Best 3D Printers Under £300 in the UK (2026): Tested Picks

The Sub-£300 Market Has Grown Up

Three years ago, asking for a reliable 3D printer under £300 meant accepting significant compromises: manual bed levelling, slower speeds, inconsistent first layers, and a slicer experience that required a weekend of reading forums to make sense of. That bargain has shifted considerably. In 2026, the sub-£300 bracket contains machines that would have been genuinely impressive at twice the price just a few years back.

That said, there are still real differences between what you get here versus the £500+ bracket. Let's be honest about those while being equally honest about where the budget options genuinely compete.

What £300 Gets You in 2026

At this price point you can expect: automatic or semi-automatic bed levelling, speeds of 200–300mm/s with acceptable quality, direct drive extruders on most current models, and reasonable community support. What you typically won't get: enclosed printing chambers (limits ABS/ASA use), seamless multi-material systems, or the level of out-of-box polish that Bambu's pricier machines deliver. Software experience also tends to be behind — most budget machines lean on Cura or community-built profiles rather than a dedicated polished slicer.

Best for Beginners: Bambu Lab A1 Mini

Price: ~£280 on sale / £350 standard (without AMS Lite)

The A1 Mini occasionally dips within the £300 ceiling during sales, and even at £350 it's worth stretching for if you're new to printing and want the most friction-free experience available. The auto-calibration is in a class of its own at this price, Bambu Studio makes slicing genuinely enjoyable, and the print quality is consistently excellent without any tweaking.

The caveats apply here as much as anywhere: Bambu's ecosystem lock-in is a real consideration, and the 2025 authentication controversy is worth understanding before you buy (see our dedicated article). The build volume at 180x180x180mm is also the smallest on this list. But for a first printer where reliability and ease matter above all else, nothing touches it.

UK buying tip: Watch Bambu's direct site for periodic sales. Amazon UK carries it too but prices vary. The AMS Lite bundle pushes the price to £350–400 but adds multicolour — if you're budget-conscious, start without it and add later.

Best Value: Elegoo Neptune 4

Price: ~£180-210

The standard Neptune 4 (not Pro) sits comfortably under the £200 mark and offers a legitimately impressive specification for the price. The 225x225x265mm build volume beats the A1 Mini considerably, and the Klipper firmware means full community support, macro scripting, and complete transparency into what your printer is doing.

Speed caps at around 250mm/s at quality settings, which is still meaningfully faster than older-generation machines. The slicer experience — you'll likely use Cura or OrcaSlicer — requires a bit more setup than Bambu Studio, but there are excellent community profiles available that get you printing well quickly.

Where the Neptune 4 occasionally trips: bed levelling is reliable but not quite as seamless as Bambu's implementation, and out-of-box first layer quality can need a session of fine-tuning. Once dialled in, though, it consistently produces solid results.

UK buying tip: Elegoo's own EU store often ships to UK addresses with competitive pricing. Amazon UK also stocks it with Prime delivery. Factor in that you might want a filament dry box separately.

Best for Tinkerers: Creality Ender 3 V3

Price: ~£190-220

The Ender 3 lineage is one of the most modified and community-supported in 3D printing history, and the V3 brings the platform meaningfully into the modern era with a CoreXY motion system, Klipper firmware, and auto levelling. Build volume is 220x220x250mm — solid for the class.

Real-world speeds are competitive at 200–250mm/s for quality prints, and the CoreXY kinematics mean better high-speed stability than older bed-slinger designs. The reason this sits in the "tinkerer" column rather than the beginner one is that getting the best out of it rewards patience and a willingness to experiment with settings. The community is enormous — any problem you hit, someone has already solved and posted about.

Upgrade paths are extensive: different hotends, better extruders, custom cooling, Raspberry Pi integrations. If you enjoy the process of improvement as much as the printing itself, the V3 is your machine.

UK buying tip: Creality's UK site and Amazon UK both stock it. Watch for flash sales — Creality discounts aggressively around sale periods.

Worth Considering: Anycubic Kobra 3

Price: ~£250

Anycubic's Kobra 3 sits above the Neptune 4 on price but brings a refined auto-levelling system and a notably smoother out-of-box experience. Build volume at 250x250x260mm is generous. It runs on Anycubic's own firmware rather than Klipper, which means less raw customisation but a more curated experience.

Print quality is consistently good without requiring significant calibration work. It's a strong mid-point between the Bambu's ease and the tinkerer's flexibility — not quite as polished as the A1 Mini, but more approachable than the Ender V3 while still offering reasonable print quality. The community is smaller than Creality's but active and growing.

What You Gain Above £300

Once you cross into the £400–600 territory, you start seeing: enclosed build chambers (crucial for ABS and ASA), more refined multi-material systems, higher-quality hotend components that handle engineering filaments better, and genuinely more polished software ecosystems. The jump from £250 to £600 isn't linear — it's meaningful in specific ways. But if PLA and PETG cover your needs, the sub-£300 machines covered here do the job well.

The Recommendation

New to 3D printing and want something that just works: A1 Mini, even if it means spending a touch over £300. Want maximum bang for buck and don't mind a small learning curve: Neptune 4. Want a machine you'll enjoy tweaking and upgrading: Ender 3 V3. Need a balance between ease and build volume: Kobra 3.