SawStop Bandsaw Price: What the Sensic Safety System Will Likely Cost You
SawStop Bandsaw Price: What the Sensic Safety System Will Likely Cost You - A step into the workshop.
Stop Wasting Wood
Generate clear cut diagrams instantly with our new Cutlist Optimizer. Plan your cuts to make your next build easier.
SawStop put a bandsaw on the floor at IWF 2026 in Atlanta, and the most important thing they told us about it is the thing they wouldn't: the price. The 14" Professional Bandsaw, model PBS11120, is the company's first bandsaw, and per 731 Woodworks' hands-on report, "SawStop has not announced pricing yet." No number, not even a range. That's enough to bracket what a flesh-sensing bandsaw will actually cost you, even if nobody can name the exact figure yet.
What SawStop Actually Announced
The PBS11120 is a 14"-wheeled bandsaw with a 14" resaw capacity, which 731 Woodworks and Fine Woodworking both note SawStop claims as the most of any bandsaw on 14" wheels. The motor options are 1.75 HP at 120V or 3 HP at 230V, with the 230V version carrying the model number PBS31230. The table is 16.9" × 21.8" cast iron, tilting 45° right and 9° left. The frame is reinforced steel at roughly 400 pounds, and SawStop's stated reason for the mass is that it lets them claim 14" of resaw on 14" wheels without frame flex.
The timing tells you something about how SawStop sees this machine. They revealed it roughly a year and a half before it ships, which 731 Woodworks points out is far earlier than a typical announcement. US and Canadian availability is expected mid-2027, with pre-orders opening approximately 3–4 months before launch, which Fine Woodworking places in early 2027. CEO Matt Howard framed it to Woodshop News as "a foundational step" toward bringing SawStop safety to more of the workshop. A year and a half of runway before shipping is a company building anticipation and locking in the narrative.
How the Sensic Brake Is Different
The bandsaw safety system is genuinely a different mechanism from the table saw cartridge, not a ported-over one. The cartridge sits below the table with the blade running straight through it. On skin contact, it doesn't ram a brake into the blade. Instead it uses what SawStop calls "cut and capture": the cartridge slices through the blade loop and clamps it, stopping the blade in under 5 milliseconds per 731 Woodworks. Cutting the band instantly releases tension, and the freed blade springs into an internal cage inside the cabinet. Fine Woodworking demonstrated the system on a hot dog at the show.
Separately, an electronic motor brake stops the blade in under 2 seconds on every normal shutdown via the stop paddle. No foot brake required, per Fine Woodworking. That's a nice detail on its own, since coasting bandsaws are a routine shop hazard regardless of the flesh-detection drama.
There's a bypass key, two in the box, for cutting conductive material. Wet or green wood may trip the detection depending on moisture content, and SawStop recommends a bypass-mode test cut first. Pressure-treated lumber should be cut in bypass because of its copper content. If an activation is confirmed as accidental skin contact, SawStop will replace the cartridge free, the same policy as its table saws. But there's no retrofit kit for existing bandsaws, so this safety system exists only on a machine you haven't bought yet.
One unresolved question that could matter to your wallet: whether an activation destroys the blade. ToolGuyd notes it "destroys the band saw blade" and that it's unclear whether the mechanism resets. ToolGuyd commenter discussion puts a Laguna Resaw King carbide blade around $180. If a Sensic stop eats a blade, and SawStop's own blade length and replacement pricing for the PBS aren't published yet, then each accidental activation carries a blade cost on top of the cartridge question. I've come to believe recurring cost is where safety systems get judged, not at the moment of the demo.
The Field, With Prices
Here's where the comparison gets concrete. The mid-14"-class floor-standing bandsaw market has published numbers:
| Machine | Price | Resaw | Motor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laguna 14|12 | $1,699 | 13" | 1.75 HP |
| Laguna 14BX | $1,999–$2,199 | 12" | 1.75–2.5 HP |
| Grizzly G0513Z (17") | ~$1,750 (unverified) | 12-1/8" | 2 HP |
| Harvey Alpha HW615 (15") | $2,599–$3,399 | 14" | 3 HP |
The Laguna 14|12, per Laguna's own site, is $1,699 with a 13" resaw and 1¾ HP, and notably no blade included. The 14BX, priced by The Woodsmith Store at $1,999 for the 110V version and $2,199 for the 220V, has a 12" resaw and a patent-pending disk brake that automatically shuts power off, a lighter-touch safety approach than SawStop's. The Grizzly G0513Z is a 17"-wheel saw in a similar bracket, with specs confirmed via a republished spec sheet: 2 HP, 12-1/8" resaw, 16-1/8" throat, 131½" blade, about 364 lb shipping. I'll flag that I couldn't open Grizzly's own pages, so treat any Grizzly price as needing verification before you order. The closest size match in Grizzly's line is the 14" G0555XH Extreme Series, whose price I likewise couldn't confirm.
The Harvey Alpha HW615 is the interesting ceiling. Popular Woodworking's February 2025 review lists it at $3,399 MSRP, frequently on sale as low as $2,599, with 3 HP, 14" resaw, a nickel-plated table, and tool-less blade guide adjustment. It matches or beats the SawStop's headline specs in motor and resaw, and it has no safety system to pay for.
Bracketing the Safety Premium
So what does Sensic add to the price? Honest answer: we can only bracket it. SawStop's table saws have historically carried a large premium over comparably sized conventional machines, and if that pattern holds, the Sensic system plus a 400 lb steel frame likely puts the PBS11120 at or above Harvey Alpha pricing. That's my read, not a sourced fact, and it's worth separating the two.
The floor of the bracket is the Laguna class, roughly $1,700 to $2,200 for a comparably sized saw without flesh detection. The ceiling, for now, is Harvey's $3,399 list. If SawStop lands inside that ceiling, they're competing on spec-plus-safety against a machine with strong specs at that money. If they go above it, they're asking bandsaw buyers to pay a premium beyond what the published class pricing supports, in a category ToolGuyd commenters note has less alarming injury data than table saws. I'll be direct about my own position: I've come to believe the safety premium is easiest to justify on table saws, where the injury mechanism is unambiguous, and harder on a bandsaw. But that's a judgement about value, not a claim about the machine, and clients in my shop ask for safety features more often than my own preferences predict. Market evidence beats my instincts here.
The Harvey Counter-Argument
Worth sitting with: Harvey showed a "Dream Saw" table saw at IWF 2026 with contactless safety detection, a sensor "forcefield" that drops the blade without skin contact, per Fine Woodworking. No damaged blade, no replacement cartridge. That's a competing philosophy of machine safety: prevent the contact rather than pay for it after. If contactless detection migrates from Harvey's table saws to their bandsaws, SawStop's cartridge-consumption model could look dated within a product cycle. For a buyer weighing a mid-2027 purchase, that's a reason to watch the space, not just the product page.
What I'd Do Before Pre-Ordering
If you're in the market for a 14"-class bandsaw, you have a decision window with real information asymmetry: pre-orders open roughly 3–4 months before a mid-2027 launch, and the price will likely surface then, not before. My sequence would be this. First, decide whether 14" of resaw on a 14"-wheel machine actually changes what you build, because that's the one spec SawStop is genuinely claiming as a first. Second, price the blade ecosystem: confirm the PBS blade length, whether a Sensic activation destroys a blade, and what a replacement costs, because a $180 Resaw King per stop changes the math on bypass discipline. Third, put your hands on a Harvey Alpha if one is in range, since at $2,599 on sale it sets the spec-per-dollar bar the SawStop has to clear. The Sensic system is real engineering, and the free-cartridge policy is a genuine commitment. Whether it's worth the gap between $1,700 and whatever SawStop announces is a question only the price can answer. Wait for the number.