What a cobot actually costs in 2026.
19 models, verified pricing where distributors publish it, honest quote-only flags where they don't. No vendor in this category publishes hardware list prices on its own site, so every dollar figure on this page is distributor-quoted or industry-reported. 1 live-verified, 15 industry-reported, 2 quote-only, 1 discontinued. No affiliate revenue.
One-time capex. Eight hours, two shifts, 250 days a year.
A cheap production-class arm is around $23,000 (Universal Robots UR3e). A heavy-payload arm reaches $85,000 (Universal Robots UR20). But the arm is only a quarter to a half of the project. The rest is EOAT + integration + safety.
Turnkey multiplier: 2x to 4x the bare arm price, which is our own model and not a published figure. AMD Machines puts a complete installed cell at $75K-$200K; the arms in the table below run $23K-$85K.
Hourly burden. Every shift, every year, plus turnover.
BLS CES August 2026: $30.37/hr average manufacturing production wage. BLS ECEC Q2 2026 puts manufacturing total compensation at $48.62/hr, a 1.496x load on wages. Carry that load on the production wage and an operator hour costs $45.43, or $90,860 a year per full-time role.
Published payback: 12 to 24 months for most deployments, under 10 months for high-utilisation cells (AMD Machines, March 2026). Interact Analysis put average cobot RoI at 2 to 3 years, though that reading dates to April 2022.
When the cobot pays for itself.
Drag the inputs. Where the two lines cross is your break-even month. The wage slider starts at $30.37/hr, the BLS CES August 2026 manufacturing production wage. Burden is 1.496x, taken from ECEC Q2 2026 manufacturing ($48.62 total compensation over $32.50 of wages). FTEs displaced is yours to set: AMD Machines puts a machine-tending cell at 0.75-1.5 FTE, assembly at 0.5-1.0.
19 models, every figure dated.
Sorted by payload. Status pills: green live-verified (consistent distributor listing), amber industry-reported (third-party review), grey quote-only or discontinued. Productive Robotics OB7 is the only entry with a stable distributor-published list price across multiple US resellers.
| Vendor / Model | Payload | Reach | Arm price (USD) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ABB IRB 14000 YuMi (dual-arm) ABB Group | 0.5 kg | 559 mm | Quote | quote only |
Universal Robots UR3e Teradyne | 3 kg | 500 mm | $23,000-38,000 | industry reported |
Franka Robotics Franka Research 3 Agile Robots (acq. 2024) | 3 kg | 855 mm | Quote | quote only |
Rethink Robotics Sawyer BLACK Edition (Discontinued) | 4 kg | 1260 mm | Quote | discontinued |
Universal Robots UR5e Teradyne | 5 kg | 850 mm | $30,000-48,000 | industry reported |
ABB GoFa CRB 15000-5 ABB Group | 5 kg | 950 mm | $35,000-45,000 | industry reported |
Productive Robotics OB7 Productive Robotics (independent, US) | 5 kg | 1000 mm | $24,900-27,000 | live verified |
Techman Robot TM5-700 Quanta Storage / Omron | 6 kg | 700 mm | $23,000-28,000 | industry reported |
Productive Robotics OB7-Max 8 Productive Robotics (independent, US) | 8 kg | 1700 mm | $34,000-38,000 | industry reported |
Doosan Robotics A0912 (A-series) Doosan Group | 9 kg | 1200 mm | $25,000-35,000 | industry reported |
FANUC CRX-10iA FANUC Corp | 10 kg | 1249 mm | $40,000-52,000 | industry reported |
ABB GoFa CRB 15000-10 ABB Group | 10 kg | 1520 mm | $45,000-55,000 | industry reported |
Techman Robot TM12 Quanta Storage / Omron | 12 kg | 1300 mm | $32,000-38,000 | industry reported |
Universal Robots UR10e Teradyne | 12.5 kg | 1300 mm | $45,000-60,000 | industry reported |
KUKA LBR iiwa 14 R820 Midea Group | 14 kg | 820 mm | $65,000-75,000 | industry reported |
Universal Robots UR16e Teradyne | 16 kg | 900 mm | $50,000-65,000 | industry reported |
Universal Robots UR20 Teradyne | 20 kg | 1750 mm | $65,000-85,000 | industry reported |
FANUC CRX-25iA FANUC Corp | 25 kg | 1889 mm | $60,000-85,000 | industry reported |
Doosan Robotics H2515 Doosan Group | 25 kg | 1500 mm | $60,000-75,000 | industry reported |
The arm is only the first line item.
Twelve cost categories that almost every cobot integrator quote includes. Add these to the arm price to get a real installed cost.
What you're actually using it for changes everything.
Palletizing pays back fastest; quality inspection slowest, and only when quality-escape avoidance is counted. Figures as published by AMD Machines, an automation integrator, in March 2026. Welding is left blank because that source does not cover it.