There are several different types of stair lifts. The most common type we find in private homes is the straight rail stair lift. As the name indicates this is a stair lifts used for straight stairs. These are cheapest types of stair lifts and usually costs from $2000 to $4000 to install in your home. You can get several types of configurations for these, and the costs depends a lot on that. You can get them both with a seat and a platform for a wheelchair, the platform type is usually more expensive though.
The curved rail stair lifts are used in curved stairs and are a bit more costly. They usually have to be specially manufactured to suit the individual situation. Curved stairs comes in many different types and shapes so it often invovels careful measurement and design to install such a curved stair lift.
Wheelchair platform stair lifts are usually a much heavier construction than a regular stair lift. Wheelchairs can be quite heavy, so a wheelchair platform stair lift have to be able to handle this load. There are advantages to these though, because the user don’t have to have one wheel chair for each floor of his home.