What's missing from the advertised cockpit price?

Cockpit ads are priced like frames in an art store: real numbers, incomplete pictures. We priced the full build — frame, seat, slider, screen mount, and the shipping on a hundred-pound delivery — from the manufacturers' own pages, checked 2026-09-22. Every line below appears in our compact setup worksheet, where you can edit it against your own quotes.

The four permanent rigs, priced honestly

Line item	Sim-Lab	Trak Racer	Next Level	GT Omega
Advertised price	$449	$699	$799	$1,018
Seat	+$449 (S1 Enduro + brackets)	+$419–449 (GT Pro)	Included, with slider	+$390 (RS12)
Seat slider / adjustment	Sold separately, price not verified	Included (seat sliders)	Included	+$170 (adjustment frame)
Monitor mount	+$149 config delta or freestanding $199	Optional integrated stands	Sold separately	Sold separately
Honest all-in (rig + seat + slider)	$898 +	$1,118–1,148	$799	~$1,578
Watch on the page	EU page now redirects; US store is the live listing	"Stock due late September 2026" notice on our check date	Electronics and monitor not included — the ad number is genuinely near-total	Sale price (reg. $1,131); specific MOZA bases incompatible

Sources: each maker's own product and seat pages, fetched 2026-09-22. Config deltas (Sim-Lab's $898 seat bundle, GT Omega's sale) are the makers' published numbers; the Sim-Lab slider is the one line nobody prices publicly, which is exactly why it stays not verified in our worksheet.

The wheel bundles have one too

Two of our six documented wheels ship without a way to stand on anything:

Fanatec CSL DD QR2 Ready2Race ($540) — the name is honest and the box is not complete: the table clamp is an optional extra, sold separately. Budget it before mounting to any desk or stand.
MOZA R5 bundle ($379) — the table clamp is in the box, but the SR-P Lite pedals are two-pedal (no clutch), which is a buy-it-twice trap for rally and truck sims.

The four lines every worksheet needs

The seat. Three of four permanent rigs here price it separately ($390–449). The ad number is a frame.
The mount you assumed was included. Clamps, front mounts, monitor arms — check the in-box list, not the hero image.
Shipping on the heavy box. Trak Racer's own estimate runs ~$50 on a TR8; aluminium profiles ship long. Set an allowance on every large line.
Tax. It applies where you live, and on this tier it's a pedal-set-sized number. Our worksheets make it an editable line, not a surprise.

The pattern behind all four: the advertised price buys the minimum configurable object, and the honest build is usually 1.3–2× the ad by the time you can actually drive it. That's not a scam — it's a configurator — but a plan that starts from the ad number will blow its budget at checkout. Start from the worksheet instead.