TOTO's S2 Washlet: Why the Round Version Costs $39.96 More Than Elongated

The TOTO WASHLET S2 is one of the most recommended electric bidet seats in our entire catalogue — it's the premium pick in our main buying guide and the instant-heating benchmark in our electric vs non-electric comparison. So it's a useful test case when a shopper notices something odd: the round-bowl S2 (SW3345#01) lists at $417.96, and the elongated S2 (SW3346#01) lists at $378.00 — a $39.96 gap, with the smaller bowl shape costing more, not less.

That runs against the instinct most shoppers bring to this category: a round bowl is physically shorter than an elongated one, so a round seat should use less material and cost less to build. Sometimes it does — we've found brands that discount their round model by $30 for exactly that reason. TOTO's S2 pair does the opposite. Before assuming that's a pricing quirk unique to one listing, it's worth checking the two S2 titles word for word, because if nothing besides bowl shape and price actually differs between them, the $39.96 gap has to be explained by something other than a feature cut.

One honest note before we get into it: we don't run a fake testing lab, and we never claim to. Everything below comes from reading TOTO's own listing titles for both SKUs, comparing the database prices recorded for each, and the pattern we've documented across other brands' round-versus-elongated pairs. Where a listing doesn't state something, we say so instead of guessing.

Checking the feature lists side by side

TOTO's own product titles make this an easy comparison, because both SKUs are named almost identically. The elongated listing reads: "TOTO® WASHLET® S2 Electronic Bidet Toilet Seat with Instantaneous Water Heating, PREMIST and EWATER+ Wand Cleaning, Elongated, Cotton White - SW3346#01." The round listing reads: "TOTO® WASHLET® S2 Electronic Bidet Toilet Seat with Instantaneous Water Heating, PREMIST and EWATER+ Wand Cleaning, Round, Cotton White - SW3345#01." Lay those two strings next to each other and exactly three words differ: the bowl shape ("Elongated" versus "Round") and the model number (SW3346#01 versus SW3345#01). Every functional claim in the title — instantaneous water heating, PREMIST, EWATER+ wand cleaning — appears on both, in the same order, in the same wording.

That's a cleaner result than most round-versus-elongated comparisons in this category produce. When we checked four other listings across two brands, the pricier model in each pair usually named extra features the cheaper one didn't — an air dryer here, a wireless remote there — so the price gap at least partly tracked a feature gap on paper. TOTO's S2 titles don't give you that out. There is no asterisk, no bundled accessory, no "Elongated model only" footnote anywhere in either title. Both SKUs are, as far as TOTO's own naming tells us, the same washlet in two different shells, and the same color: Cotton White on both.

So if the feature lists are identical and the price still differs by $39.96, the gap has to come from somewhere other than what's bolted onto the seat. The two candidates worth checking are what it costs TOTO to build each shape, and whether other brands' round-versus-elongated pairs show the same direction of premium. We'll take both in turn.

That matters for the same reason it mattered in our look at Combier's identically-priced round and elongated pair: when the feature list doesn't move, you can rule out "the pricier one just has more stuff in it" as the explanation for a price gap. TOTO isn't charging $417.96 for the round S2 because it bundled in an extra function the elongated model lacks. It's charging more for the same washlet in a different shell — which means the $39.96 has to be explained either by what that shell actually costs TOTO to produce, or by a straightforward pricing decision unrelated to manufacturing cost at all. We can't see TOTO's bill of materials, so we can't settle which one it is with certainty. But there's a real engineering argument for why a round shell can cost more than an elongated one, even though it's smaller — and it's worth laying out plainly rather than assuming the bigger shape should always be the pricier one.

Put those two factors together and a round bowl shell stops being an obvious discount candidate. The same instantaneous heater, the same EWATER+ wand mechanism, and the same PREMIST system all have to fit inside a housing that's a few inches shorter front to back than the elongated version — and TOTO is producing that housing at lower volume than its elongated counterpart, since elongated is the shape the US market buys by default. Neither of those facts is something we can verify from a teardown; TOTO doesn't publish its internal manufacturing costs, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. But it's a materially different situation than a brand charging more for round purely because shoppers have fewer round options to compare against — it's a plausible, specific reason a smaller part can cost more to make, not just to sell.

Worth being precise about what we are and aren't claiming here: we don't have TOTO's bill of materials, and a $39.96 gap is also consistent with a simple business decision to price the lower-volume SKU higher because the market will bear it, independent of what it actually costs TOTO to produce. Both explanations are compatible with everything the two listings tell us. What we can say with confidence, because the titles say so directly, is that the gap isn't buying you an extra feature — it's buying you a different shell around the identical washlet.

How the $39.96 gap compares to what other brands charge

TOTO charging more for its round S2 is not the only pattern we've found in this category, and it isn't even the most common one. mijashy's catalogue runs the opposite direction: its round electric seat lists at $139.99 against $169.99 for its elongated model — a $30 gap with round coming in cheaper, the direction most shoppers assume by default. IYTATA, in that same comparison, charges exactly $169.99 for both its round and elongated models — no premium or discount for shape at all. Combier's round and elongated seats also list at an identical $143.99 apiece. Line up those four data points and TOTO's S2 pair is the only one of the three brands we've checked where round costs more, not less or the same.

That doesn't make TOTO's pricing wrong, and it doesn't make mijashy's or Combier's pricing more "correct" — it confirms there's no industry-wide rule governing which bowl shape costs more. Each brand appears to set its own price for each shape independently, based on whatever mix of production volume, tooling cost and market pricing makes sense for that specific product line. mijashy's $30 round discount and TOTO's $39.96 round premium are both real numbers from real listings; they just point in opposite directions, which is itself the clearest evidence that bowl shape alone doesn't predict price across this category. You have to check the brand you're actually buying, not assume a pattern holds from one brand to the next.

It's also worth noting the S2 isn't TOTO's cheapest line — our look at a competing brand's multi-tier lineup found that within one manufacturer's own catalogue, price gaps often track a specific named feature more reliably than they track anything about bowl shape or overall tier. TOTO's S2 pair is unusual precisely because the price moved while the feature list didn't — which is what makes bowl shape itself, rather than any added function, the one variable left to explain the $39.96.

Is the round premium specific to TOTO, or does it show up elsewhere?

The honest answer, based on what we've checked, is that a round premium exists in this category but it isn't universal, and TOTO is one specific brand that applies it. We found it going the opposite direction at mijashy, which discounts its round model by $30 instead. We found it absent entirely at both IYTATA and Combier, which charge identical prices regardless of bowl shape. That's a small sample — four brands, five pairs including TOTO's — but it's enough to say clearly that "round costs more" and "round costs less" are both real patterns somewhere in this catalogue, and neither one is the industry default.

What we can't tell you, because TOTO doesn't publish it and we haven't found another TOTO round-versus-elongated pair in our database to check against, is whether $39.96 is TOTO's standard round surcharge across its whole lineup or a figure specific to the S2 line alone. If you're shopping a different TOTO model with both bowl shapes available, treat the S2's $39.96 as a data point about this specific pair, not a rule you can apply to a different washlet in TOTO's range without checking that listing directly.

The practical takeaway is the same one we'd give for any round-versus-elongated decision in this category: bowl shape is a fit requirement, not a reliable price signal. It will tell you which seat can physically go on your toilet. It won't tell you, on its own, whether that seat costs more or less than the alternative shape — you have to check the two actual listings, the way we just did with TOTO's. Our guide to reading stated bowl dimensions walks through how to confirm your own bowl shape before you buy either S2 model, and if you're also wondering whether swapping the seat touches anything else on the toilet itself, our look at bidet seats and toilet warranties covers that separately.