Best Budget 3D Printer: 7 Great Printers at a Price You'll Love – CNET
Best Budget 3D Printer: 7 Great Printers at a Price You'll Love - CNET
3D printing has been around for a long time, but not a lot of people have tried it yet. If you are wondering what it’s used for, you can create items that can be practical or just fun. For instance, you can create giant pieces of cosplay armor or small statues to give as gifts: The possibilities are endless. You can even buy a few printers, open your own Etsy store and start a business.
With lower costs than ever, it’s easy to get into 3D printing, with printers available for under $200. The catch is, there’s always a catch, that these budget machines usually require some tweaking to get it right. You’ll save money, but it’s a rough-and-tumble way to get started. The best budget 3D printers have a healthy balance between cost and usability, so that’s what we’re looking at in this list.
What’s the best budget 3D printer?
Budget 3D printing is a category that is growing fast. For my money, the best you can buy right now is the Anycubic Kobra 2. It has enough upgraded features to make it an incredibly useful machine while sitting firmly around the $250-$280 mark. Having this much quality in a printer that costs so little makes it the perfect budget 3D printer.
These budget 3D printers all cost under $500 (though prices can drift a bit month to month), and some are better suited to beginners than others. Our list of picks for the best 3D printer overall covers a much wider range of choices, but these are excellent for getting started — or for buying several at once. If you are thinking of creating a print farm, then buying several Anycubic Kobra 2‘s is an excellent way to get started.
Best budget 3D printer
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While not as fast as the P1P or the X1C, the Kobra 2 is around the same speed as the AnkerMake M5. It will happily produce prints at 250 millimeters per second, though the best quality seems to be hovering around 150mm/s in my testing. It also comes with a filament runout sensor and bed leveling, which works extremely well.
The big selling point for the Kobra 2, though, is the price. It has all the advantages of a faster printer but with a sub-$300 price tag, which is astonishing. This is my recommendation for any first-time buyer or someone on a budget.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 250 x 220 x 220
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 300
- Dimensions (mm): 486 x 440 x 435
- Price: $
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While not as fast as the P1P or the X1C, the Kobra 2 is around the same speed as the AnkerMake M5. It will happily produce prints at 250 millimeters per second, though the best quality seems to be hovering around 150mm/s in my testing. It also comes with a filament runout sensor and bed leveling, which works extremely well.
The big selling point for the Kobra 2, though, is the price. It has all the advantages of a faster printer but with a sub-$300 price tag, which is astonishing. This is my recommendation for any first-time buyer or someone on a budget.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 250 x 220 x 220
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 300
- Dimensions (mm): 486 x 440 x 435
- Price: $
<div edition="us" description="
The Elegoo is one of my favorite ultracheap printers. When testing it, I kept expecting it to fail and it just didn’t. It produced amazing results for the price, and continues to do so every time I use it. This is the last 3D printer of the previous generation that I still recommend, but the Neptune 4 Pro is coming to replace it, and that’s a faster version of this.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 220 x 220 x 280
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 300
- Dimensions (mm): 442 x 452 x 530
- Price: $
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Even though it costs very little, this printer delivers excellent quality every time.
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Best budget 3D printer of the last generation
Elegoo Neptune 3
The Elegoo is one of my favorite ultracheap printers. When testing it, I kept expecting it to fail and it just didn’t. It produced amazing results for the price, and continues to do so every time I use it. This is the last 3D printer of the previous generation that I still recommend, but the Neptune 4 Pro is coming to replace it, and that’s a faster version of this.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 220 x 220 x 280
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 300
- Dimensions (mm): 442 x 452 x 530
- Price: $
<div edition="us" description="
Anker did way more than take its excellent M5 printer and remove a few things to create a budget-friendly model. In fact there are a couple of ways in which this budget bed-slinger actually improved over the original. The slightly smaller build platter offers guard rails so it’s much easier to get it on and off the heated base. The camera and display have been removed, but the AnkerMake app is one of the best pieces of software available for any 3D printer and has a much nicer interface. And perhaps best of all, the new all-metal hotend means it can handle a larger array of materials when printing. But at its core, it’s still a rock-solid printer with some of the most user-friendly apps you can get today.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 220 × 220 × 250
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 500 (fast mode), 250 (standard)
- Dimensions (mm): 466 × 374 × 480
- Price: $$
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Fast and stable budget 3D printer
AnkerMake M5C
Anker did way more than take its excellent M5 printer and remove a few things to create a budget-friendly model. In fact there are a couple of ways in which this budget bed-slinger actually improved over the original. The slightly smaller build platter offers guard rails so it’s much easier to get it on and off the heated base. The camera and display have been removed, but the AnkerMake app is one of the best pieces of software available for any 3D printer and has a much nicer interface. And perhaps best of all, the new all-metal hotend means it can handle a larger array of materials when printing. But at its core, it’s still a rock-solid printer with some of the most user-friendly apps you can get today.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 220 × 220 × 250
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 500 (fast mode), 250 (standard)
- Dimensions (mm): 466 × 374 × 480
- Price: $$
<div edition="us" description="
The Mini Plus is one of the best small-footprint printers you can buy. It has everything you would expect from a Prusa machine: Auto bed leveling, crash detection and great print quality, all for under $450. Building it with my son gave us a lot of good insights into how a 3D printer works, and potentially how to fix one.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 180 x 180 x 180
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 200 (travel speed only)
- Dimensions (mm): 380 x 330 x 380
- Price: $$
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Best small footprint
Prusa Mini Plus
The Mini Plus is one of the best small-footprint printers you can buy. It has everything you would expect from a Prusa machine: Auto bed leveling, crash detection and great print quality, all for under $450. Building it with my son gave us a lot of good insights into how a 3D printer works, and potentially how to fix one.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 180 x 180 x 180
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 200 (travel speed only)
- Dimensions (mm): 380 x 330 x 380
- Price: $$
<div edition="us" description="
I’ve recently been working with the Finder 3 and I’m impressed with the quality it was able to produce straight from the box. It is easy to set up and comes with a flexible build plate that you can replace the glass bed with. It makes it far easier to remove builds. Overall, the Finder 3 is a great printer for the price. It’s perfect for a teacher in the classroom as the enclosure makes it stable, and the slicer can control multiple printers at once via Wi-Fi.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 190 x 195 x 200
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 300
- Dimensions (mm): 406 x 416 x 469
- Price: $
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Excellent out of the box
Flashforge Finder 3
I’ve recently been working with the Finder 3 and I’m impressed with the quality it was able to produce straight from the box. It is easy to set up and comes with a flexible build plate that you can replace the glass bed with. It makes it far easier to remove builds. Overall, the Finder 3 is a great printer for the price. It’s perfect for a teacher in the classroom as the enclosure makes it stable, and the slicer can control multiple printers at once via Wi-Fi.
- Material type: Filament
- Build area (mm): 190 x 195 x 200
- Official max printing speed (mm/s): 300
- Dimensions (mm): 406 x 416 x 469
- Price: $
