Double Bass Cost: Student to Professional Prices (2026)

The double bass, the same instrument a jazz player calls an upright bass, is the biggest and most expensive string instrument a beginner is likely to buy. That size is most of the story of its price. There’s no $200 starter version the way there is for guitar, or even for violin, and the cost question deserves a straight answer instead of the usual “it depends.”

If you’ve searched both “upright bass cost” and “double bass cost” and gotten answers that look different, that’s just two names for one instrument. Orchestral players say double bass or contrabass; jazz, bluegrass, and rockabilly players say upright or standup. Same wood, same four strings, same price ladder, whichever word you use.

What drives a double bass’s price

The levers are the same as any bowed string, scaled up. Wood comes first. The cheapest basses use laminated (plywood) tops and backs, mid instruments are hybrids (a carved top over laminated sides and back), and full instruments are carved from solid spruce and maple. Laminate is actually the sensible choice for a student bass that gets carted to school and back, because it shrugs off the humidity swings and bumps that would crack a carved top, but it doesn’t resonate the way solid wood does.

Second is the carving and hand-finishing: factory assembly at the bottom, a luthier’s graduation work higher up. Carving a top and back from solid wood, then thinning them by hand to the right thickness across the whole plate, is slow, skilled work, and it’s most of what separates a $2,000 student bass from a $6,000 carved one. Third, and easy to underrate on an instrument this size, is the setup. String height and fingerboard dressing decide whether a beginner can press the strings down at all, or whether the bass fights back on every note. On a bass, the strings are long and under heavy tension, so a millimeter of extra height at the bridge turns into a real fight for the left hand. A good setup is the difference between practicing and quitting.

Why there’s no cheap end

On a guitar, $150 buys something playable. On a double bass, that number simply doesn’t exist. A student bass starts around $1,000 and runs to $4,000, and there’s a concrete reason for the floor: the instrument stands five to six feet tall, uses a lot of wood, needs heavy-duty fittings, and can’t be shipped cheaply. A bass is expensive to make and expensive to move before anyone touches the tone.

Listings well under $1,000 are a warning sign, usually an unplayable bass-shaped object with a bridge in the wrong place and a fingerboard nobody dressed. If a price looks too good for a bass, it is. Treat sub-$1,000 uprights with real suspicion, and budget for a shop setup on top of whatever you pay, because almost every factory bass needs one to play its best. That setup, commonly $100 to $300, is not an optional extra on a bass; it’s part of the true price of a playable instrument.

Renting: often the right first move

For a school-age student, renting usually beats buying outright. A double bass is expensive, bulky, and hard to transport, and a young player might not stay with it past a semester. A rent-to-own program from a local string shop gets a properly set-up bass for a modest monthly fee, spares you the depreciation if the student switches instruments, and typically credits your payments toward a purchase if they stick with it.

Many school orchestra programs also lend basses to students, so ask the teacher before buying anything at all. Renting while a student grows and proves they’ll keep playing is the low-risk path, and it moves the big purchase decision to a point where you actually know whether it’s worth making. Rental rates for a bass run higher than for a violin or cello, reflecting the instrument’s cost, but they’re still far below the price of buying, and a good program lets you trade up in size or quality without eating the loss on a resale.

New versus used, and why setup matters

Used is often the smart buy on a bass, because a well-made instrument lasts generations and the steepest depreciation is already behind it. The catch is condition. Cracks, open seams, and a warped neck are costly to fix on an instrument this large, so buy used from a shop that has checked it over, not from an untested private listing where a hidden problem can cost more than the bass did.

Whatever you buy, new or used, factor in a professional setup. A bass that left the factory with high action and a rough fingerboard can be transformed by a good luthier, and that work is the difference between an instrument a beginner enjoys and one they dread picking up. It’s the highest-value few hundred dollars you can spend on a student bass, and it’s the step most first-time buyers forget to price in.

The costs that come after the bass

The bass is the big number, but it isn’t the only one. The bow matters more than beginners expect, and there are two kinds. The French bow is held overhand, much like a cello bow; the German bow is held underhand, in a looser grip. Neither is better than the other. It comes down to your teacher, local tradition, and what feels comfortable, so pick one and commit rather than switching back and forth. A student bass bow runs from about $50 into the low hundreds.

You’ll also want a padded cover or bag to protect a lot of exposed wood, bass rosin (softer and stickier than the violin or cello kind, and the bow is silent without it), and a stand so the instrument isn’t propped against a wall waiting to be knocked over. Transport is its own quiet cost: a bass won’t fit in most small cars, so factor in whether you can actually move the thing to lessons and rehearsals before you buy one.

There are running costs too, though they’re gentler than on a smaller string. Bass strings are expensive, often over $100 for a full set, but they last for years of steady play rather than months. A bow rehair runs a bit more than on a cello and comes up once a year or so of heavy use. None of these rivals the bass itself in cost, but together they add a few hundred dollars to the true first-year total, and every one of them is the sort of thing you only regret skipping once.