Verbier Lift Passes: Is It or Isn’t It Snovalue?

Every autumn, normally around the same time we start getting excited about the first snow forecast, another number appears that isn’t quite as exciting: the price of the Verbier lift pass. For winter 2026/27, the official ticket-office price of a six-day 4 Vallées pass is CHF 409, although with Verbier’s dynamic pricing and advance booking you can pay less.

It got me thinking about whether skiing in Verbier is actually getting more expensive and, more importantly, what we’re getting for our money. Forget kilometres of pistes, number of lifts and vertical metres; I’ve decided to measure something much more important. Snow. Or, more precisely, how many Swiss francs are we paying for every centimetre that actually falls in Verbier?

Welcome to my completely unofficial new measurement of ski resort value.

Snovalue.

So What Is Snovalue?

The calculation is highly scientific. Take the price of a six-day 4 Vallées lift pass, divide it by the amount of snow that fell that winter and you have your cost per centimetre of Verbier snow. I’m fairly sure economists aren’t doing this yet, but perhaps they should be.

Go back to winter 2012/13 and Verbier recorded around 631 cm of snow, while a six-day 4 Vallées pass was approximately CHF 314. That works out at roughly 50 centimes per centimetre, which I would say represents pretty good Snovalue.

Then look at winter 2016/17. Verbier managed just 252 cm and the six-day pass was somewhere around CHF 340, giving us approximately CHF 1.35 per centimetre. Definitely not such good Snovalue.

Fortunately Mother Nature clearly realised she’d overcharged us because the following winter she delivered 823 cm. With the six-day pass around CHF 347, winter 2017/18 comes in at approximately 42 centimes per centimetre, making it probably the best Snovalue winter of recent years.

I’m slightly surprised Téléverbier didn’t notice and introduce dynamic snowfall pricing.

Are We Actually Getting Less Snow?

This is where my original theory started to fall apart slightly. I thought I’d discover lift-pass prices steadily going up while snowfall steadily went down, which would have made for a beautifully simple blog. Unfortunately, snow doesn’t seem particularly interested in my argument.

We’ve had 244 cm winters, 823 cm winters and pretty much everything in between. As recently as 2023/24 Verbier recorded around 618 cm, so I can’t really claim that it simply snows less every year because the figures don’t support it.

What the numbers do show rather nicely is that lift-pass prices are very good at consistently going up while Verbier snowfall is all over the place. Your Snovalue therefore depends enormously on the winter you happen to choose.

Of course, even that doesn’t tell the whole story. Anyone who spends enough time here knows that 30 cm falling gently overnight with a freezing level at 800 metres has considerably more value than 30 cm arriving horizontally at 120 km/h with rain in Verbier village.

Perhaps I need a Snovalue quality adjustment. This could get complicated.

What Are We Actually Paying For?

To be fair to Téléverbier, we’re obviously not buying centimetres of snow with our lift pass. We’re paying for lifts, piste preparation, avalanche control, staff, maintenance and increasingly important snowmaking. In fact, the less reliable natural snowfall becomes, the more expensive some of those things probably become.

A ski resort can’t simply put a sign outside Médran at Christmas saying “Sorry, it didn’t snow. Try February.” People have already booked flights, chalets, restaurants, ski hire and hopefully ski lessons months earlier, so the mountain has to work whether Mother Nature decides to cooperate or not.

And on the right day Verbier can still offer spectacular Snovalue. Thirty centimetres overnight, blue skies, Mont Fort open and fresh tracks can make whatever you paid for your lift pass feel like the best money you’ve spent all winter. A warm, windy day with half the mountain shut might produce a slightly different calculation.

So, Snovalue or No Snovalue?

Which brings us to winter 2026/27. The official ticket-office price for a six-day 4 Vallées pass is CHF 409, although book online early enough and you should be able to do better than that. We know what the skiing costs, but we don’t yet know how much snow Mother Nature is going to give us for our money.

So I think Snovalue needs a target. If we want our snow to cost less than 40 centimes per centimetre, Verbier needs more than 1,023 cm of snow this winter — just over 10.2 metres. That’s a proper winter, but not completely beyond the realms of a big old-school Verbier season. If we somehow manage 11 metres, the price drops to around 37 centimes per centimetre. Now we’re talking serious Snovalue.

At the other end of the scale, if we get another winter like 2014/15, when Verbier recorded only 244 cm, our CHF 409 pass works out at around CHF 1.68 per centimetre. Same mountain, same lift pass, slightly different Snovalue.

Of course, this is all complete nonsense. You aren’t actually buying snow with your lift pass and, as far as I’m aware, Téléverbier has yet to offer a refund when it doesn’t snow. But I’ve already stuck my neck out with my Verbier Snow Prediction 2026/27 and said I think this could be a big winter, so let’s set the target now.

10.25 metres of snow. Less than 40 centimes per centimetre.

That’s what I want from winter 2026/27.

I’ll do the calculation again at the end of the season and we’ll finally have our answer.

Snovalue or no Snovalue?

Planning a Verbier Ski Trip This Winter?

Whatever the final Snovalue turns out to be, the best value normally comes from making the most of the snow when you’re actually here. If you’re planning a trip to Verbier this winter and want to improve your skiing, find the best snow and discover a little more of the mountain than you might on your own, have a look at my private ski lessons in Verbier or get in touch to discuss your trip.

And if we do get that 11-metre winter, book quickly. I might be busy.