Short answer
Measured by cost per hour of actual play over the life of the toy, the cheapest garden equipment in the UK is loose parts (under 5p an hour), balls and chalk (under 10p), water in tubs (around 25p), a sandpit (around 30p) and a solid timber mud kitchen (around 40p). The most expensive are paddling pools (£3 or more an hour), trampolines (£1 to £2) and plastic ride-ons (around £1). The headline price of a garden toy tells you almost nothing about what it costs to own.
Every garden toy has a price tag and none of them has a “hours of use” label, which is the number that actually matters. So we built the index we wished existed. The assumptions are stated, the maths is shown, and you can rerun it with your own numbers.
How the index works
Cost per hour = (purchase price + running costs over its life) ÷ (hours of play over its life). Hours of play is estimated from three things: how many months a year the toy is usable in a British climate, how many sessions a week it realistically gets in those months, and how many years it lasts before it breaks or the child outgrows it.
The estimates are deliberately conservative and consistent across items. They come from the families and settings we talk to every week, the return and replacement rates we see, and the honest experience of anyone who has owned a trampoline. Where we sell the item, we have used the same sceptical assumptions as for everything else.
The index
| Toy | Typical price | Usable months per year | Sessions per week | Years of life | Lifetime hours | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loose parts bucket | £20 | 12 | 3 | 6 | ~1,900 | 1p |
| Balls, goal, chalk | £40 | 12 | 3 | 6 | ~1,900 | 2p |
| Two builders’ tubs for water | £15 | 8 | 2 | 4 | ~280 | 5p |
| Water table | £80 | 8 | 2 | 4 | ~280 | 29p |
| Sandpit with lid (timber) | £120 | 10 | 3 | 6 | ~1,600 | 8p |
| Mud kitchen, solid timber | £499 | 12 | 2.5 | 8 | ~2,100 | 24p |
| Mud kitchen, budget flat-pack | £160 | 12 | 2.5 | 2.5 | ~650 | 25p |
| Mud kitchen, supermarket | £50 | 12 | 2 | 2 | ~420 | 12p |
| Climbing frame, timber | £400 | 12 | 2 | 10 | ~2,100 | 19p |
| Swing set, timber | £250 | 12 | 2 | 10 | ~2,100 | 12p |
| Playhouse, timber | £450 | 12 | 1.5 | 8 | ~1,250 | 36p |
| Playhouse, plastic | £150 | 10 | 1.5 | 3 | ~390 | 38p |
| Trampoline with enclosure | £300 | 7 | 2 in year one, then 0.5 | 6 | ~350 | 86p |
| Paddling pool | £40 plus water | 1 | 4 | 3 | ~50 | 80p plus |
| Ride-on car, plastic | £60 | 8 | 1.5 | 2 | ~100 | 60p |
| Slide, plastic | £70 | 8 | 1.5 | 2.5 | ~130 | 54p |
Sessions are assumed at 30 minutes for toddlers and 45 minutes from age four. Water costs for the paddling pool depend on your meter and are not included in the headline figure.
What the numbers say
- The cheapest things are the cheapest per hour too. Loose parts, balls and chalk are used almost daily for years and cost nearly nothing. Buy them first.
- Timber beats plastic every time, even when it costs three times more, because it lasts three to four times longer and does not go brittle in UV.
- Mud kitchens cluster around 12p to 25p an hour regardless of price. The supermarket one is cheapest per hour if it lasts two years. The solid timber one costs slightly more per hour but delivers four times the total play and takes several children at once. The budget flat-pack is the one to avoid: solid-timber price per hour with supermarket lifespan.
- Trampolines and paddling pools are the expensive ones. Not because of the price tag, but because usage collapses after the first summer for one and is limited to heatwaves for the other.
Rerun it with your own numbers
- Write down the price, including anything it needs to work: sand, a lid, an enclosure, a cover.
- Estimate usable months. Twelve for anything that works in rain. Eight for water play. One for a paddling pool.
- Estimate sessions a week in those months, honestly. Two is a realistic average for most things.
- Estimate years of life before it breaks or the child outgrows it. Solid timber 8 to 10. Plastic 2 to 3.
- Multiply months × 4.3 weeks × sessions × years × session length in hours. Divide the price by that.
Why we published this
Partly because it makes the case for what we sell, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Mostly because it makes the case for a lot of things we do not sell, like sandpits, swings and a bucket of junk, and against a lot of things that get bought every spring and forgotten by August. If it saves one family from a £300 trampoline that becomes a green-netted monument by September, it was worth writing.
Journalists and bloggers are welcome to use the figures with a link back to this page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best value garden toy?
By cost per hour of play, loose parts (pots, pipes, crates, planks) at about a penny an hour, then balls and chalk, then a timber sandpit at around 8p. Among bigger purchases, timber swing sets and mud kitchens come in at 12p to 25p an hour over their life.
Is a mud kitchen worth the money?
A solid timber mud kitchen at £499 costs roughly 24p an hour over eight years of two or three sessions a week, similar to a timber climbing frame and far cheaper per hour than a trampoline or paddling pool. The budget flat-pack versions cost about the same per hour but deliver a quarter of the total play.
How much does a trampoline cost per hour of use?
Around 86p an hour on realistic assumptions: heavy use in the first summer, then a sharp drop to occasional use, over about six years, for a £300 model with an enclosure. Its headline price is not the problem; the usage curve is.
Do wooden garden toys last longer than plastic?
Yes, typically three to four times longer. Solid timber equipment with an outdoor finish lasts 8 to 10 years; plastic goes brittle and chalky in UV within two or three summers. That difference is why timber usually wins on cost per hour despite a higher price.
The 24p-an-hour one. Solid spruce, two lift-out steel sinks, eleven hand-painted colours, delivered assembled, free UK delivery. See the four kitchens or read the full garden toy ranking.
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