AudaciaGo XL Ice Bath Review: £600 for an Inflatable With No Chiller

The AudaciaGo XL is a perfectly reasonable inflatable cold plunge sold at an unreasonable price. At £602.51 you get an oval tub of roughly 530 litres, a lid with four clamps, an air pump, a thermometer and a water-absorbent mat for the floor, plus half inch ports for a chiller you'll have to buy separately. None of that is bad. The trouble is that we've already reviewed tubs with the same capacity, similar lids and the same chiller-ready design for a third to two thirds of this money, and AudaciaGo's listing gives you no hard spec that explains the premium.

So our position is blunt: this is a 3.6 out of 5 tub because it'd be a fine buy at £250 to £350, and at £600 it isn't. If you've got that budget, you're better off spending £400 or less on the tub and putting the rest towards ice or, eventually, a chiller.

Check the AudaciaGo XL price on Amazon£602.51

What you actually get

The listing describes the tub as reinforced fibreglass and PVC with a tear-resistant polyester outer layer, which is the usual construction for this class of inflatable. It's oval rather than barrel-shaped, so you sit with your legs out in front instead of folding into a crouch, and at 150cm long most adults should get their shoulders under. The box also includes an air pump (AudaciaGo says it inflates in under five minutes), a carry bag, the thermometer and that floor mat, which is a small but sensible touch given how much water you drip on the way out.

The lid fastens with four clamps. That matters more than it sounds, because a loose lid lets warm air in and leaves, insects and the odd cat in too, and it's the single biggest factor in how long your ice lasts between sessions.

The capacity muddle

AudaciaGo's own listing can't agree with itself. The title says 140 gallons, then a bullet headed "EXTRA-LARGE 216 Gallons" calls it XXL. Using the stated outer dimensions, a rectangular box of 150 x 80 x 75cm holds about 900 litres; knock off the curved ends of an oval and the thickness of inflatable walls and you land close to 530 litres, which is 140 US gallons. We're confident the 140 figure is the real one and 216 is a copy-and-paste error from another product. It's a small thing, but on a £600 purchase you'd hope the seller had proofread the page.

Ice, weight and the chiller question

Here's what 530 litres means in practice. From a 15C summer tap, getting the water down to 10C takes around 30kg of ice by our maths, and reaching 5C takes over 60kg. That's a boot full of supermarket bags every time you change or badly warm the water. In January the picture flips, since UK tap water often arrives at 6C to 9C and a lidded tub in a cold garden needs almost nothing.

The listing claims the water "stays ice-cold for days". Insulation slows warming; it doesn't stop it, and on a sunny July afternoon a dark tub will gain heat whatever the lid is made of. Treat that claim as best-case winter behaviour.

Then there's the weight. 530 litres is 530kg of water, so this belongs on a slab or a garage floor and nowhere near a first-floor bedroom.

Which brings us to the chiller. A tub this size is really designed to have one attached, and that's where the price gets uncomfortable. The AS ColdPlunge chiller we reviewed costs around £687 and is rated for roughly 300 litres, so it'd be undersized here. Realistically you're looking at well over £1,300 for the AudaciaGo plus a properly matched chiller, at which point you're in the same territory as entry-level rigid plunge tubs that come with cooling built in. Check the hose fittings too: AudaciaGo lists 1/2 inch ports, and not every chiller ships with that size.

What the research says about cold plunging

The case for an ice bath is decent for soreness and weak for most of the other things on the listing. A 2025 network meta-analysis of 55 randomised trials found the biggest drop in delayed onset muscle soreness came from 10 to 15 minutes in water at 11C to 15C, with 5C to 10C doing slightly better for jump performance and muscle damage markers (Wang et al., Frontiers in Physiology, 2025). The older Cochrane review reached a similar conclusion on soreness but rated the 17 small trials it pooled as low quality (Bleakley et al., Cochrane, 2012). Our ice bath temperature guide and how long to stay in an ice bath cover the dose in more detail.

That 11C to 15C window is good news for a tub like this. You don't need 3C water, which means far less ice and a much easier time without a chiller for most of the year.

If you lift for muscle, timing matters. In a 12 week trial, men who took 10 minutes of cold water immersion after each strength session gained less strength and muscle than those who did an active cool-down, and biopsies showed blunted anabolic signalling (Roberts et al., Journal of Physiology, 2015). Plunge on rest days, after cardio, or several hours away from a lifting session, rather than straight after your squats.

A safety note

Getting into very cold water triggers a cold shock response, with a sudden rise in heart rate and blood pressure and a gasp you can't control. The British Heart Foundation warns that cold water can raise the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and advises anyone with a heart condition to talk to their doctor or nurse specialist first. Lower yourself in slowly, keep your head above water, don't plunge alone when you're new to it, and get out if you feel dizzy or numb.

How it compares with our other tubs

This is where the AudaciaGo struggles. The Zennest 140 Gal XL holds the same 530 litres, has dual chiller ports and a removable liner, and sold for £399 when we reviewed it. If you want the lie-down oval shape without chiller ambitions, the Zennest 150 Gal Oval was around £110. The Crydip XXL adds 8cm drop-stitch walls and a reclining backrest for about £307. And if you mainly want to try cold plunging before committing, The Cold Pod is a 320 litre barrel at roughly £130 that needs far less ice to chill.

Every one of those is cheaper, and the Crydip and Zennest XL publish more about their construction than AudaciaGo does. Our best ice bath UK guide ranks the full field.

Who should buy it

Buy the AudaciaGo if it drops well below £400, you're tall enough to want the 150cm oval, and you have a solid ground floor or patio to put it on. It's also reasonable if you already own a chiller with 1/2 inch fittings and simply want a lidded tub to connect it to.

Skip it if you're paying anything close to full price, if you're new to cold plunging, or if you plan to run it on ice through a British summer. The ice bill alone will make you regret choosing a 530 litre tub over a 320 litre one.

See the AudaciaGo XL ice bath on Amazon UK£602.51

Recommended reads

• Best ice bath UK
• Zennest Cold Plunge Tub 140 Gal XL review
• Crydip XXL inflatable cold plunge review
• Ice bath temperature guide
• How long to stay in an ice bath