The 9 Best Routers Under $50 of 2023

What to Look For in a Budget Router

Although it can be tempting to go out and buy the fastest and most modern Wi-Fi router you can find, it's always a good idea to sit back and consider your needs, regardless of what you're willing to spend.

For example, serious gamers may prefer to look to a dedicated gaming router, but just because you play games that doesn't mean you need to go for the highest-end models, especially if you plan to hardwire in your PC or game console anyway, in which case Wi-Fi performance won't be all that critical.

As a rule, it's also essential to remember that the fastest and most expensive routers are generally designed to handle the busiest homes. If you're a single person living in a condo or small bungalow, you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a Wi-Fi router that will get the job done. Many great inexpensive options are available, so don't let flashy marketing or sophisticated spec sheets convince you that you need to buy a Cadillac when you can do everything you need with a Chevrolet.

Single, Dual, or Tri-Band? 

When buying a router on a budget, it's even more important to understand the difference between Wi-Fi standards and wireless frequencies since you can save a lot by not spending money on bands or frequencies you won't use.

Single, dual, and tri-band refer to the number of distinct frequencies a router can operate at and, by extension, the Wi-Fi standards they support.

Almost all single-band routers operate at 2.4GHz, the frequency that has been the base standard for Wi-Fi for over two decades. Modern single-band routers support the 802.11n standard, now known as "Wi-Fi 4," and usually offer maximum speeds of up to 600Mbps. They're also backward-compatible with the older 802.11b and 802.11g standards, which are much slower, peaking at 54Mbps. Chances are none of your user-facing devices, like computers, use these older standards anymore, but many smart home and internet-of-things devices still do, as they don't need anything faster.

The problem with the 2.4GHz frequency range is that it tends to be slower and more congested than higher frequencies. Many other things that operate at 2.4GHz, including cordless phones, home security systems, garage door openers, and even microwave ovens, emit interference in this frequency range. 

So to deal with these interference problems and provide better Wi-Fi performance, the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard was developed (now known as "Wi-Fi 5"), which uses the 5GHz frequency, opening up the potential for much faster speeds—a high-end 802.11ac router can offer multi-gigabit performance—as well as being free of most of the usual interference. There's a downside to 5GHz, however: it doesn't travel as far, primarily through walls and other solid objects.

As a result of the shorter range and the need to maintain backward compatibility with older Wi-Fi devices, all 802.11ac routers also support the 2.4GHz band and are therefore referred to as dual-band routers.

So what about tri-band? These routers offer a second 5GHz frequency band to reduce congestion when you have a lot of 802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 devices in your home. However, since each of your devices can only connect to a single band at a time, there's no point in buying a tri-band router unless you have more than two or three 802.11ac 5GHz devices in your home that need peak performance. Also, remember that a tri-band router still only has a single 2.4GHz band, so it will do nothing to improve performance for your older Wi-Fi devices. 

Range and Coverage

We're not going to mince words here; budget routers don't typically offer a lot of range, so while most will be more than acceptable for an apartment, condo, or even a tiny bungalow, if you're looking to cover every corner of a medium to large home, you're going to need more than most of these routers can give you, at least by themselves.

If you have a huge home, the best way to go is with a mesh Wi-Fi system. While these can be extremely pricey, some offer the ability to start with a single base router and expand later as your needs dictate, but you'll still ultimately end up spending a few hundred dollars or more if you need to cover a large home.

If you're looking to do this on a budget, however, many inexpensive routers can also be used as simple wireless access points; this means that if you're willing to run Ethernet cables around your home or invest in a Powerline network adapter, you have a pretty inexpensive do-it-yourself means of covering your whole house. Many budget routers are so affordable that you could buy three or four for less than a single mesh Wi-Fi node.

Just remember that simply because you have a larger living space doesn't mean you need to get strong Wi-Fi into every corner, so be sure to budget for the coverage you need.

Security & Encryption

While most budget routers won't include advanced parental controls or malware protection, that doesn't mean you have to do without security entirely. Ensure the router supports at least Wireless Protected Access 2 (WPA2) encryption, especially if you're purchasing an older model, and the ability to pass VPN connections through from your computers for additional security.

The nature of home internet routers means you'll get some natural defense against intruders thanks to Network Address Translation and private IP addresses, which are fundamental features, so you don't necessarily need a complicated firewall to keep intruders from breaking in, but you'll still want to make sure that you install anti-malware software on your computers, and enable the other appropriate security features on tablets and smartphones to prevent them from running apps that might be punching holes through your firewall. 

Speed & Performance

When looking at routers, you'll often see a performance rating that includes a letter and a number, such as AC1900 or N600. These refer to the highest Wi-Fi standard the router supports and the maximum total speed it can handle. For example, an N600 router supports 802.11n speeds of up to 600Mbps, while an AC1900 router offers 802.11ac and can reach speeds of 1,900Mbps (or 1.9Gbps). In the case of multi-band routers, however, it's important to remember that these are combined speeds across all bands. For example, an AC1900 router may only offer 1.3Gbps performance on the 5GHz band, with the other 600Mbps on the 2.4GHz side. This is also why tri-band routers typically have much higher ratings like AC5300—that 5,300Mbps bandwidth is shared across three bands. 

In practical terms, however, even if you have a dual-band router offering AC1900 speeds and beyond, don't expect these speeds from a single device. Routers are designed to handle multiple Wi-Fi devices, all of which will share the router's total bandwidth. 

However, to put this in perspective, streaming the highest-quality 4K UHD movies on Netflix only requires speeds of around 25Mbps. You generally don't need more than that for online gaming either—low latency is far more important than raw speed. Ultra-fast routers are generally only necessary when you have a lot of devices competing for that bandwidth or if you're regularly downloading huge files.

Also, remember that there's usually no need to buy a Wi-Fi router that's significantly faster than your home internet connection since that's where your performance bottleneck is going to be anyway; if you've only got 25Mbps download speeds coming into your home, a higher-speed Wi-Fi router isn't going to do anything to improve that. 

Wired Connectivity

There are times when Wi-Fi connectivity may not be enough, and even the most inexpensive routers provide at least a few Ethernet ports to let you hardwire in devices.

This is especially important for gamers since, as we mentioned before, there's more to gaming than just raw speed—your router also needs to provide low latency so you get lag-free gaming performance. After all, there's nothing worse than having your favorite first-person shooter freeze due to network lag just as you're about to make that critical kill shot. 

Most affordable routers won't offer the kind of low-latency Wi-Fi performance that serious gamers need, so it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll need to jack in. Some budget routers offer Gigabit Ethernet ports, which are a nice bonus. However, unless your internet connection is more than 100Mbps, you'll do just fine with the lower-end Fast Ethernet ports found on many of the older and more inexpensive routers. 

What about Wi-Fi 6?

Wi-Fi 6 is the way forward in Wi-Fi technology. Still, you're not going to find an affordable router that includes it yet, nor is it something you even need to worry about unless you're willing to spend a lot of money to live on the leading edge of technology.

Wi-Fi 6 works across the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, offers significantly faster performance and works better on busy and congested networks. However, your computers, smartphones, and other devices must support Wi-Fi 6 to benefit from this. Right now, those are pretty rare, with the only mainstream devices being the latest smartphones, tablets, and laptops, and let's face it: how much faster do you need your iPhone's network connection to be? 

So if you're looking for an inexpensive router, you won't find one with Wi-Fi 6 support. Still, there's a chance you don't need to worry about it anyway, as you likely don't have any devices in your home that will benefit from it. Save your money for when the Wi-Fi 6 standard becomes more widespread, by which time Wi-Fi 6 routers will also be much more affordable.