Starlink for Yachts: Real Speeds, Real Costs, Real Install

Every yacht owner in Miami is asking about Starlink. Most are getting bad answers. The bad answers come from two places: (1) marine electronics shops that still sell KVH and want to dismiss Starlink, and (2) Starlink resellers who do not understand yacht networking, power, or integration with onboard AV.

This post is the South Florida AV integrator’s view. We have installed Starlink on motor yachts and sportfish boats from 50 to 120 feet, and we service them from Miami Beach Marina to Pier 66 to Bahia Mar. The numbers below are from real install sites and real speed tests, not from the Starlink marketing page.

Why Every Yacht Owner in Miami Is Asking About Starlink

Three reasons. First, the bandwidth is 10 to 50 times higher than KVH or Inmarsat at a fraction of the per-GB cost. Second, the latency is good enough for video calls – KVH was not. Third, the install is far simpler if the integrator knows what they are doing. A KVH VSAT install is a $30,000+ project with a 1-meter dome and stabilized antenna; a Starlink Maritime install is $5,000 to $12,000 total.

The catch is that “if the integrator knows what they are doing” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Starlink dish placement, power, network design, and AV integration are not trivial on a yacht.

The Four Starlink Plans for Boats – Explained

Starlink offers four product tiers for marine use as of 2026. The pricing and plans change occasionally; verify on the Starlink website before purchase. Current ranges:

Roam ($165 to $250/month, $599 hardware)

Standard residential-style dish on a portable mount. Works coastal but not designed for open water. Reduces priority when other Starlink users in the area need bandwidth. Good for tenders, small fishing boats, or boats that mostly stay in Biscayne Bay and the Intracoastal. Hardware is the standard Starlink kit.

Mini ($150 to $250/month, $599 hardware)

Small form factor (about 11×12 inches). Lower power draw, easier to mount on tender or RIB. Same coastal-priority service tier as Roam. Best for tenders, sport boats, and as a secondary dish on a larger yacht.

Maritime ($1,000/month, $2,500 hardware)

The yacht-class product. High-performance dish (the flat HP dish) designed for ocean use, including the Caribbean basin, Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas, and Gulf Stream. 50 GB priority data per month included; data after that drops to standard tier. This is the most common Starlink plan we install on motor yachts and sportfish boats 50 to 90 feet.

Priority Maritime ($5,000+/month, $5,000+ hardware)

For charter operations, superyachts, and commercial vessels that need guaranteed priority bandwidth and 1 to 5 TB of priority data per month. Multiple dish configurations available for redundancy. Best for vessels that run charter operations or that require enterprise-grade reliability.

Roam – Lowest Cost, for Occasional Cruising

Roam is the right call for a 30-foot center console that runs Biscayne Bay weekends, or for a tender on a larger yacht. The dish is the standard Starlink kit, mounted on a temporary or permanent base, and the service is billed monthly with the ability to pause. Pause months count against the contract, but for owners who use the boat 6 months a year, the math works out at roughly $1,000 to $1,500 in annual service vs $12,000 for Maritime.

Where Roam fails: open water more than 30 miles offshore, and any time the local Starlink cell is saturated by higher-tier subscribers. For Bahamas crossings or anything in the Gulf Stream, step up to Maritime.

Mini – For Tenders and Smaller Boats

Mini is newer (introduced late 2024) and aimed at small boats and remote campers. The dish is small enough to be tucked into a center-console T-top or a flybridge dash. Lower power consumption (around 25W vs 60W for the standard kit) means it runs comfortably off house batteries without needing inverter overhead.

We install Mini most often as a backup dish on a yacht that has Maritime as primary – if the primary dish gets damaged, the Mini covers basic email and weather data until repair.

Maritime – For Serious Cruising

This is the volume product for South Florida yachts. The HP (High Performance) dish is the flat panel designed for ocean use, with marine-grade weatherproofing and a wider field of view than the standard kit. Priority data is 50 GB/month, which covers normal yacht use (email, web, streaming for guests, weather routing, basic crew video calls) without throttling.

Real numbers from boats we service:

• Biscayne Bay, anchored: 180 to 250 Mbps down, 15 to 25 Mbps up, 30-45 ms latency
• Biscayne Bay, underway at 25 knots: 120 to 180 Mbps down, 12 to 20 Mbps up, 35-55 ms latency
• Bahamas (Bimini area), anchored: 100 to 200 Mbps down, 10 to 25 Mbps up, 40-60 ms latency
• Gulf Stream crossing: 60 to 150 Mbps down, 8 to 18 Mbps up, 50-80 ms latency (occasional brief drops as the dish reacquires)
• Exumas, anchored: 100 to 200 Mbps down, similar to Bimini

For comparison, KVH VSAT at the same locations delivered 4 to 12 Mbps – roughly 20 times slower at 5 to 10 times the per-GB cost.

Priority Maritime – For Charter Operations and Superyachts

If the yacht runs charter, requires enterprise-grade SLA, or hosts 8+ guests who all expect simultaneous streaming, Priority Maritime is the right call. Hardware can be a single HP dish or a dual-dish configuration for redundancy. Pricing starts around $5,000/month with significant volume discounts at the higher-data tiers.

We install Priority Maritime on superyachts 100+ feet, charter motor yachts, and any vessel where 50 GB of priority data per month is not enough to cover guest use.

The Install – What’s Actually Required

This is where most “Starlink dealers” miss the boat (no pun intended). A proper yacht Starlink install includes:

Dish placement

The dish needs unobstructed sky view in all directions. On a flybridge, that often means mounting forward of the radar arch. On a sportfish, it means the tower or hardtop. We model the sky view with the Starlink obstruction checker before drilling.

Mounting hardware

The standard Starlink mount is not marine-grade. We use Scanstrut, Seaview, or custom-fabricated stainless steel mounts rated for marine vibration and salt exposure. Mount cost: $300 to $1,200 depending on configuration.

Power conditioning

The Starlink power supply expects clean 120V or 240V AC. Yacht power is rarely clean – inverter switching, generator startup transients, and shore power surges all damage Starlink hardware over time. We install a UPS (or at minimum a power conditioner) in line with the Starlink router. UPS cost: $300 to $800.

Network integration

Starlink’s onboard router has limitations: it does not handle VLANs, it has limited Wi-Fi range, and it does not integrate cleanly with onboard AV networks. We bypass the Starlink router and run the Starlink dish as a WAN feed into a proper yacht network: a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro or pfSense router for routing and firewall, a managed switch for the cabin AV systems, and 2 to 4 Wi-Fi access points distributed through the salon, staterooms, and flybridge. See our network design approach for the pattern we use on both yachts and waterfront homes.

Failover

For yachts that need continuous connectivity, we configure cellular failover. A Peplink MAX HD2 or similar dual-cellular router holds Verizon and AT&T SIMs and switches automatically when Starlink drops or the yacht moves out of coverage. Failover hardware cost: $800 to $2,500.

Integrating Starlink with the Boat’s Existing AV and Crew Network

This is the most underappreciated part of a yacht Starlink install. Done right, the Starlink dish becomes one of multiple WAN feeds into a properly designed onboard network that handles:

• Guest Wi-Fi (separate SSID, isolated VLAN, bandwidth cap per device)
• Crew Wi-Fi (separate SSID, isolated VLAN, more bandwidth)
• AV streaming (Apple TV, Roku, Sonos – on the local network, can stream from Starlink WAN)
• Helm electronics (Garmin, Raymarine, ECDIS, weather routing – on isolated VLAN)
• Security cameras (isolated VLAN, off the public Wi-Fi)

A poorly configured yacht network has all of that on one flat Wi-Fi network. The result is that one guest streaming 4K to their iPad slows down the captain’s weather routing software. The right segmentation prevents that.

What Starlink Does NOT Replace (and Why You Might Still Want KVH)

Two scenarios still favor traditional VSAT:

1. Extreme polar latitudes. Starlink’s coverage is improving but still patchy above 65° latitude. For Alaskan or northern Norway cruising, VSAT or Iridium remains relevant.
2. Regulated maritime communications. Some commercial maritime regulations still require specific GMDSS-compliant systems. Starlink alone does not satisfy GMDSS.

For a recreational yacht based in South Florida cruising the Caribbean and East Coast, Starlink alone covers 100 percent of practical use cases. KVH is no longer required.

Last updated July 12, 2026. Geeks of Technology installs and services yacht AV and connectivity systems across Miami Beach Marina, Bahia Mar, Pier 66, and all major South Florida marinas. See our yacht AV systems service page for more.