most would-be customers would look at that price and balk.
Now compare that to Herman Miller. Although the Herman Miller name rose to prominence in the 1990s with the debut of the still-beloved Aeron office chair, the Herman Miller brand had existed in some way, shape, or form since 1900.
By the early 1940s, the brand switched from making clocks to office furniture. Thus, by the time the Aeron came out, the Herman Miller name already had more than 40 years of experience in making furniture.
That explains why the Aeron cost $1,000 when it was first sold. Back in the 1990s, $1,000 was no small chunk of change. However, lots of people bought the Aeron, nevertheless.
Why? Herman Miller had a successful lineage producing office chairs.
As the Aeron became a top-seller, the brand only cemented its lineage even more. People knew they could trust future Herman Miller products due to the quality offerings from the brand’s past, so they were willing to pay more money.
Materials and Build Quality
The next factor that influences the cost of an office chair is good, ol’ economics.
When an office chair manufacturer uses cheap materials like plastic, polyester fabric, and thin foam, these materials don’t cost as much money to procure. Thus, the cost of the chair is less.
Chair materials go hand in hand with an office chair’s build quality. Low-quality materials are often uncomfortable, and they’re usually quite short-lived as well. It won’t be long before the plastic cracks, the foam feels flat as a board, and the polyester becomes worn.
High-quality materials give the chair visual appeal. They also make for a much better user experience.
You know that since your office chair uses high-density memory foam that the foam won’t lose its shape after a few sits.
The premium upholstery feels comfortable on your skin and doesn’t leave you itchy and irritated. It also maintains its color and softness for longer.
Any plastic pieces are seamless and high-quality. You don’t worry about the build quality of your chair because it’s utterly excellent.
Like everything in this life, if you want quality, you’re going to have to pay for it. The initial investment you make when you buy an office chair can be $500 and well over $1,000 in some cases.
However, in the long run, you save money. Your chair can last you easily five years and maybe even twice that in some instances (especially if you have a good warranty).
If you only buy cheap office chairs, then you can easily go through five chairs in as many years.
Sure, they cost less individually, but five office chairs priced at $100 each is $500. You could have just bought a $500 chair initially and you would have had a better experience.
Manufacture Location
Where is the office chair brand located? More importantly, where do they manufacture their chairs? Sometimes the company headquarters and the manufacturing facilities do not share the same location.
When it comes to finding fair pricing on an office chair, you have to pay more attention to the manufacture location.
If it’s in another country than yours, then that means your packaged office chair has to pass through customs and then ship all the way to your country.
Even within the same country, if you’re on the east coast and the chair manufacturer is on the west coast, you’re going to pay more for a chair than if you were both on the east coast.
These prices are not reflected in the cost of the chair itself, of course. Rather, you’ll have to deal with exorbitant shipping fees.
Warranty
Warranties sure are great, aren’t they? They’re a good assurance that, for a certain number of years, if something happens to your chair, you won’t have to pay for repairs or for parts replacement.
Manufacturers like to make warranties seem like a great bargain. After all, you’re getting free service, often for five years and sometimes up to 10 or 12 years. Plus, you don’t have to buy a warranty. It’s included.
It’s true that a chair warranty isn’t a separate expense that’s added on as you check out like shipping is, but don’t be fooled. You are paying for it.
Office chair manufacturers will determine how much the costs of basic repairs might be and then factor that into the overall price of the chair.
Have you ever noticed that really expensive products offer long warranties? The two coexist.
The beefy warranty makes your product more expensive. That’s why Herman Miller chairs often have 12-year warranties. Their office chairs regularly top $1,200.
Features
Features make the office chair, which is why chair manufacturers are always scrambling to figure out something new and intuitive.
For instance, let’s look at the Steelcase Leap V2. This office chair includes a thicker cushion, 4D arms versus 3D, new and improved arm pad thickness and design, and a sturdier base than the original Leap.
The Steelcase Leap V2 retails for about $930 whereas the original Leap costs $829. It’s a price increase of about $100, which isn’t much, but the price went up, nevertheless.
As this example shows you, if you want new and innovative features in your office chair, then you should expect a higher price tag to go along with it.
Adjustability Controls
All office chairs have some guaranteed adjustments. You should be able to raise and lower the height of your chair at the very least, often through hydraulic adjustments.
Once you get beyond those basic adjustments though, the more adjustments an office chair has, the more it will often cost you.
You only have to compare a chair with flexible armrests versus one with stationary arms to see that principle in action.
The degree of adjustment matters too. For example, 3D armrests are becoming more of the standard with office chairs even though gaming chairs have boasted 3D arms for years. Now the new standard in those chairs is going to be 4D arms while office chairs are only dipping their figurative toes into 4D armrests.
A chair with 4D arms should cost more than a chair with 3D arms. A chair with intuitive recline adjustments will be priced higher than a chair that has only a basic recline. Plus, if the former chair also has a greater degree of recline, that too influences its higher price.
Comfort
I think I proved this earlier when I compared the materials used to make office chairs, but comfort isn’t cheap.
You might think you can get by with a polyester office chair with a thin foam seat and no ergonomics features. Then you try working for eight hours straight, five days a week in a chair like that.
Within a week or two, your back is screaming, your lower half hurts, and you’re having a hard time concentrating. All the pride you felt saving a couple of hundred bucks on your office chair is gone now. There’s only frustration.
You don’t necessarily need top-of-the-line ergonomics and the plushest materials ever unless you deal with significant day-to-day pain.
However, you don’t want to scrape the bottom of the barrel when buying an office chair. The lack of comfort does not outweigh the money saved.
Customization Options
Many office chairs give you the freedom to put your personal stamp on them by customizing the chair. You can often change the upholstery color and sometimes the color of the chair base as well.
The more customization options afforded to you, the happier you may be with your chair, but the more money you’re going to pay for the chair as well. Your chair goes against the manufacturing grain, so to speak, and that doesn’t come cheap.
Design
The design of the chair is also something that can drive up the cost of your office chair.
Everyone expects an office chair to follow certain design trademarks. When your chair busts out of that mold with its uniqueness, such as the Herman Miller Sayl, then you can expect higher prices compared to a chair that looks a little more run-of-the-mill.
That’s not to say that the Sayl is the most expensive chair in the Herman Miller roster, as it clearly isn’t. It costs about $940 if you don’t add any bells and whistles.
Still, for an average office chair, which is about $500, a $940 office chair is significantly costlier.
Research and Development
The last factor that goes into the price of an office chair is another one that’s often overlooked. It’s research and development or R&D.
When a brand like Herman Miller hires professional designers and engineers to make an office chair, the services of these experts are not free.
Herman Miller has to pay for the time of these professionals, and that ends up influencing the cost of your office chair.
That’s why you’ll sometimes see gaming and office chairs that look like carbon copies of one another. The brand that’s copping that design tends to offer lower prices because the R&D was practically nonexistent.
Are Expensive Office Chairs Worth It?
Bearing all this in mind, I think I’ve explained why an expensive office chair is justified.
It means that in almost all the areas I discussed in the last section, the manufacturer went above and beyond to ensure the chairs it’s producing are of excellent quality.
As I talked about, higher-quality materials and components last longer.
That’s true of anything anymore. When you splurge on a $75 cashmere sweater, it’s going to last you winter after winter.
A $10 polyester sweater is naturally more appealing since it’s not so jaw-droppingly expensive. However, after several washes, sometimes only one wash, you notice loose strings. Within a season or two, your sweater falls apart.
You’re not only paying for fancy features when you buy an expensive office chair, you’re paying for quality.
You’re also buying yourself a status symbol. Although sometimes, cheaper and more expensive office chairs are hard to tell apart visually, you will experience the difference as soon as you sit down.
At work, people will know that you spent the extra money for a bonafide fancy, costly office chair (or your boss did). If you work from home, you can reinstate some of that professionalism with a high-end office chair.
That’s the same reason that video game streamers like to buy big-name brands. They know people are going to see their chair, and they want their status to be positively impacted by their purchasing decisions.
Sure, at work, you don’t have an audience of thousands watching you the same way, but the motivation doesn’t change.
Cheap vs. Expensive Office Chairs – Which Is Better?
When considering a cheap versus an expensive office chair, you can feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It’s always nice to save money, but you know that the quality and longevity of the chair won’t be as good as an expensive office chair.
Which direction should you go?
Honestly, who’s to say you need to buy an office chair on either extreme? You might be able to purchase a chair that’s neither overly cheap nor overly expensive.
Mid-priced chairs are often a great choice. They have more of the features of a high-end, costly office chair but not the huge price tag. The quality is higher than that of a cheap office chair, although it may still leave something to be desired in some instances.
Only you can decide how much you can spend on an office chair, and to determine that, you need to set a budget.
Keep in mind that this budget is only if you’re purchasing your own office chair. If your boss or company is doing it, then they’ll have their own budget.
What if your boss comes back to you with a budget under $800 and you had your eye on an expensive Herman Miller chair? Well, if your company can only afford $800, then you’re probably going to have to give up your dream of owning the Aeron, at least for now.
That being said, you can still buy an expensive office chair if you’re willing to wait. Throughout the year, chair manufacturers may offer sales and discounts. You can sometimes shave hundreds of dollars off the cost of your chair if the sale is generous.
Even a limited-time free shipping offer can sometimes knock some serious money off your overall chair price.
Conclusion
In life, you get what you pay for. That’s true of office chairs as well.
The higher prices of today’s office chairs are a sign that the quality of the chairs has improved. The average office chair has more ergonomics, a greater range of adjustments, more comfortable materials, and heavier-duty construction than ever before.
For those who don’t mind spending the money, you know that you’ll have many days ahead where you can focus on work instead of aches, pains, and other distractions.
If a $700+ chair is too much for your budget, then wait for a sale or try a mid-priced chair. There are some diamonds in the rough!
