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Is your bow thruster quote reasonable? Check it line by line
You have a number in your hand, it looks like a lot of money, and the person who wrote it is not in the room. This page takes a typical job apart line by line, with every price sourced, so you can lay your quote beside it and see which line is doing the damage. We have not seen your boat, your yard or how hard your bow is to reach, so the box below says where your number sits, not whether it is fair.
Add your quote to the table.
Help others by letting them know what your job was priced at, so they can see if they are getting a fair deal.
About two minutes. We never print the yard’s name. Or email it to us.
Thank you. Your quote is in.
Your reference is . We read every one by hand before it goes into the tables.
The short answer
Get the quote as materials and labor hours on separate lines. Almost every argument about whether a thruster quote is fair turns out to be about the hours. A quote that arrives as one number cannot be checked.
Published parts for one tunnel thruster at the bow of a 35 ft boat come to $3,901 to $5,357. Your yard buys at trade and very likely pays less.
About 32 hours at $160 to $180 an hour comes to $5,120 to $5,760. That is roughly 45–53% of the bill.
With the haul-out added, our worked job comes to $9,641 to $12,807. It is an estimate, and no yard has quoted it.
One owner was quoted $14,200 in 2021 and had the same work done for $9,200 by another yard.
Quoted for the stern as well? This page checks one thruster at the bow. For the other end, see what a stern thruster costs. For a unit at each end, see bow and stern thrusters together.
Step one: is your total unusual?
Start with the table. Find your boat’s length. If your quote is for a A tube bored straight through the hull below the waterline, with a propeller in the middle of it. It is the conventional thruster. Fitting one is mostly a labor job rather than a hardware one. thruster, read the Tunnel column: that is what most jobs like yours cost. Tap a price to see the models behind it.
| Boat length | External | Tunnel | Retractable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 25 ft | External thrusters for a boat under 25 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $4,400–$5,000. All of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat under 25 ft Most jobs cost $8,700–$10,600. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 20 more models, up to $12,400 for the VETUS Bow Pro 361. The thruster itself, before fitting: $900–$4,800. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat | None priced for this size |
| 25–30 ft | External thrusters for a boat of 25–30 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $4,400–$5,000. All of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 25–30 ft Most jobs cost $9,000–$11,100. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 24 more models, up to $14,700 for the Sleipner Side-Power SEP40/125S-1IP. The thruster itself, before fitting: $900–$5,800. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat | None priced for this size |
| 30–35 ft | External thrusters for a boat of 30–35 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And one more model, up to $10,200 for the Sideshift SS350. The thruster itself, before fitting: $4,400–$5,500. All of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. One at each end: from $9,000, and that is a DockStar Smart Thruster at the bow with a DockStar Smart Thruster at the stern. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 30–35 ft Most jobs cost $9,500–$12,500. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 42 more models, up to $16,100 for the Sleipner Side-Power SEP50/140S-IP. The thruster itself, before fitting: $900–$8,800. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: from $12,000, and that is a Lewmar 110TT Thruster Kit at the bow with a DockStar Smart Thruster at the stern. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a boat of 30–35 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $7,400–$18,000. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
| 35–40 ft | External thrusters for a boat of 35–40 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And one more model, up to $16,500 for the Sleipner Side-Power EX95S. The thruster itself, before fitting: $4,400–$9,500. Three of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. One at each end: most jobs cost $13,400–$23,200. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 35–40 ft Most jobs cost $10,100–$14,200. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 45 more models, up to $19,500 for the VETUS Bow Pro Boosted 90. The thruster itself, before fitting: $900–$8,800. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: most jobs cost $16,900–$25,700. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a boat of 35–40 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $7,400–$18,000. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
| 40–50 ft | Bow and stern pair: $9,000–$10,200 two DockStar units External thrusters for a boat of 40–50 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And one more model, up to $25,300 for the Sleipner Side-Power EX180D. The thruster itself, before fitting: $4,400–$17,800. Two of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. One at each end: most jobs cost $15,100–$30,800. Two DockStar units, one at the bow and one at the stern, come to $9,000–$10,200. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 40–50 ft Most jobs cost $11,800–$19,700. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 61 more models, up to $30,000 for the Quick BTQ 250. The thruster itself, before fitting: $1,300–$10,600. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: most jobs cost $20,600–$33,100. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a boat of 40–50 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And 10 more models, up to $48,300 for the Quick BTR 250. The thruster itself, before fitting: $7,400–$26,500. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
| 50–55 ft | Bow and stern pair: $9,000–$10,200 two DockStar units External thrusters for a boat of 50–55 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And one more model, up to $25,500 for the Sleipner Side-Power EX180D. The thruster itself, before fitting: $4,400–$17,800. Two of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. One at each end: most jobs cost $19,000–$36,600. Two DockStar units, one at the bow and one at the stern, come to $9,000–$10,200. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 50–55 ft Most jobs cost $16,700–$20,300. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 39 more models, up to $28,700 for the VETUS Bow Pro Boosted 180. The thruster itself, before fitting: $1,800–$10,600. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: most jobs cost $26,200–$35,500. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a boat of 50–55 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And 14 more models, up to $50,300 for the Sleipner Side-Power ERL170 eVision. The thruster itself, before fitting: $7,400–$29,500. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
| 55–60 ft | External thrusters for a boat of 55–60 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $5,500–$17,800. One of these can be fitted with the boat in the water. One at each end: from $15,500, and that is a Sideshift SS350 at the bow with a Sideshift ST350 at the stern. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 55–60 ft Most jobs cost $17,400–$20,800. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 36 more models, up to $29,900 for the VETUS Bow Pro Boosted 210. The thruster itself, before fitting: $1,800–$10,600. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: most jobs cost $28,700–$37,300. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a boat of 55–60 ft Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And 10 more models, up to $50,600 for the Sleipner Side-Power ERL170 eVision. The thruster itself, before fitting: $7,400–$29,500. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
| 60 ft and up | Sleipner Side-Power EX180D External thrusters for a boat of 60 ft or more Fitted by a boatyard:
The thruster itself, before fitting: $17,800. The boat has to come out of the water for this one. One at each end: from $28,200, and that is a Sleipner Side-Power EX180D at the bow with a Max Power CT125 stern pod at the stern. Find the right one for your boat | Tunnel thrusters for a boat of 60 ft or more Most jobs cost $17,800–$22,500. The least expensive, fitted by a boatyard:
And 41 more models, up to $36,300 for the Quick BTQ 300. The thruster itself, before fitting: $1,800–$13,600. The boat has to come out of the water for these. One at each end, a tunnel at the bow and an external unit at the stern: most jobs cost $28,600–$37,600, lower than the 55–60 ft row's because the Max Power CT165 stern pod qualifies from this length. Find the right one for your boat | Retractable thrusters for a boat of 60 ft or more Fitted by a boatyard, least expensive first:
And 9 more models, up to $50,800 for the Sleipner Side-Power ERL170 eVision. The thruster itself, before fitting: $8,600–$29,500. The boat has to come out of the water for these. Find the right one for your boat |
Want a price for your own boat? Answer a few quick questions and we will show you which thrusters fit it, and what each one costs fitted.
If your quote is close to that figure, it is an ordinary quote. The rest of this page checks that it is ordinary for the right reasons.
If it is well above, that is worth a conversation with the yard. A hard-to-reach bow or a A deck or hull built as a sandwich: two skins of fiberglass with balsa or foam between them. Bolts through it must be sealed, or water gets into the core and rots it. hull can push a job higher, and the reasons are further down.
The thruster finder gives a narrower figure for the same boat. It prices one boat at her exact length and hull, with only the units sized for her. A row here covers every length and every kind of boat in its band.
Or type your length and total into the box at the top of this page and get one sentence back, read off this table.
Step two: the parts are the cheaper half
Here is the hardware for a straightforward 35 ft job with one thruster at the bow, at published retail prices. Your yard buys at trade and very likely pays less.
| Item | Low | High | Where the price comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thruster unit | $2,295 | $2,717 | Sleipner SE60/185S or VETUS Bow 75, published retail |
| Tunnel tube | $270 | $425 | VETUS GRP 185mm, published retail |
| Control panel and its cable | $248 | $547 | Fisheries Supply, 30 September 2026: Side-Power touch panel and single joystick; Side-Power control cables |
| Main fuse, holder, battery switch and control fuse | $88 | $268 | Fisheries Supply, 30 September 2026: Side-Power ANL fuses; Egis and Blue Sea ANL fuse blocks; Egis m-Series 300 A; Blue Sea in-line ATO fuse holders |
| Batteries, cable, charger | $1,000 | $1,400 | Recurring figure in owner reports from 2022 onward |
| Materials subtotal | $3,901 | $5,357 | Added from the rows above |
If your quote's materials line is far above this, ask what is in it. There are good answers. It could be a A thruster that lives inside the hull and drops down through a hatch when you press the button, then pulls back up. It leaves no permanent hole in the water flow. unit, a bigger thruster than the length band suggests, a A thruster with a controller between the battery and the motor, so the joystick sets how hard it pushes rather than just on or off. The motor and the mounting are the same. Only the control differs. control system or a second battery bank.
Some quotes also carry labor in the materials line, because nobody wanted to write it down as hours.
Step three: the labor is the bigger half
A straightforward tunnel install is usually described as two people for two days, or about 32 hours. Four jobs fill those hours:
- cutting the tunnel
- bonding it into the hull
- fairing it back to a clean surface
- running heavy cable forward to a battery the boat did not have before
Published US yard rate cards put skilled work at $140 to $180 an hour. Our worked job bills it at $160 to $180, which puts the labor at $5,120 to $5,760, before the boat comes out of the water. The cost page has the full rate table, yard by yard, with dates.
The trap: comparing against a forum thread from 2014. Yard labor roughly doubled between 2021 and 2025. A Florida yard doing thruster work published tiered rates of $70, $80 and $90 an hour in January 2021. Owners in the same state were reporting $175 an hour by 2025.
So if your sense of a fair price came from an old thread, adding inflation to it will not fix it. The labor line is most of the bill, and it roughly doubled between those years.
Step four: add it up
- Parts thruster, tube, panel, fuse and switch, batteries and cable
- Labor 32 yard hours
- Haul-out lift, blocking, launch
Labor alone is 45–53% of the bill at both ends of the range, more than the thruster, the tube, the panel and the batteries put together.
Here are the materials, the labor and the haul-out together. The job is one thruster at the bow of a 35 ft boat, fitted by a yard at 2026 rates.
| Item | Low | High | How we got it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Materials | $3,901 | $5,357 | Published retail, summed above |
| Labor | $5,120 | $5,760 | 32 hours at $160–$180/hr |
| Haul-out and lay days | $620 | $1,690 | Eight yards’ published rate cards, a 35 ft boat, 5 to 7 days out of the water; the cost page shows each yard’s figure |
| Total | $9,641 | $12,807 | Added from the three rows above |
Labor is about 45–53% of the bill. That is why a quote that will not break out the hours is so hard to argue with.
Now compare the total with the Tunnel price for a 35–40 ft boat in step one ($10,100–$14,200). Its top end sits inside that band. Its bottom end is a few hundred dollars lower, because the worked job adds every line at its cheapest. Both come from the same prices and the same yard rates. One is a single worked job, and the other spans every tunnel thruster on sale, so they overlap.
What makes a big number legitimate
A quote well above the band is not automatically padded. These are the reasons a yard can need more hours. Each one is worth asking about by name.
Access to the bow. The forepeak, the space right up in the bow, may be full of tanks, a watertight bulkhead or woodwork that has to come out and go back. That is hours before anyone touches the hull.
A cored hull. The core has to be cut back and the laminate sealed around the tunnel. Skip that and you have a hull repair later.
A long cable run. The further the battery sits from the thruster, the heavier and pricier the cable. Heavy cable is also slow to route.
A fine entry, meaning a narrow, sharp bow. On a sailboat especially, finding a spot where the tunnel sits deep enough below the waterline can turn a standard install into a custom one.
Paint and fairing. Matching an aged hull finish around a new tunnel is skilled time. A bad job is visible forever.
If the yard names one of these, the number is probably real. If the yard cannot say why the job is above the band, it has not justified it.
Get a second quote
We know of one case where two yards quoted the same job on the same boat, and they were $5,000 apart.
It is one owner on a 35 foot boat in 2021. He was quoted $14,200. Another yard did the same work for $9,200. Our 35–40 ft row, $10,100 to $14,200, sits between those two figures.
If the number is fair and still too much
A fair quote you cannot afford is a different problem from a padded one, and it has different answers. Two are worth knowing about.
Look at what does not need a hole. External and deck-mounted units avoid the Lifting the boat out of the water on a travel lift or a trailer so work can be done below the waterline. It is billed separately from the job itself. and the glasswork entirely, and those are most of what you are being quoted for. The trade-off is less thrust, and hardware that lives in the water outside the hull. We have gone through what each one drills, taken from the installation manuals.
Split the job. A common arrangement is to pay the yard for the hard part: cutting a symmetrical tunnel on the centerline, bonding it and fairing it. You then do the wiring, the battery and the controls yourself. That moves the cheap-to-buy, slow-to-fit half of the bill onto your own time.
For scale on the no-hole route: a bow-and-stern pair of DockStar Smart Thrusters comes to $8,650 at their published per-item prices, captured 23 September 2026. That covers both ends of the boat for less than the high end of a single professionally installed tunnel at one end.
DockStar publishes no pair price and no bundle, so that total is ours, added up from their own figures.
The two are not like for like. The thrust is lower, the hardware is external, and our review lists nine limitations alongside six strengths. If you want their configurator, it is here.
What to send the yard
Ask the yard to set out the quote like this:
- Materials, itemized, with the make and model of the thruster and the tunnel diameter.
- Labor as hours times an hourly rate.
- Haul-out, lay days and launch, listed separately.
- Whether batteries, cable and a charger are included.
- What happens to the price if the hull turns out to be cored where the tunnel goes.
- What size unit is specced, and what wind speed it was sized for.
On the last point, push back if the answer is your boat’s length. Sleipner says in its own documentation that sizing is set by the boat’s design, not its weight or length. VETUS’s published method works from the wind on the boat’s side, not from length.
Watch the battery line too. Batteries, cable and the charger are often left out.
Wind load rises with the square of wind speed. A unit specced to steer in 30 knots needs four times the thrust of one specced for 15, and you pay for all of it. Run your own number first so you have something to compare the quote against.
A yard that answers all six has given you a number you can hold it to.
The first button opens a new message in your own mail program with the six points filled in and no address, so add the yard's. The second puts the same list on your clipboard for a web form. Nothing is sent to this site.
Then send us a copy. Whether you take the quote or walk away from it, the paper is worth something. Nobody in this trade publishes prices, and every owner price this site holds came from an owner who posted it or sent it in.
Type your length and total into the box at the top of the page and press “Add my quote”, or black out your name, address, phone number and the boat's name and send it through the contact page. It goes into the price tables as a dated row with the boat, the port or area and what the job covered. It never names the yard, and names you only if you ask it to. A paid invoice is worth more than a quote.
What to do with your quote
If the quote came as one number, ask for materials and labor hours before you compare anything. The list to send the yard asks for exactly that.
If your total is well above the table, ask the yard which reason applies. What makes a big number legitimate goes through access, a cored hull, the cable run, a fine entry, and paint and fairing.
If your idea of a fair price came from a forum, check the date on the thread. Yard labor roughly doubled between 2021 and 2025.
If the number is fair and still too much, price a unit that needs no hole, or pay the yard for the tunnel and do the wiring yourself. Both routes are set out above.