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Keyboards Under $100

What a hundred dollars buys in a mechanical keyboard, board by board, with every figure taken from the maker's own page and the date it was checked.

The Thockery Desk 14 min read

A hundred dollars used to buy a plastic keyboard with soldered switches and hope. This year it buys magnetic switches that adjust their own actuation point, a gasket-mounted case, double-shot PBT keycaps and open firmware, and the cheapest board on this page is $29.99.

This page is not a ranking. Nothing here was tested, no board is recommended over another, and there are no scores. What it does instead is the thing the roundups do not: every board below is listed with the specifications its maker publishes and the date the price was read. Each board name links to its entry in our index, where the same figures sit beside a link to the maker’s own page. Where a maker does not publish a figure, the cell says so rather than being filled from a marketplace listing.

Yunzii AL71, a 65 percent aluminium keyboard with a knob, product photo Photo: Yunzii, from its own product page. A CNC aluminium case at $55 is the year’s clearest shift in this bracket.

The short version

If you would rather not read the rest, this is the whole page in one table. Each line is the cheapest board here that fits the description, worked out from the same figures as the tables below, not a pick or a favourite. One board often fits several descriptions at once, and where it does they are listed together rather than repeating the board down the table.

If you want theBoardPrice
Cheapest of all, 60%, without a cable, magnetic and with an aluminium plateMonsGeek FUN60 Pro$29.99
Cheapest 65%Epomaker HE68 Lite$49.99
Cheapest tenkeyless and with hot-swap socketsWomier QK87 TKL$49.99
Cheapest on a gasket mountKeychron C3 Pro 8K$54.99
Cheapest 75%Royal Kludge R75 Wired$59.99
Cheapest full-sizeKeychron C2 Pro 8K$64.99
Cheapest Alice or splitKeychron V8 Max$99.99

Prices are what the maker asked when the figure was last checked, before shipping and tax. Every board name opens its full specification, where the link to the shop lives.

What changed in the budget market

Four things, all of them readable off specification sheets rather than noticed in use.

Magnetic switches arrived at the bottom of the market. A Hall effect board with adjustable actuation and rapid trigger used to start around $150. MonsGeek sells one at $29.99, and there are six more under $90 across the makes on this page. The trade is that a magnetic switch is not a mechanical switch: the sensing is different, the switches are not interchangeable with MX-pattern ones, and the feel at the top of the press is different. Switch anatomy covers where the two diverge.

Open firmware is now a budget feature, not a premium one. QMK and VIA appear from $49.99 upward, including boards from Royal Kludge, Womier and keychron that a few years ago shipped with a Windows-only installer and nothing else. Where a maker has only its own driver, it is named in the table, because that difference matters more than switch choice.

Gasket mounting covers the mid band. From $54.99 up, most boards on this page claim a gasket mount, and what the gasket is made of is the interesting part: foam between plate and case behaves quite differently from a silicone strip holding the plate clear of both. Where the maker does not say which, the cell stays as published. Mounting styles explains what each one does to feel and sound.

Aluminium starts at $55. A CNC aluminium case is not a $200 feature any more. Yunzii sells one at $55 and MonsGeek at $94.99, both with the trade you would expect: 1.1 to 1.3 kg of board on the desk.

The boards, by layout

Every price below was read from the maker’s own store on 16 September 2026 and is the entry configuration that was in stock that day. Where a board sells in several switch or colour variants, the price shown is the cheapest one, and the note says so. Figures come from the maker’s own product page, linked on the board name. A sold-out or discontinued model is left out rather than listed at a price nobody can pay, and the exclusions are recorded in the research file behind this page.

60 percent

BoardPriceLayoutMountPlateHot-swapChecked
MonsGeek FUN60 Pro$29.9960%Tray-mountedAluminium plateSoldered2026-09-16
MonsGeek FUN60 Ultra$59.9960%Tray-mountedAluminiumYes2026-09-16
Womier SK61 HE$89.9960%Gasket mount1.5 mm aluminium, non flex-cutnot stated2026-09-16

65 percent

BoardPriceLayoutMountPlateHot-swapChecked
Epomaker HE68 Lite$49.9965%Tray-mountPC plasticSoldered2026-09-16
Royal Kludge R65 Wired$59.9965%Gasket Mountnot publishedYes2026-09-16
Womier VK66 Pro$59.9965%GasketPC with flex cutsYes2026-09-16
YUNZII AL68$64.9965%Gasket mountednot publishedYes2026-09-16
YUNZII AL71$55.0065%Leaf spring, gasket mountedSlotted PC plateYes2026-09-16

75 percent

BoardPriceLayoutMountPlateHot-swapChecked
Royal Kludge R75 Wired$59.9975%Gasket Mountnot publishedYes2026-09-16
Ajazz AK820 Pro$69.9075%Gasket-mountedFlex-cut PC plate and PCBYes2026-09-20
Epomaker TH80 V2$68.9975%Gasket mountPC (flex-cut)Yes2026-09-16
Keychron V1 8K$74.9975%Tray MountPCYes2026-09-16
MonsGeek M1 V5 Black and Silver$94.9975%GasketPCYes2026-09-16
Akko 5075 V5$99.9975%Gasket mountFlex-cut PC plateYes2026-09-16

TKL

BoardPriceLayoutMountPlateHot-swapChecked
Womier QK87 TKL$49.99TKLnot publishedPCYes2026-09-16
Keychron C1 Pro 8K$54.99TKLTray Mountnot publishedYes2026-09-16
Keychron C3 Pro 8K$54.99TKLGasket Mountnot publishedYes2026-09-16
Royal Kludge R87 Pro Wired$64.99TKLGasket Mountnot publishedYes2026-09-16
Keychron V3 8K$74.99TKLTray MountSteelYes2026-09-16

Full size

BoardPriceLayoutMountPlateHot-swapChecked
Keychron C2 Pro 8K$64.99Full sizeTray Mountnot publishedYes2026-09-16
Keychron V6 8K$84.99Full sizeTray MountSteelYes2026-09-16
Akko 5108 V5$99.99Full sizeGasket mountFlex-cut PC plate (dual-section split PC plate)Yes2026-09-16

Alice and 96 percent

BoardPriceLayoutMountPlateHot-swapChecked
Keychron V8 Max$99.99Alice or splitGasket MountPCYes2026-09-16
Keychron V7$59.99OtherTray MountSteelYes2026-09-16
Royal Kludge S98$89.99OtherTop-Mount Designnot publishedYes2026-09-16

What $100 still does not buy

None of the above changes the four things this bracket cannot supply, and it is worth reading them before the tables above.

  1. A case that does not ring. Aluminium is available, but the cheapest aluminium board here has a hollow frame rather than a solid block, and plastic is still plastic. The board is a box the sound happens inside.
  2. Stabilisers that do not rattle. Spacebar and shift are where budget boards give themselves away. Plate-mounted stabilisers dominate this price, and screw-in sets are usually the first worthwhile upgrade.
  3. Silence. Damping costs material and mass. A board described as quiet at this price is quiet relative to its own line.
  4. A switch line you can trust across batches. Budget switches are sold under the maker’s own name, and the figures that matter are the published ones: housing material decides pitch, travel decides how sharp the bottom is.

Six checks before you order

  1. Which switches the socket accepts, in the listing’s own words. Magnetic, Outemu-pattern and MX-pattern are three different answers.
  2. Whether hot-swap is stated at all. Several $60 boards do not state it, and absence is not the same as no.
  3. Plate material, which shapes sound more than the switch does. It is unpublished on a third of the boards on this page.
  4. Mount and gasket, in the maker’s words.
  5. Keycap material and profile, and whether the set fits your layout.
  6. The shop’s own returns window, before the price. Our shop directory records it from each shop’s own policy page, including the shops that do not accept returns at all.

How this page was made

Every specification and price comes from the maker’s own product page, read from its US storefront and dated in the table. Nothing on this page was tested, no board is rated, and no board is recommended over another. Where a maker publishes nothing for a field, the cell says “not published” and stays that way rather than being filled from a marketplace listing.

The tables are not written by hand. Each one names entries in our keyboard index and is built from them at publication, so a figure here cannot drift away from the entry it describes, and correcting an entry corrects every table that names it. A board cannot appear in a table at all until it has been indexed, which the build enforces rather than trusting anyone to remember.

The hot-swap column has three states, not two. “Soldered” means the maker says so, and “not stated” means the maker never addressed it, which is the more common answer at this price and is not the same thing. Check two above says it from the buyer’s side: absence is not the same as no.

No link on this page is paid, and nothing here earns us a commission. Following a board name takes you to its entry, and the link out to the shop lives there, where any paid link is labelled as one.

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