Robot Arm Price by Brand: 2026 Buyer

How to Read a Robot Arm Price by Brand

A robot arm price by brand is only meaningful once you fix the reach, payload, and controller in the same row. The same builder can span an order of magnitude: KUKA lists everything from a 6 kg small-payload arm to a 1300 kg heavy-payload titan under the KR family, and any single-price claim across that range is meaningless.

Industry price roundups from integrators such as RobotWorx and cobot-market benchmarks from Automate (Association for Advancing Automation) repeatedly land on the same shape: bare-arm-plus-controller is roughly 30-50 percent of the delivered cell, with end-of-arm tooling, safety assessment, and integration taking the rest.

The Bot Scout convention on this page: confirmed prices are ones a vendor or a public distributor lists in writing; estimated prices are quote-only and reflect the tight band that recurs across integrator quotes, refurbished-market listings, and public tender awards. Every row below is labeled.

FANUC, KUKA, Yaskawa, ABB — The Big Four Industrial Arms

The four builders that dominate the IFR World Robotics installed base — FANUC, KUKA, Yaskawa, and ABB — sell arms through regional integrators, and their list prices are rarely public. Confirming a number means either a FANUC America configurator conversation, a KUKA marketplace listing, a Yaskawa dealer quote, or an ABB Robotics partner proposal.

The tight, repeatable band across integrator conversations for a small-payload six-axis arm plus a matched controller is $30,000-$80,000. The FANUC LR Mate 200iD — the reference tabletop arm for machine tending and assembly — sits inside that band, as does the Yaskawa GP series. Heavier arms with 100 kg-plus payload and 2.5 m-plus reach cross into six figures once the R-30iB or KR C5 controller and floor-mount hardware are included.

The unspoken cost driver on all four is the controller software: language, safety option, vision, and force-sensing licenses are line items. A cell that quotes low usually did not include the vision option that the application actually requires.

Universal Robots and ABB YuMi — Cobot List Prices That Really Are Public

Cobots are the exception to the price-opacity rule. Universal Robots publishes indicative pricing through its distributor network, and the recurring bands across authorized resellers such as Axis New Jersey put the UR3e near $27,000, the UR5e near $35,000, the UR10e near $45,000, the UR16e near $50,000, and the UR20 in the mid-$50,000s to low-$60,000s, all for the arm plus teach pendant and controller.

The ABB YuMi IRB 14000 dual-arm cobot is quoted by ABB partners at roughly $40,000 for the bare dual-arm system with its integrated controller. Kinova's Gen3 research arms — commonly used in academic labs — list in the low-$30,000s, with the lighter Gen3 lite closer to $20,000.

The catch: the published cobot list price never includes the gripper. Add $2,000-$8,000 for a standard two-finger electric gripper, more for anything with force sensing or vacuum.

• UR3e (3 kg / 500 mm reach) — approximately $27,000
• UR5e (5 kg / 850 mm reach) — approximately $35,000
• UR10e (12.5 kg / 1300 mm reach) — approximately $45,000
• UR16e (16 kg / 900 mm reach) — approximately $50,000
• UR20 (20 kg / 1750 mm reach) — approximately $55,000-$60,000

Grippers, Joints, and Controllers Priced Separately

End-of-arm tooling is where hidden cost lives. Robotiq two-finger and three-finger adaptive grippers are the reference cobot end effectors, and OnRobot, SCHUNK, and Zimmer compete on the industrial side. Vacuum systems from Piab and Schmalz add another price axis.

Joints and drive modules — the modular actuators used to build custom arms or repair existing ones — are their own market. Harmonic Drive strain-wave reducers are the canonical high-precision cobot joint component, and integrated maxon or Nidec servo modules land in the same tier. Replacement joint modules for a cobot commonly run $2,000-$6,000 apiece; a full six-joint set is often more than half the price of a new arm.

Controllers deserve their own line. A Universal Robots teach pendant and control box are bundled with the arm, but a FANUC R-30iB Plus, a KUKA KR C5, an ABB OmniCore, or a Yaskawa YRC1000 all price separately when replaced or upgraded, and controller-only quotes routinely land in the $10,000-$25,000 band.

New vs Used vs Refurbished — the Same Arm, Three Prices

A used industrial arm typically sells at 30-60 percent of the new price, and refurbished units with a warranty land at 50-75 percent. Public listings on RobotWorx, Eurobots, and general marketplaces such as Machinery Pete confirm this compression, particularly for older FANUC R-2000, KUKA KR 210, and ABB IRB 4400 arms.

The consideration is not the sticker: it is spare parts, controller compatibility, and the calendar life left in the harmonic drives. A refurbished arm at half price with a two-year controller EOL window is not a bargain.

What the Arm Price Excludes Every Time

Every quote on this page is the arm plus controller only. The cell that actually runs on the floor also carries safety assessment under ISO 10218-1:2025 (and ISO/TS 15066:2016 for collaborative applications), guarding or safety-rated sensing, PLC integration, tooling, fixtures, operator training, and installation labor.

Integrator rules of thumb put the total delivered cell at roughly two to three times the bare-arm price for a straightforward machine-tending or palletizing application, and higher for vision-guided assembly. A $40,000 UR10e that does real work in a plant is almost always a $90,000-$120,000 line item once every trade is paid.