By mid-October in the northern half of the country, the question is no longer whether to haul out but where, how, and at what price. Yards fill their winter schedules early, and the standard advice from Chesapeake-area sources is to book at least a month ahead if you want the haul-out plus any yard work; wait too long and the schedule pushes your boat's service into spring. The cost side is harder to pin down, because there is no national price for winter storage. There are only price sheets, and they are written in different units for different packages.
What follows uses published 2025–26 rate sheets from several regions as reference points. They are examples, not averages. Your yard's numbers will differ, sometimes a lot.
Read the Unit Before You Read the Price
The single biggest source of confusion in winter-storage pricing is the unit. Some yards quote dollars per foot per season. Others quote dollars per foot per month. Some fold the haul, pressure wash, blocking, and spring launch into the storage figure; others bill each separately. A quote of $24 per foot can be a bargain or an expensive one depending on which of those it means.
When you compare yards, break every quote into the same line items:
- Haul-out and spring launch (often per foot, sometimes each way)
- Pressure wash of the bottom
- Blocking or jackstands
- Storage itself, per season or per month
- Shrink-wrap or cover installation, including vents and an access door
- Winterization labor for engines, generator, freshwater system, and heads
- Shore power while stored, if you need it for a dehumidifier or charger
- Mast unstepping and rack storage for sailboats
Three Storage Options Compared
Outdoor hard stand with shrink-wrap
This is the default in snow country: the boat sits on stands or a trailer in the yard under a heat-shrunk plastic cover. It is the cheapest protected option and works well when the wrap is installed with proper ventilation. BoatUS recommends a fitted cover or professional shrink-wrap over improvised tarps, which can collapse under snow and dump ice into the boat, and warns that the heat guns used for wrapping can ignite the plastic; that job is best left to a professional. Ask the wrapper to fit vents, because condensation under an unvented wrap is how boats come out moldy in April.
Outdoor hard stand without wrap
In milder climates, many owners store on the hard under a fitted canvas cover or with no cover at all. Storage is cheaper, but you trade it for more weathering and more spring cleanup. In the South, the more common choice is to leave the boat in the water and winterize only against an occasional cold snap.
Indoor storage, cold or heated
Indoor space removes snow load, UV, and most of the wrap expense, and it is the scarcest product in any northern market. One Twin Cities operator's current price list shows its indoor cold storage sold out for the season before the leaves had finished turning. Heated indoor storage is rarer still and priced well above cold storage; if it matters to you, ask early and get the rate in writing.
Regional Reference Points from Published Rate Sheets
Upper Midwest: Twin Cities, Minnesota
A Minneapolis-based mobile service publishes a straightforward list: outdoor storage at $9 per foot, outdoor storage with shrink-wrap at $16 per foot, indoor cold storage at $20 per foot, and indoor cold storage with shrink-wrap at $24 per foot, with a $2-per-foot surcharge for boats over 26 feet and pontoons. Its stand-alone mobile shrink-wrap runs $11 per foot under 25 feet and $16 per foot at 25 feet and over.
Great Lakes: Lake Erie, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania's state park system lists winter storage at the Presque Isle State Park marina at $18 per foot per season for residents and $35.75 for non-residents, including lift-out and lift-in. Public facilities like this tend to undercut private yards on price but offer fewer services and limited space.
Pacific Northwest: Puget Sound
The Port of Olympia's Swantown Boatworks quoted its October 2025 through March 2026 winter yard storage at $24 per foot per month, with shore power as a $37.50 flat monthly fee and blocking and a ground tarp included in the haul-out. Note the monthly unit: for a 30-foot boat stored the full six months, storage alone comes to about $4,320 before the haul. Space was limited to 30 boats on a first-come basis.
Mid-Atlantic and the South
Here the comparison shifts. Many Chesapeake owners haul for winter, while many farther south stay in the water. BoatUS's review of freeze claims found that northern claims usually involve a winterizing step that was missed, while southern claims more often involve boats that were never winterized at all, or that relied on an onboard heater that failed when the power went out.
Winterization Labor
The same Twin Cities operator lists mobile engine winterization at $110 for an outboard, $165 for a sterndrive, and $400 for an inboard, with an oil change at $75 when combined with the service. Full-service yards with larger boats, generators, watermakers, and multiple heads will price well above a mobile service's engine package, so ask for an itemized quote.
Labor is the line not to economize on. BoatUS found that more than three-quarters of the freeze claims it analyzed over ten years involved cracked engine blocks or exhaust manifolds, caused by water left in the engine or cooling system during a hard freeze. Fresh water expands by about 9 percent as it freezes, which is enough to split hoses, fittings, and castings.
What to Do This Week
Call two or three yards, ask for itemized quotes in the same units, and confirm what the storage rate includes. Book the haul date in writing. If you plan to winterize the boat yourself, read your insurance policy first: many carriers exclude freeze damage unless you add ice-and-freeze coverage before a fall deadline, and some require that the work be done by a marine professional. The cheapest storage package is the one that avoids a cracked block in April.