£300 is a real quality threshold in this category, not a marketing line, and right now it's also a genuinely short list. Of the current UK cross trainers we track, only three cost £300 or less: the JLL CT300, the Body Sculpture BE7312G and the Pro Fitness CT100. Here's what each one gets right, what you give up below £300, and why the budget end of this market has moved.
The three cross trainers currently under £300 in the UK sit well below the £320-£699 cluster that makes up most of the rest of the current market.
The short answer: what actually costs £300 or less right now
Three models, out of the wider range of current UK cross trainers we compile data on. In price order:
Pro Fitness CT100, £149 at Argos. The cheapest by a wide margin, and the only one with real caveats attached (see below).
JLL CT300, £270-£280 direct from JLL. A long-running UK budget favourite with a genuinely compact footprint.
Everything else in our comparison, including models that older buying guides still describe as budget options, currently sells for £320 or more in the UK. That's not a gap in our research: we checked Argos, Decathlon, Sports Direct, Very and House of Fraser directly on 10 July 2026, and the field below £300 is simply thin right now.
Compare by home type
Tap your home type. We re-rank the table and flag each machine green, amber or red for its fit in that setting.
No manufacturer here publishes a verified decibel figure, so the table shows resistance type, the checkable spec that best predicts noise, see how we compare.
Cross trainers under £300, compared by resistance type, footprint and stride, filterable by home type
Model
Resistance
Footprint
Fit
Buy
Body Sculpture BE7312G Foldable Magnetic Elliptical Cross Trainer
None of these three is necessarily the single best cross trainer on the whole site: that's the homepage's job, across every price band. These are the strongest picks from what's genuinely available under £300 today.
#1
J
Best for most flats, if you don't need it to fold
JLL CT300 Home Cross Trainer
JLL · £270 to £280
Flat: Fits well Terrace: Fits well House: Fits well
Resistance
Magnetic
Footprint
120 x 61 cm
Stride
n/a
A long-running UK budget favourite with a genuinely compact footprint and a flat £279.99 direct price. JLL's own page describes it as 'whisper-quiet' but publishes no dB figure. Real caveat: Trustpilot has documented complaints about JLL's warranty support, including delivery damage and one refused motor-warranty claim, weigh that reliability risk against the low price.
Best for reclaiming floor space after every session
Body Sculpture BE7312G Foldable Magnetic Elliptical Cross Trainer
Body Sculpture · £290 to £300
Flat: Fits well Terrace: Fits well House: Fits well
Resistance
Magnetic
Footprint
151 x 57.5 cm
Stride
n/a
The only model in this set that actually folds down, from 151 x 57.5cm to 110 x 57cm, at a sub-£300 RRP. A realistic pick where floor space has to be reclaimed after every session, though flywheel weight and stride length aren't published anywhere Body Sculpture or its retailers list.
Flat: Check first Terrace: Fits well House: Fits well
Resistance
Magnetic
Footprint
110.5 x 67.7 cm
Stride
368 mm
Argos's own budget cross trainer, and at £149 it undercuts every other model on this page by roughly £100 or more: the cheapest current model we could verify against a real retailer listing. Compact at roughly 110 x 68cm with 8-level magnetic resistance and a 3kg flywheel, but this is also the machine that puts the community's sub-£300 warning to the test, since independent review coverage reports assembly, stability and noise complaints alongside praise for the price. No manufacturer dB figure or max user weight is published.
If none of these three leave enough floor space for how you'd actually use it, our small-space picks cover the same three plus the wider range, filtered for footprint first rather than price.
What you give up below £300
Mostly programmes, connectivity and a documented noise figure. None of the three models above publish a manufacturer decibel rating or a maximum user weight, and none come with app-connected training programmes. Under £300 you get a working cross trainer with manual magnetic resistance and a basic console: nothing wrong with that if it's all you need, but know that's the trade.
Step up to around £400 on something like the JTX Strider-X8 (£399-£499) and you get electro-magnetic resistance with 32 resistance levels and Kinomap compatibility. Spend £500 plus on a ProForm Compact Sport and you get iFIT-connected Silent Magnetic Resistance.
The other thing you're trading against is the community's own experience at this price point. Real owner reviews of the Pro Fitness CT100 report assembly, stability and in-use noise complaints alongside praise for the price. That lines up with the wider MoneySavingExpert forum consensus on budget cross trainers generally: cheaper models “tended to rock and creak”, while £300 plus “felt more sturdy”. It's why we've flagged the CT100 as a “check first” fit for a flat rather than a straightforward “fits well”, even though it's the most compact option here on paper. If noise for a flat matters more to you than price, see our quietest for flats page.
Two of the three sub-£300 cross trainers are a good fit for a flat. The cheapest, the Pro Fitness CT100, is worth checking first because of reported noise and stability issues.
Why the sub-£300 field is this thin
Prices have moved, or older recommendations were never quite right to begin with: either way, the gap is real. Once you're past the three models above, £320 to £400 is where the current UK market actually clusters, not £150 to £250.
The Dripex Elliptical Cross Trainer is still widely described online as a sub-£200 budget pick, but its current Amazon UK listing runs £320-£400. The New Image FITT Strider sells for £369-£399 across Currys, Tesco, Studio and Decathlon.
We checked this directly rather than relying on older buying guides: Argos, Decathlon, Sports Direct, Very, House of Fraser and the manufacturers' own sites, on 10 July 2026. Reebok's current cross trainer range starts at £499. York Fitness starts at £330. If a page anywhere tells you a named budget brand is comfortably under £300 without a live price attached, treat it as out of date until you've checked yourself. Ours included: prices on machines like these move by tens of pounds within weeks.
Is £300 the right line to draw, or should you spend more?
If you live in a flat, want the safest bet on build quality and don't need workout programmes, the JLL CT300 or Body Sculpture BE7312G under £300 are genuinely fine choices, not compromises. If floor space has to be cleared after every session, the BE7312G's fold is the deciding feature. If your budget is closer to £150 than £300 and you're prepared for a basic, no-frills machine, and possibly an assembly headache, the CT100 is a real option: just go in expecting the “check first” caveat rather than a “fits well”.
If you can stretch to £400 or £500, and you'd actually use app-connected programmes rather than just wanting them on paper, that extra spend buys a real upgrade: electro-magnetic resistance, more resistance levels and, on the ProForm models, iFIT connectivity. See our full buying guide for what terms like flywheel weight and resistance type actually mean before you compare models outside this page.
How we compare
We don't run a testing lab and we don't pretend to. Every noise figure on this site is the
manufacturer's stated decibel rating, labelled as such: we never present a spec-sheet
number as something we measured ourselves. Footprint and stride length come from the same
published specifications, cross-checked against retailer listings and real UK owner reviews
where the numbers disagree.
We then match each machine to a home type (flat, terrace or house) based on
how much noise and floor space that setting can realistically absorb. Where a figure isn't
published anywhere we can source it, we say "not published" rather than estimate. We earn
affiliate commission on some links, but it never decides which machine is flagged as the
best fit. Read our full method.
Frequently asked questions
Is a cross trainer under £300 worth buying?+
Yes, but choose carefully. The JLL CT300 and Body Sculpture BE7312G both sit at or under £300 with a compact footprint and a good home-fit rating across flats, terraces and houses. The cheapest option, the Pro Fitness CT100 at £149, is worth buying too, but real owner feedback flags assembly, stability and noise issues that are common at this end of the market. The MoneySavingExpert forum consensus on budget cross trainers is blunt: cheaper models “tended to rock and creak”, while £300 plus “felt more sturdy”.
What do you actually give up below £300?+
Programmes and connectivity, mostly. None of the three sub-£300 models here publish a manufacturer noise figure or state a maximum user weight, and none offer app-connected training programmes. Spend closer to £400 on something like the JTX Strider-X8 and you get electro-magnetic resistance with 32 programmes. Under £300 you get a working cross trainer with manual magnetic resistance and a basic console, and not much else.
Which cross trainers currently qualify under £300 in the UK?+
As of 10 July 2026, exactly three do, out of the wider range of current UK models we track: the JLL CT300 (£270 to £280, direct from JLL), the Body Sculpture BE7312G (£290 to £300, and the only one of the three that folds flat) and the Pro Fitness CT100 (£149 at Argos). Everything else we checked, including models that older buying guides still describe as budget picks, now sells for £320 or more.
Why do so few cross trainers cost under £300 in the UK right now?+
The market has moved on from where a lot of older buying guides still place it. The Dripex Elliptical Cross Trainer, for example, is still widely described online as a sub-£200 pick, but its current Amazon UK listing runs £320 to £400. Checking Argos, Decathlon, Sports Direct, Very and House of Fraser directly this month, the Pro Fitness CT100 was the only other current, single-purpose cross trainer we could confirm under £270. The bottom of the market has genuinely thinned out.
Should I buy a secondhand cross trainer instead?+
It's worth considering if none of the three current sub-£300 new models suit you. A secondhand mid-tier machine, a used JLL or Reebok for example, can outperform a new entry-level one on build quality for similar money. The trade-off is no warranty and no way to check exactly how worn the resistance system is before you buy it.