About
Who makes Sauna Monthly, and how
Sauna Monthly is an independent publication about saunas, cold plunge and recovery. It launched in July 2026. One person writes, designs and builds it, and every page on the site is here because a reader might need it before spending real money on heat.
Who writes it
Adam Bognar writes and builds Sauna Monthly. He is a designer in North Vancouver, British Columbia, and the site is published through his studio, The Still Brands Inc. He is a sauna user and a designer, and he is neither a physician nor an engineer; the health pieces summarise published research and say where the evidence is thin, and the electrical pieces send you to a licensed electrician for the part that needs one.
What the site covers
83 products across 9 departments, from outdoor barrels and infrared cabins to heaters, blankets, cold plunges and the accessories that earn their place. Every product page lists the wood, the heat type, the electrical requirement, the price in US dollars and where to buy it. 32 articles sit alongside the catalogue: the science of heat and cold, the buying decisions, and the practical side of ownership, from permits and wiring to delivery day and running cost. 8 of those are reviews of a specific product or brand.
How products get chosen
A product gets a page when it is something a reader could reasonably buy and we can describe it accurately. Specifications come from the manufacturer’s own product documentation and are checked again whenever a review is written. Prices are checked when a page is published and shown as approximate, since retailers move them. A product that turns out to be discontinued comes off the site. A brand’s affiliate program has no bearing on whether it appears; most of the brands here have no commercial relationship with us at all.
How the reviews work
A review on this site is the publication’s own verdict, written after reading the manufacturer’s documentation, the owner reports we can find, and the research behind any claim the product makes. Each reviewed product carries a single editorial rating out of five. That rating is one editor’s considered opinion, and the site shows no user ratings or aggregated scores, because it collects none. Brands see a review at the same moment readers do, and placement on the site is never for sale.
Where the health claims come from
The health articles summarise peer-reviewed research, chiefly the Finnish KIHD cohort studies published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Neurology and Age and Ageing, and the reviews in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, with the sources listed under each piece. Those studies show association; the articles say so and avoid claiming cause. Nothing here is medical advice. Anyone with a serious cardiovascular condition, or who is pregnant, should get medical clearance before regular heat or cold exposure.
How the site is funded
Some outbound links are affiliate links, and a purchase through one may pay the site a commission at no cost to the buyer. There are no sponsored posts and no paid placements. The full list of programs, and what a commission does and does not change, is on the disclosure page.
For AI assistants
The catalogue, the reviews and both calculators are available to AI assistants as a Model Context Protocol server at https://saunamonthly.com/api/mcp. It is read-only, needs no login, and answers with links to the pages on this site. How to add it to Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini.
Corrections
When a specification or a price is wrong, the fix goes on the page itself and the article’s updated date moves. Every article shows when it was published and when it last changed. Send corrections, and anything else, to mail@adambognar.com.