Buying guide · updated 2026-08-28
What You Actually Need to Start Playing Guitar
Four things matter on the first day. Most of what gets sold alongside a first guitar does not, and one of the four is the accessory almost nobody buys first.
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Our picks
Cheapest sensible electricSquierDebut Series StratocasterBlack, laurel fingerboard
Full 25.5-inch scale, so nothing has to be relearned later, in a body made deliberately thin and light. Budget for a setup: the plastic nut is where the tuning trouble lives.
6.7/10 Fretline4.6 (2,465)
Cheapest sensible acousticYamahaFG800JNatural
A solid spruce top at a laminate price. A solid top is the one specification on a cheap acoustic that genuinely changes how it sounds, and it improves with age rather than staying put.
7.8/10 Fretline4.6 (368)
If the player is a childYamahaJR1 FG JuniorNatural, 3/4 size
A shorter string length means lower tension, which means small fingers can hold a chord without it hurting. That single fact matters more than anything else on a first guitar for a child.
6.7/10 Fretline4.4 (1,119)
Not sure between them?
Add any of these to the comparator and see every specification aligned, with the differences marked and the score profiles overlaid.
Open the comparatorWhat to buy alongside it
Buy this first
Snark SN5X Clip-On Chromatic Tuner
Before strings, before a strap, before lessons. An out-of-tune guitar teaches your ear the wrong intervals and a beginner cannot hear that anything is wrong, so the tuner does the listening until your ears catch up.
Buy this second
Pick thickness changes your sound more than most pedals do, and nobody can tell you which suits your hands. Three gauges in one bag answers it by experiment for the price of a sandwich.
Only if it is electric
An electric guitar makes almost no sound on its own. You need a cable and something to plug into; this is the cable, and the right-angle end protects the jack socket on a Stratocaster.
The one that decides whether you practise
A guitar in a case under the bed gets played a fraction as often as one standing in the corner. This is the least glamorous item here and probably the second most useful.
In two or three months
D'Addario EJ16 Phosphor Bronze Acoustic
Not on day one - your guitar came with strings. But they die, gradually enough that you will not notice, and the first restring is the moment most people discover what their guitar actually sounds like.
When you change those strings
Winds the pegs, cuts the ends and pulls acoustic bridge pins. Costs about the same as one set of strings and is the difference between restringing being a routine and being an event.
The short answer
A guitar, a tuner, some picks, and - if the guitar is electric - a cable and something to plug it into. That is the whole list. Everything else on this page is either something that can wait a few months or something you have been told you need and do not.
The reason the tuner comes first is worth stating plainly, because it is the least obvious item on the list and the one most beginners skip. A guitar goes out of tune constantly, especially a new one whose strings have not finished stretching. When it is out of tune, the chords you are practising do not sound like the chords in the song, and you cannot tell whether that is the guitar or you. Beginners quit over that, and they quit believing they have no ear. A ten-dollar clip-on tuner removes the entire problem.
What you can safely put off
A strap is only needed when you stand up, and for the first few months you will be sitting down. A capo is a tool for playing along with recordings in awkward keys, which is a month-two problem rather than a day-one one. A case matters when the guitar starts leaving the house. Spare strings matter when the first set dies, which takes two or three months of daily playing.
Cleaning products are further out still. A dry microfibre cloth handles everything a new guitar needs for the first year. The products that actually matter - a fretboard conditioner, a finish-safe cleaner - become relevant when the fingerboard looks grey and dry, and that is a question of years, not weeks.
What to skip entirely, at least at first
Pedals. A beginner with a distortion pedal has one more thing to blame for a bad sound and one more thing to fiddle with instead of practising. The amplifier's own overdrive is enough for a year.
A second guitar. The urge to buy a better instrument arrives about three weeks in, almost always before any actual limitation of the first one has been reached.
String cleaning gadgets, humidifiers and polish kits, on day one. They solve real problems, but they solve them later, and buying them now mostly buys the feeling of having started.
Anything sold as a bundle where the accessories are worth more in the listing than in the box. A guitar bundled with a strap, a bag, a stand, picks and a cable is often a worse guitar than one bought alone at the same price - the accessories are cheap because they are cheap.
The one thing worth spending money on that is not a thing
A setup. Almost every guitar under a few hundred dollars leaves the factory with the strings further from the frets than they need to be, and sometimes with sharp fret ends. A setup at a local shop typically costs less than a set of premium strings and makes a cheap guitar meaningfully easier to play - which for a beginner, whose fingertips hurt and whose hands are not strong yet, is the difference between practising and not.
If you buy one thing on this page that is not on the list, make it that.
Electric or acoustic?
The honest answer is: whichever one makes you want to pick it up. The common advice that beginners should start on acoustic because it is harder is not good advice - harder is not a virtue when the failure mode is giving up.
The practical differences are these. An acoustic is self-contained, so it costs less overall and can be played anywhere; its strings are heavier and its action is usually higher, so it is physically harder at first. An electric has lighter strings and a slimmer neck, so it is easier to fret, but it needs an amplifier and a cable to make a useful sound, which adds cost and means it cannot be played silently unless the amp has a headphone socket.
Common questions
- Do I need an amplifier straight away for an electric guitar?
- Yes, or something that does the same job. An unplugged electric is audible enough to practise chord shapes but not to hear what you are actually playing. A small practice amp with a headphone socket is the usual answer; an audio interface into a computer works too and is more useful later.
- Are expensive strings worth it for a beginner?
- Not at first. A five-dollar set and a twenty-dollar set feel much the same to a hand that is still learning, and you will kill both by playing. Coated strings are worth it later, and mainly if you have acidic sweat that eats ordinary strings in a fortnight.
- How often should I change strings?
- When they sound dull or feel rough under the fingers, which for a beginner playing daily is roughly every two to three months. The change is gradual enough that most people do not notice until they fit a new set and hear the difference.
- Is a cheap guitar going to hold me back?
- Much less than it used to. What holds beginners back on cheap guitars is almost always the setup rather than the instrument - action that is too high and fret ends that catch. Both are fixable for a fraction of what a better guitar costs.
- What about lessons?
- Out of scope for this site, which is about equipment, but worth saying: the most common reason people stop is not the guitar. A teacher, a class or a structured course does more for progress than any purchase on this page.
Instruments in this guide
Squier · Electric guitar
Debut Series Stratocaster
Black, laurel fingerboard
Squier's cheapest full-scale Stratocaster, built thin and light on purpose
Yamaha · Acoustic guitar
FG800J
Natural
The safest recommendation in budget acoustics, and it has been for years
Yamaha · Acoustic guitar
JR1 FG Junior
Natural, 3/4 size
The 3/4 guitar that keeps getting recommended, twenty years on
Keep reading
The Best Guitars for Beginners
The specifications that matter to a beginner are not the ones on the front of the box. Here is what to look for, and the four instruments we would recommend.
The Best Guitars Under $500
Under $500 is where the guitar market is most competitive, and where the difference between a good specification and a marketing one matters most.