12 Best Acoustic Guitars Under £500 - 2022 Update

Getting hold of a high-quality guitar doesn’t have to cost you the earth these days.

There’s a huge range of acoustic guitars under £500 that will give you a professional level playing experience and superb sound straight out of the box, proving that you don’t have to remortgage your home to enjoy a guitar that will last you a lifetime and sound better with each passing day.

When you’re looking for an acoustic guitar, £500 is a fantastic budget to have as it opens up a world of options to you from some of the biggest names in acoustic guitars. So today we’re going to look at the best acoustic guitars under £500 ranging from just over £100 all the way to a maximum of £500.

Here’s our favourites starting from most expensive, to cheapest.

Aspiring professionals will find everything they need and more across the Ferndale 3 Series of acoustic guitars.

These elegant guitars are crafted with the highest quality tonewoods in combination with best-in-class electronics, with an obsessive focus on quality over gimmicks.

Each axe in the range boasts a powerful voice, with enough versatility for fingerpickers and strummers alike.

Whether you're a fan of Grand Auditorium, Parlor, or Dreadnought (pictured) shapes, you can rely on Ferndale to provide the perfect sound for your performance.

The Taylor Academy 10 Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar, Natural was essentially crafted to provide guitarists at the start of their musical journey with a hardworking, great sounding guitar that they wouldn’t really need to upgrade even after many years of playing.

This one comes in slightly above budget, but it's a professional-level guitar that distills all the beautiful things about a Taylor acoustic and wraps it up in a budget-friendly option.

Designed for comfort, the Taylor Academy 10 features a patented Taylor neck with a slightly shorter 24-7/8-inch scale length and comes supplied with light gauge strings, making it easier to play.

The dreadnought shape with the Academy Series bracing offers a full, rich, and tonally dynamic sound that resonates beautifully.

A high-end acoustic at a budget-friendly price.

Combining modern playability with a vintage-styled acoustic voice, this PRS SE Parlor Electro Acoustic is one of our favourite acoustic options.

Boasting an all-mahogany construction with the awesome PRS hybrid "X"/Classical bracing system, this guitar utilises a Fishman GT1 pickup and preamp system for the best sound both live and when recording.

It’s also crafted with an ebony fingerboard, and the natural-look satin finish is truly stunning - add the classic PRS headstock to the mix and you’ve got a guitar that looks and sounds far superior to other guitars in this price range.

Paying homage to the sound and style of 1930s USA, this unique guitar is crafted entirely from mahogany with a vintage satin finish.

Ideal for folk or traditional blues styles, the Tanglewood TWCRDE is built in a dreadnought shape that has an awesome dry sound that reacts well to fingerpicking as well as strumming.

Fitted with Tanglewood's very own TW-EX4 electronics system, the TWCRDE is ready to play live from the moment you open the box. The 4-band EQ includes Bass, Mid, Treble, and Presence controls, giving you total control over your sound. With high-quality tuners and nut construction, you need never worry about your tuning or intonation falling out whilst playing either.

If you’re still not convinced then just take a closer look at the Whiskey Barrel Burst finish - it harkens back to simpler times and simpler music, and this no-nonsense instrument embodies everything great about that!

Next up we have the Faith Nexus Neptune Electro-Acoustic Guitar Cognac Stain – a stripped-back uncomplicated guitar that focuses heavily on playability and sound.

The Solid Mahogany top, body and neck, back, and sides have been crafted using this superior tonewood to ensure superb resonance across the entire guitar.

Quarter Sawn Spruce bracing has been included, allowing the guitar to resonate beautifully and really help with projection - this thing is loud!

Those in need of a real performers guitar will enjoy the fact you have a Fishman 'IsysT' Preamp and Pickup System built-in which accurately represents the sound and dynamic of the guitar when plugged into an amplifier, PA system or audio interface.

If you like simple, easy to play guitars with a no-frills attitude, then this is one of the best acoustics under £500 for you.

The Taylor BBT Big Baby Taylor Acoustic Guitar is ideal for those out there in need of a travel-size acoustic guitar under £500.

However, the key difference between this guitar and many other smaller-scale guitars is its slightly bigger body which adds an extra boost of volume to your sound and more low-end resonance for a fuller dynamic - you have the portability of the classic Taylor BT1 and BT2 guitars but a bigger size overall.

A Sitka spruce top helps to project a bright sound with Sapele laminate sides ensuring the articulation and resonance of the guitar is perfectly captured. A gig bag is included as standard, as are the reliable die-cast chrome tuners and ebony fretboard.

A perfect guitar for travelling musicians in need of something with superior projection and articulation.

While we’re on the subject of smaller-scale guitars we simply have to include the Faith FKM Naked Mercury Short Scale Acoustic Guitar in our best acoustic guitars under £500.

This nifty workhorse of a guitar actually clocks in at under £400 making it an extremely affordable option for players of all levels.

The Parlor size makes it an ideal travel guitar but also provides players with that snappy, bright blues tone thanks to a solid Engelmann Spruce top and solid Indonesian Mahogany back and sides.

A Patrick James Eggle X-Brace design ensures your guitar projects a huge sound and resonates beautifully – ideal for soloing, chords, and open tunings.

A simple yet elegant beast of a guitar that will provide a huge sound and gorgeous playability, all for way under £500.

This one is for the Southern Rock fans out there - a faithful ‘Rex’-style parlor guitar from Gretsch that embodies everything great about the era that these instruments ruled.

The Jim Dandy features a non-cutaway basswood body with X-bracing - this gives a powerful and resonant voice which is combined with a top-load walnut bridge with compensated synthetic bone saddle for perfect intonation.

Boasting a walnut fingerboard and vintage-style frets, the C-shaped neck is super comfortable no matter what sort of styles you wish to play. It sounds great for fingerpicking, but it’s equally-suited to strumming, with a full-voiced bass response and handfuls of vintage tone.

First up in or guitars under £200 section we have a really cool guitar from the new range of Brunswick guitars. This new range has blown us away here at PMT as the brand has taken great care to produce hard-working guitars that sound amazing, whilst still remaining budget-friendly.

The Brunswick Grand Auditorium Guitar, Tobacco Burst Satin is just under £100 and features a Spruce top with Sapele back and sides – both are tonewoods you’d usually find on high budget guitars.

The Grand Auditorium shape gives you that louder, fuller projection which is ideal for players of all styles and musical backgrounds, whilst remaining easy to carry around

This is easily one of the best acoustic guitars under £200 that will sound good, offer a comfortable playing experience, and provide a great foundation to learn guitar. It’s also a great option for those who just want something to play around the house or as a 2nd guitar for recording/touring with!

If you’re a fan of Bob Marley then this is the one for you.

The Reggae icon has a signature guitar made by the awesome Guild brand who are most noted for crafting Marley's favourite at-home guitar, the Guild Madeira A-20.

Marley used this guitar to write a large number of his hit songs, and this faithful recreation comes complete with some extras inspired by the legend himself.

Continuing with Marley’s love for both music and our planet, the included gig bag is crafted from 100% recycled nylon that features a unique logo, Marley signature, and lion print

Alongside the awesome gig bag you also get a booklet which contains song sheets, custom artwork, and stories that give a closer look at the bond between Marley and his original Guild acoustic.

You'll also get a set of customised guitar picks that feature both Guild and Marley emblems, and even a super cool poster, too.

If all of this wasn’t enough, Guild have also partnered with One Tree Planted to plant a tree for each and every Marley guitar made - so you can play safe in the knowledge that your choice of guitar is sustainable.

The Washburn Apprentice D5 Acoustic Guitar is part of an extremely reliable range of acoustic guitars and makes our best acoustic guitars under £200 list with flying colours.

The highly regarded Washburn Apprentice series includes professional level tonewoods found on guitars many times the price. The Washburn Apprentice D5 Acoustic guitar features tonewoods such as a Mahogany body and Spruce top, which when coupled with the unique bell-like shape, produces a massive sound that will certainly surprise the most affluent of players.

At well under £200, you’re investing in a high-quality guitar that would not look out of place on the stage of the world, for a wallet-friendly price tag.

We simply had to include the Fender CC-60S Concert Acoustic Guitar WN Natural as it’s one of the most popular guitars for beginners and intermediates.

It’s one of the best acoustic guitars under £200 thanks to its ‘Easy-to-Play’ neck shape and rolled fretboard edges which significantly reduces player fatigue – especially handy when you’re learning how to play guitar, but also down the fact you have a solid spruce top with mahogany back and sides, as well as the all-important Quartersawn Scalloped “X”-bracing, which seriously projects the sound.

Professional level appointments such as a Walnut fingerboard, Pearloid dot inlays, and chrome die-cast tuning machines also make it an extremely enticing guitar for the professional players out there in need of a new guitar (can you have too many?) or something to practice and record with.

Check out a full range of budget-friendly acoustic guitars over at PMT Online today or call in to your local store to try out a range

Check out our video below where Dagan runs through some of his favourite cheap acoustic guitars that don't suck.