A comparable gas burner would be $15-20 but nobody would let you use it indoors, so there’s no market for it.
Look on Home Depot or Lowes website. Full cooktop w oven is a totally separate market than gluing four hot plates together. Induction has been a high-end thing for a long time, so there aren’t bargain basement induction ranges. Stuff for sale in the US is competing with mid to high end gas.
To replace the gas stoves and oven combos found in most American homes that currently use gas, you're looking at a thousand dollars at the lowest. Most are several thousand dollars. Replacing a gas stove and oven with a low power (single phase 120V in America) induction hotplate would be a substantial downgrade.
You also have to consider that many American kitchens that presently have gas will probably need an electrician to install two-phase power. Admittedly some will already have that, but in the homes built for gas it will be several hundred dollars (at least) just to get the wires put in.
Has there been a huge price drop? We bought a range about a year ago and the cheapest induction ranges were still around $1,800 on sale. Gas could be had for like $350, entry-level. And has a robust used market, which is lacking for induction (which isn't necessarily the tech's fault—it is fairly new)
Hope that comes with a price drop. Gas is the only option right now if you want cheap and well-performing. Last I checked (maybe a year ago?) the cheapest induction ranges were well into the middle tier of prices. Which makes the fact that I keep seeing stuff about their tending to stop working after only a few years, or suffering from very-fragile surfaces that are easy to crack and ruin, even more of a turn-off.
Induction’s still pricey, too. The low end of gas ranges is low-priced, indeed. And ranges (can) last a long time, so old-school electric is gonna be the “normal” electric range for many years yet, I expect.
Just checked Lowes. Cheapest induction range, $999. Four gas options are $499 or lower, four resistive electrics $499 or lower.
Huh. Ikea's got one—and only one—induction option, for $1,400, in the US. A couple cheap "portable cooktops" ($70!) but only one range, and it's not cheap, though that is cheaper than what I was seeing last I checked.
[EDIT] Nebraska Furniture Mart, which has a much bigger selection than Ikea:
Cheapest induction range: $1,493 (sale price, claims full retail is more than $800 higher)
Cheapest gas range: $529 (also a sale price, claims full retail is $139 higher)
There again 95% of new houses here have induction, so the price difference you are seeing is probably because market demand is that much lower in the US.
"... it’s mostly a luxury choice, with prices starting at more than $1,000. Even the cheapest induction cooktops are more than twice the price of the least-expensive gas models in the current market"
Induction cooktops aren't as inherently expensive as the price implies: here in the US we don't really use them, so there's just little demand.
When I went to buy my parents that induction stove, the bottom of the ranges offered were induction versions of the top non-induction stoves because they need the highest possible margins to justify the tiny market.
Just an induction cooktop starts in the $700 range, when they start for less than half that in the UK. This could easily be the start of normalizing induction in the US, and that's not a bad thing.
I personally am switching from a propane range to a induction cooktop as we speak, but saying induction is cheap to retro fit is definitely a stretch.
My scenario is an unfinished basement below the kitchen and a really short electrical run.
Materials:
Induction Cooktop $900 (We are switching from a range to a cooktop, the cheapest induction range I know of is around $1100)
25ft 8/3 Romex wire: $153
So over 1k just in materials. I plan on wiring everything myself but if someone is not able to do that probably add another $500 for an electrician to do it. Finally that cost can balloon quickly depending on how accessible the install is and the distance.
Note that portable single "burner" induction cooktops are available at under $100 for anyone who wants to investigate the technology before committing to it. It will remain a useful appliance, whatever your preference (warming plate, at-table presentations, cooking on the porch, etc.).
That's just really a different class altogether. I doubt my gas stove cost more than 200 new :)
But the thing about a cheap gas stove is that it performs as well as a high end one, at least for a one person household like mine. If I'd invest in induction it would all get much more expensive to get the same performance.
We should absolutely not be subsodisong someone who has the means to install a $3000 induction range and do $2k worth of additional work at the same time. A semi decent 4 ring induction cooktop can be had for less than £300, and it plugs straight into a wall socket with no electrical work needed. If you're removing a gas stove and making the point safe, I'd say $100 to cap the pipe at the point of the old range (based on me having that work done in my last apartment). Prices may vary with cost of living.
For people using small burners in apartments, single ring plug in induction cooktops are available for about $100 with no other work required.
Agreed. I was shocked at the cost of an induction stove top in the US when I looked recently. £350 buys you a great induction stove top in the UK (I paid less for a neff nN50 just before COVID). $1000 only just buys you an entry level one on the US.
Tabletop induction burners that use standard outlets are way more cost effective than induction ranges, too. That thing is $200, which didn’t even pay the electrician bill to put in the 240V 50A outlet and circuit for my range.
I’d have to pay thousands of dollars for an induction range, then buy a whole set of expensive new cookware
So much drama.
We recently switched to an induction cooktop (AEG) because we moved from gas heating to a heat pump. It cost maybe 500 Euro (500 dollar). Some older pots didn’t work well, 10 Euro IKEA replacements do the job. It took a few days to get used to, but it’s not that big a transition coming from gas.
And it is so much easier to clean.
(We have 100% wind/solar energy, so it’s definitely an improvement over gas.)
Look on Home Depot or Lowes website. Full cooktop w oven is a totally separate market than gluing four hot plates together. Induction has been a high-end thing for a long time, so there aren’t bargain basement induction ranges. Stuff for sale in the US is competing with mid to high end gas.
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