Joey Stroller Wagon Review: The Good, the Overpriced, and the Asterisk on “From Birth”

A $700 wagon sold out within hours of restocking three separate times last year. Not a discount drop, not a Black Friday deal — full price, sold out, waitlist activated. That’s the thing about the Joey Wagon that’s easy to miss if you’re just scanning spec sheets: the demand isn’t being manufactured by marketing. It’s coming from parents who already own one telling other parents to buy one.

I spent about six weeks with ours — beach trips, a county fair, two farmers markets, and approximately four hundred trips to the end of our driveway and back because my younger one likes “driving” the wagon empty. So: is it worth $700? Mostly yes, with a few real annoyances I’ll get into, and one limitation that might actually be a dealbreaker depending on your kid’s age.

What it actually is, in plain terms

The Joey is a two-seat, pull-or-push stroller wagon — aluminum frame, fabric seats with 5-point harnesses, all-terrain wheels, foldable in one motion. It weighs 30.7 lbs without the fabric attached, 37 lbs with it on — Joey’s own spec sheet lists both numbers, which is a little unusual but appreciated, because most brands only give you the flattering one. Folded, it’s 38.2″ x 25″ x 18.1″. Unfolded, 59.3″ x 34.9″ x 25″. Front wheels are 7.5 inches, rear wheels are 10 inches, and yes, that size difference matters more than you’d think — more on that below.

Each seat holds a child up to 55 lbs, and Joey’s official age window is birth through 5 years old, though that “birth” part comes with an asterisk I’ll explain in a second.

If you want the full landscape of what counts as a stroller wagon versus a regular wagon versus an actual stroller, our wagon guide breaks down the category. Short version: Joey sits in the premium tier, alongside brands like Veer and Wonderfold, not down with the $150 Radio Flyer pull-wagons from Target.

The newborn thing nobody fully explains

Here’s where I have to push back on how Joey markets this. The product page says it’s “ready for use from the moment your child is born.” Technically true. Practically misleading.

A newborn cannot sit in the wagon seat itself — it’s not safe and Joey doesn’t claim otherwise once you read past the headline. What they mean is you can either use their car seat adapter ($50, sold separately) with a compatible infant car seat, or buy the Nap Accessory ($80, also sold separately) which turns one side into a bassinet-style napping space, rated for birth up to 20 lbs or until baby can push up on hands and knees.

So if you have a newborn and a toddler and you want this wagon to function as your two-kid solution from day one, you’re not spending $700. You’re spending closer to $830, possibly more if you also want the second canopy. I don’t think that’s a scandal — accessory-based pricing is how this entire category works, Veer does the same thing — but the “from the moment your child is born” line on the website undersells how much extra that actually costs. If you’ve got an infant, budget for it upfront rather than discovering it at checkout.

Where it genuinely separates itself: the ride

This is the part that matters most, so it gets the most space, because honestly the rest of the wagon — fabric quality, snack tray, storage pockets — is fine but unremarkable in this price bracket. The wheels are not.

Front wheels are smaller and swivel; rear wheels are larger and fixed, which is the same basic geometry Veer uses on the Cruiser. The result is a wagon that tracks straight when you’re pulling it in a line but turns without that annoying drag-and-correct motion you get on cheaper wagons where you basically have to muscle the whole thing sideways. On gravel, packed dirt trails, and uneven sidewalk seams, it stayed smooth. I would not take it onto loose beach sand expecting a stroller-like glide — it’ll move, but you’ll feel the resistance, and if soft sand is your primary use case, you’re better served checking our best beach wagons roundup where wagons are tested specifically for that terrain.

The handlebar adjusts for height and locks into push mode or unlocks for pull mode — small detail, but it means tall and short parents in the same household don’t have to fight the same wagon. My husband is 6’2″, I’m 5’4″, and neither of us felt like we were hunching or reaching.

One thing that surprised me, and that I haven’t seen many other reviews mention: my kids wanted to help carry the lighter pieces — the snack tray, the cup holders — from the car to the wagon themselves. It’s a small thing, but after years of hauling a heavy double stroller, having a kid actually want to participate in the setup is a genuine quality-of-life change. Maybe that’s just my kids being weird about it. But I doubt it.

The annoyances that don’t show up in five-star reviews

Joey’s official review section is suspiciously close to a perfect score — 26 reviews, every single one 5 stars. That’s not impossible, but it’s also not the full picture, and a site claiming “independent, honest” reviews should tell you what the glowing five-star pages leave out.

A few real, recurring gripes from owners and secondhand reviewers:

• No zipper on the footwell. If your kid takes shoes off mid-ride (mine always does), there’s nowhere to securely stash them — they just sit loose in the footwell or get tossed in the storage basket.
• No metal cage or guard around the footwell area, which some competing wagons include for extra protection against pinched fingers near the wheel wells.
• The canopy’s UV coverage is decent but not great in direct, high-sun conditions — it covers, but on a cloudless August afternoon at the beach you’ll still want sunscreen and a hat as backup, not just the canopy shade.

None of these are deal-breaking. But if you’ve read five reviews in a row that all sound like ad copy, something’s being smoothed over, and I’d rather tell you the rough edges than pretend they don’t exist.

What it costs once you actually want to use it

The base wagon runs $700 for the two-canopy bundle configuration (single canopy versions price slightly lower depending on what’s bundled at checkout). Past that, here’s where the real cost lives: The $700 sticker price gets most people 80% of what they actually need. The other 20% — car seat compatibility, rain protection, a second canopy — is all sold separately, and it adds up fast if you don’t plan for it.

Accessory	Price	Do you actually need it?
Car Seat Adapter	$50	Only if using with an infant car seat
Nap Accessory	$80	Only for newborns/young infants
Rain Cover	$40	Yes, if you live anywhere it actually rains
Extra Cup Holder	$8	Nice to have, not essential
Travel Bag	Varies	Useful for air travel or storage

Compare that to the Veer Cruiser, which sits in a similar price tier once accessories are factored in — Veer’s base unit is comparable, but once you add the canopy, storage basket, and Comfort Seat, total cost lands around $900 to $1,100. If you’re trying to decide between the two, our Wonderfold vs. Veer and dedicated Veer Cruiser review go deeper into that comparison than I have room for here.

How it folds (and why the wheels matter)

One-handed fold, as advertised — that part holds up. You release a mechanism near the handlebar, the frame collapses down, and it stands on its own once folded, which means you’re not trying to lean a 30-lb wagon against your car bumper while wrangling two kids. It fits in most mid-size SUV trunks without needing to fold the back seats down, and it’s been used as a gate-checked item on flights without major issues, based on owner reports in stroller-wagon Facebook groups and forums.

If you remove the wheels entirely, the folded footprint shrinks further — useful for trunk space, less useful if you’re folding and unfolding multiple times a day, because re-attaching wheels every time gets old fast. Most people leave the wheels on and just deal with the slightly larger folded size.

Who this isn’t really for

I’ll say the unpopular part plainly: if your kid is mostly riding solo and rarely sees anything rougher than a sidewalk, a $700 wagon is overkill. You’d be paying for terrain capability and dual-seat capacity you’re not using. A simpler single-seat stroller, or even a basic pull wagon, does that job for a third of the price. The Joey earns its price tag specifically in multi-kid households who are actually leaving paved paths — parks with dirt trails, festivals, farmers markets, that kind of regular outdoor use. If your day-to-day is mostly stroller-on-sidewalk, you’re not the target buyer, and that’s fine.

If you’re trying to figure out whether a wagon makes more sense than a double stroller for your situation at all, this breakdown is worth reading before you spend money on either.

Where I landed

We’ve used ours more than either of our actual strollers since buying it, which says more than any spec sheet I could quote at you. It’s not perfect — the missing footwell zipper bugs me every single outing, and I wish the newborn-ready accessories were at least bundled at a discount instead of full separate add-ons. But the ride quality, the fold, the fact that my kids genuinely ask to go for “wagon walks” now — that’s hard to argue with.

If you’ve got two kids close in age and you spend real time outdoors, it earns the price. If you’re buying it mostly to look good in photos at the farmers market, you’ll still like it, but you’re paying premium money for capability you might not use.