Best Cheap Electric Guitars on a Tight Budget

Is it OK to buy a cheap electric guitar?

It’s perfectly fine to buy cheap electric guitars. Most guitars these days are built using CNC machines for consistency. However, it’s usually at the assembly and setup that a lot of these cheaper guitars become substandard. Many also don’t do too well during shipping, so having a professional set up your electric guitar to maximize its playability is best.

When buying, you must keep your expectations in check; don’t expect premium quality build and design like that of an expensive guitar. It’ll be hard to find premium mahogany body designs and finishes, and you’ll be lucky to see ones with good hardware, like a tune-o-matic bridge. Also, note that you won’t find good quality semi-hollow guitars with laminated maple bodies in this price range.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, so you need to save up for high quality instruments with quality pickups.

It’s worth noting that a student guitar from the 60s, the Fender Mustang, still found professional use over the decades. If you’re wondering how long cheap guitars last, it depends on how well they’re set up and maintained.

While not included in this guide, I recently reviewed a modern student guitar, the Ibanez AZES31, and likened it to the Fender Mustang.

The best cheap electric guitars inspire you to learn and be creative. It’s worth taking time to consider the best electric guitars in this price range.

Should I buy an electric guitar first?

For first-time buyers of a new guitar, I usually recommend a good acoustic guitar because of its simplicity. Having an electric guitar as your first guitar is also good. However, you must consider at least an amplifier or effects with headphone outputs to hear it.

Cables are also a must-buy. Acoustic guitars are simpler and do not require extra gear, but they are bulkier and more challenging to play than electric guitars.

Cheap Electric Guitar Brands

The best cheap guitar brands like Squier (From Fender), Jackson, and Ibanez retain their spots in this edition.

While Epiphone (from Gibson) was bested by lesser-known brands this time, don’t count them out yet. They continue to be among the most popular brands in the entry-level category. The Epiphone Les Paul, an affordable version of the Gibson Les Paul, is one of their most popular guitars; they also have semi-hollow body guitars for those who can extend their budgets.

These guitar brands have experience and manufacturing capabilities. This allows them to continue to produce quality entry-level electric guitars of different styles. If you didn’t find your preferred guitar style in this guide, you can find one from these brands. Other well-known brands with guitars in this price range include Kramer, LTD (From ESP), Dean, Washburn, Donner, and more.

Playability

Many affordable guitars are designed for students. So manufacturers know that playability is of utmost priority. This is the reason why many of the best beginner electric guitars stay within familiar neck and body measurements. This ensures that they feel as close to premium guitars as possible. They lower the price by utilizing more cost-effective materials and production methods.

While many of them will satisfy players out of the box, it is unfair to expect even a good beginner electric guitar to play like a dream. This is especially true when considering their price. While not always required, having every guitar checked and set up by an experienced guitarist or technician is recommended. By doing so, you can make full use of its potential. Given the price range, expect something other than premium builds and materials like having a mahogany neck with rosewood fretboard, or stainless steel guitar frets.

Another important playability consideration is your dominant hand orientation. Choose between Left Handed vs Right Handed Guitar models.

Pickups

The two main basic types of pickups for electric guitars are Single Coil and Humbucking (double coil). The most practical difference is that single coils tend to sound crisp and bright. Humbuckers tend to sound warmer (for more information, see Seymour Duncan’s detailed explanation).

An electric guitar can have any combination of the two types. The combination on a guitar is described using the first letter of the pickup type in order from the one closest to the bridge. For example, a classic Stratocaster will be described as SSS, meaning all three pickups are single coil.

A more recent development is the HSS strat, which has a Humbucker at the bridge with two single coils. I’ve put the pickup configuration of each guitar above in brackets after the model name. You can easily see which pickups each guitar has and in what positing they are.

Expect to get decent quality pickups from affordable guitars. These are the first things to swap out if you want to upgrade or modify the tone of your instrument.

There are other pickup types out there. Examples include the P90, Filtertron, and rails. They are usually found on guitars that are well above this guide’s price range. But, you can find some of them in our guitar to Electric Guitars between $200 and $500.

Scale Length

This is the distance measured between the saddle and the nut. Or it’s double the distance from the nut to the 12th fret plus some “compensation” added by the saddle’s position. A longer Guitar Scale Length requires higher tension in the strings and results in a brighter tone. A more detailed explanation with examples is presented quite well by Stewart MacDonald.

A good description of the implications of different scale lengths can be found on Guitar Player. Guitars based on Stratocaster and Telecaster designs usually have a longer 25.5″ scale, while Gibson Les Paul and SG-style guitars are characterized by a shorter 24.75″ scale.

Cheap Electric Guitar Selection Methodology

The first edition was published in August 2016. The current edition was published on October 25, 2024.

To make this guide focused and valuable, we’ve selected a strict set of criteria that ensures it covers the most widely available guitars that you can easily find at online retailers, and which have a good chance of being available from local stores.

To be considered for inclusion in this guide, a guitar had to meet the following criteria:

• We only included solidbody guitars;
• They had to have a street price under $200;
• They had to have 6 strings and be a full size guitar, meaning a scale length of at least 24″;
• Must have been widely available from major American music gear stores.

Note that many guitars increased their prices above the $200 range, meaning they are no longer considered for this guide.

We looked at all the guitars that met the criteria above and ended up with an initial list of 24 guitars. You can find those guitars listed here.

We then collated ratings, reviews, and forum comments about each guitar and fed that data to the Gearank Algorithm, which produced rating scores out of 100 for each guitar – we processed over 24,800 rating sources. Finally, we chose our top picks from the highest-rated guitars for each category above. For more information about our methods, please read How Gearank Works.