Are ukes really much cheaper than guitars?

I don't know much about guitars, but I when I chose the uke over it, I did with the understanding that ukes were quite a bit cheaper. However, if one looks at a good factory uke, lets say tenor sized, that runs at around 250 (so Bushman, Mainland, Ohana, etc), can't you get a similar quality guitar for a similar price, like a Blueridge? Or is something like Blueridge not as high quality (like a 250 dollar Blueridge is similar to a Lanikai Lu-21?)?

I'm not saying that guitars are better or anything, even if ukes costed more, I'd still choose a uke now for their character, but it just seems like a conundrum to me since guitars require like twice as much material, right?

Don't forget the solid wood issue. With a few exceptions, you cannot get an all solid wood guitar for the price of a Mainland. Laminate acoustics can run around $150-300 US, but as soon as you step to all solid, you are in the $600-1000 range and up.

2x to 3x a good uke price is about right in general. There are exceptions, but they are few, and the quality varies wildly.

So to answer your question, ukes are usually around half the price of a comparable guitar.

While it takes less wood to build a uke than a guitar, the amount of labor involved is nearly the same, whether they come from an assembly line factory or a lone luthier.

My Ibanez Artwood cost 275, and its a pretty cheap guitar, but just about unbeatable for the price. Id love to buy a uke for that much but right now I'm (happily) stuck with my 139 dollar oscar schmidt OU5

You can get a Yahama FG series guitar for $200 that is pretty sweet. As for solid wood, the price is lower than Sir Grumpy has stated. You can get solid wood tops at $200 range and all-solid wood for as low as $350 (new Masterbilt AJ500 runs $499 and is a wonderful guitar). Seagull makes solid-wood guitars at $400 and Blueridge has solid wood in the same price range, so does Parkwood. The Seagull is made in Canada, Parkwood, Masterbilt, and Blueridge are made in China. Yamaha is still made in Japan.

Right now, it is a buyer's market in the world of guitars. Samwise can add a lot to this conversation since he writes for Acoustic Magazine.

This question is the reason I delayed conversion to the uke world. I was looking at buying a Mele back in 2002 but I knew I could get a baby taylor for the same price. So I bought a cheap oscar schmidt. Wasn't happy with it. Bought a mele and haven't looked back. I think ukes are more expensive if you really compare how much of a product you actually get. But they are worth every penny. I've been told by a luthier that makes both ukes and guitars that the amount of work is very comprable.

I think it all depends on the comparison being made, but in general my experience is has been that ukuleles are considerably cheaper than comparable guitars. For that reason, my first uke is a Kamaka tenor, and while that might seem extravagant to some, it was less than one fifth the cost of my guitar and less than one seventh the cost of either of my mandolins. In my book that makes the ukulele a bargain!

I started a very controversial post a few months back about this...


guitars are MUCH cheaper compared to a uke of the same quality.
The guitar industry is very developed while the ukes industry isn't

Try comparing Gibson or Martin to kamaka or KoAloha, Look at their output, Labour costs, technology etc etc...

Like Peter said the guitar industry is much more sophisticated as numbers of sales and units sold dictakes. Search ukulele on ebay maybe 2900 lisiting...search guitar 185.000 listing We a but a minute percentage of the string instrument market.....But we are rapidly expanding and growing in quality and bang for the buck as companies that focus only in ukulele surge ahead in R and D and mass producing.... we are but 1.5 to 2 % of the market....theres only room to grow UP AND AWAY

by the pound, more expensive, by the strum, much cheaper

petah said:

guitars are MUCH cheaper compared to a uke of the same quality.

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I think I'd have to disagree with you there.

A decent handmade classical guitar starts at close to $5K these days, $10K is not uncommon, $20K not unheard of, and there are a few top luthiers commanding $40K+ with long waiting lists.

itsme said:

I think I'd have to disagree with you there.

A decent handmade classical guitar starts at close to $5K these days, $10K is not uncommon, $20K not unheard of, and there are a few top luthiers commanding $40K+ with long waiting lists.

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Peter was talking about production guitars v. production ukes. There are some very fine quality classical guitars being produced that sell n the $2500 range. Custom luthier guitars are sometimes insanely priced and that is why I am very content with production guitars. I play steel-string sixes. I play bass, too, and lots of other instruments, but I don't have many luthier-built instruments because production models can be very well-built and I play before I buy.

I think even looking it similar levels of production that guitars are substantially more expensive unit for unit. That said, I think one could easily play with the numbers when it comes to how much raw material you get in proportion to the price, and in doing so that would seem to bring the relative costs close together.

I have a 2009 New World classical guitar that I purchased to play around with nylon strings. These are imported by Kenny Hill Guitar Co, the maker of high end classical guitars, as an entry level instrument. This import is a production made pacific rim instrument, with reasonably good fit and finish, a solid cedar top, laminated rosewood sides & back, and a reasonably good sound. Retail cost: $895. To me that seems to be a good comparison to some of the many better quality import ukuleles that I have seen which fall in the $300-$500 range. I would say that some of the less expensive guitars already mentioned are more on par with ukuleles commonly seen in the <$100 - $200 range.

On the higher end I could compare my Collings OM-2H guitar with one of the fancier new Collings Ukuleles like the UC-2. Here we have pricing from the same builder to compare: New OM-2H about $3400 & New UC-2 about $1900. To be fair, it would probably be more appropriate to compare the less fancy Collings models with the OM-2H, which only serves to increase the price gap.

Granted when you buy the guitar you are getting a whole lot more materials for the price, but you still have to cough up the money to play!

As someone who's suffered from both GAS and UAS, I can honestly say that ukes are a heck of a lot cheaper, in general.

What kind of guitar are you going to find for $36 that isn't better suited for a birdhouse?

Keep in mind that even a standard American-made Telecaster or Stratocaster is over $1000 new these days! Rickenbacker's prices have nearly doubled since the recession, and Gibsons and Martins remain disgustingly overpriced unless you want an unpopular model. Any acoustic guitar that's all solid wood and made in the USA is probably going to be over $1000.

Collecting ukes might get more expensive in its own way, though. Ukes aren't very big, so it's a lot easier to accumulate twenty of them without blocking off a room in your house with a stack of cases. You could spend $10,000 on ukes and they still might only cover one couch.

I bought my wife a new guitar a Washburn D10SDLK solid Rose Wood sides and back with solid Spruce top, abalone inlays, and gold tuners, and a hard case.

I was torn between the Washburn and the Seagull S6 but the better deal with hard case on the Washburn sold me. $299 including delivery to Hawai'i. The sound is unbelievable for a guitar under $500, and the build quality is excellent.
I don't know of a comparable deal on a 'ukulele. :shaka: