The best cheap fitness trackers give you an easy and affordable way to log your workouts and track your fitness on a budget. Many of the best fitness trackers and best smartwatches you can buy today are advanced devices but are also quite expensive, aimed more at experienced exercisers or people with specific training goals.
If you want a simpler option to hit your daily 10,000 steps or dip a toe into tracking your heart rate during exercise, one of the best cheap fitness trackers is a great choice. Although you won't find virtual pacers for your runs or artificial intelligence-powered features in this guide, each option in this list has been selected for a reason: because it's good value.
All of the entries below are easy to use for complete beginners. Some are older models, but still great pieces of tech well worth picking up for a song.
The data you can track on your fitness tracker is different depending on which device you're using. Many offer always-on heart rate tracking, and some have built-in GPS, which makes them a perfect running companion. However, if you’re serious about running, take a look at our best running watches picks instead.
The best cheap fitness trackers for 2024
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The quick list
The best cheap fitness tracker overall
This is one of the most affordable fitness trackers on the market. Despite the low price, you'll still get a smooth user interface, reliable health tracking, and a bright, bold display.
The best cheap fitness tracker for running
Tracking runs is easy with on-board GPS and a map display showing where you've traveled. You'll also get an EDA (electrodermal activity) sensor for measuring stress responses, sleep tracking, and heart rate monitoring for comprehensive fitness tracking.
The best cheap fitness tracker for the screen
With a big 1.47-inch AMOLED screen and a thin body less than 1cm thick, the Huawei Band 7 looks and feels great. Step tracking, sleep tracking, and SpO2 monitoring give you the tools to keep on top of your health.
The best cheap fitness tracker for beginners
Measure steps, heart rate, heart rate variability, and stress with this excellent fitness tracker. Guided breathing exercises guide you through releasing stress while sleep tracking helps you get a better night's sleep.
The best cheap fitness tracker from Garmin
A lightweight, lean fitness tracker that is all about the data. It might not look as good as other options but it has a whole host of great insights to track your health across a wide variety of metrics.
The best cheap fitness tracker overall
Xiaomi makes a range of different cheap fitness trackers and they're very good at it. The Xiaomi Smart Band 9 lacks many of the specifications and features that the more established manufacturers are delivering, but there's still definitely a place for the Smart Band 9.
The main selling point of this tracker is the price. At only $60 / £34.99 / AU$79.99 you'll struggle to find a cheaper alternative with this level of quality. For such a small amount, you'll get fitness tracking, sleep monitoring, step counting, heart rate monitoring, and calorie counting.
The lack of GPS might be a dealbreaker for some but if you're happy carrying your phone around on runs, then you can pair it for accurate location tracking. One area it isn't lacking is notification handling and music control. This makes it an ideal extension to your phone for very little money.
If you're happy forgoing advanced features and industry-leading software then the Smart Band 9 is a great way to dip your toes in the fitness tracker market.
Read our full Xiaomi Smart Band 9 review
The best cheap fitness tracker for running
The Fitbit Charge 5 is a fantastic choice for runners thanks to its built-in GPS, bright AMOLED screen, and data-centric philosophy. The lightweight and slimline design makes this a tracker that blends into the background for all the right reasons.
The Charge 5's heart rate monitoring is also extremely good, especially when your workouts go to the next level. We also love the stress-measuring app, which helps users identify when life is getting difficult to handle.
One of the advanced features of the Charge 5 is ECG monitoring which can detect signs of heart arrhythmia that should be investigated by a doctor. Note that you'll need a Fitbit premium subscription to access this feature but with six-month free trials available, you could easily give it a go to see if it works for you.
But this isn't just a fitness tracker. The Charge 5 also makes an excellent smartwatch. Live notifications, call alerts, and contactless payments mean your watch can replace many of the functions your phone currently fulfills. We would like to have seen music playback functionality but it's a small downside to an otherwise excellent tracker.
Read our full Fitbit Charge 5 review
The best cheap fitness tracker for the screen
Thanks to Huawei's problems in the States, it's tough for folks over there to get hold of the Huawei Band 7, which is a shame: it's an undeniably impressive fitness tracker at an impressively low price.
With step tracking we found it to be just as accurate as an Apple Watch. It features a nice big 1.47-inch AMOLED screen, and a thin body less than 1cm thick, it's a slender piece of kit, but still packs lots of great fitness tools. TruSleep 2.0 tracks sleep states and offers a more detailed breakdown of phases of sleep, comparing favorably to Apple -although at the time we tested, Apple's updated sleep functions hadn't launched.
It's even got SpO2 sensors and training metrics to aid blood pressure management. It's a really good (and crucially very cheap) fitness tool if you can get your hands on one. Heartily recommended.
Read our full Huawei Band 7 review
The best cheap fitness tracker for beginners
The Fitbit Inspire 3 has replaced its predecessor, the Inspire 2, as the best cheap fitness tracker for beginners you can buy today. Although there are other activity bands with more modest price tags, the Inspire 3 offers the most bang for your buck. Not surprisingly, it's also one of the best Fitbits overall, with a lot of the same Fitbit features like the Daily Readiness Score and Active Zone Minutes on the premium models.
The Inspire 3 measures steps and heart rate throughout the day, and the Fitbit Inspire 3 also tracks heart rate variability and stress, how long you spend in different heart rate zones during workouts, and your breathing rate. It can guide you through breathing exercises, score your cardio fitness level, and track your sleep stages each night.
The Fitbit Inspire 3 doesn't have its own built-in GPS chip, but it can piggyback on your phone's GPS to accurately track and map runs, walks, and bike rides as long as they aren't too far apart. You can check these out later in the Fitbit app and even sync them to other apps like Strava.
Like other Fitbit devices, this cheap fitness tracker comes with a free one-year subscription to Fitbit Premium, which gives you access to instructor-led workouts, meditation sessions, and nutrition plans. It's not as good as the one-year Inspire 2 subscription, but the new features are probably just enough to justify getting the updated model.
Read our full Fitbit Inspire 3 review
The best cheap fitness tracker from Garmin
How to choose the best cheap fitness tracker
There are several things to consider when choosing a fitness tracker, but it gets trickier when you're trying to find a cheap one. That's because you're working with a smaller budget, which means you can't exactly go for the best money can buy. Luckily, quite a few affordable fitness trackers will see you through most of your health, fitness, and wellness needs.
Be sure to consider what type of activity you enjoy most. For example, if you're into cycling or running, you should get a cheap fitness tracker with a built-in GPS module. If you just want a device to log your workouts and track your sleep, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is your best bet. It doesn't have GPS, but it can monitor your energy levels with its Daily Readiness Score, and use Active Zone Minutes to tot up how much activity, both active and passive, you're doing each week.
That's necessary to track your route and speed accurately. If you're training for an arduous multi-day hike up a mountain or a marathon, you might be better off with a proper fitness watch, or a tracker with GPS like the Fitbit Charge 4. If you frequently find yourself too tired to exercise, the Vivosmart 4's Body Battery metric can monitor your recovery and tell you the best time to work out.
Make sure you have a list of stats you require, especially for everyday use, and pick the best cheap fitness tracker that offers them. You might have to sacrifice some, but not too many, since many of these trackers are feature-filled. Battery life is also something to consider, as are display, resolution, and design.
How we test the best cheap fitness trackers
Testing cheap fitness trackers mainly involves using them in our day-to-day for a week or more. That's the best and most efficient way of seeing how much data they gather, how accurate they are, how well they perform, and how comfortable they are on our wrists.
Naturally, we put them through different fitness and wellness activities, from different workouts to things like breathing exercises and sleep. That way, we can test aspects like the heart rate monitor's accuracy and responsiveness, GPS accuracy, and build or ruggedness. We'll also measure the heart rate and exercise metrics against a control smartwatch during physical exercise.
