The 4 Best Cheap Camping Chairs (Bought & Tested!)

What counts as a cheap camping chair

No brand calls its own chair cheap, so I drew the line myself: every camping chair I own, at its list price, against what it scored across my six tests.

Every price here is the chair’s list price when I bought it, so you’ll often pay less. The YETI is in the table so you can see what the other end of the range looks like.

• Where the line sits: $35 to $60, which is the whole cheap end of my collection.
• How many qualify: 7 of my camping chairs.
• The next one up: the Coleman Big N Tall and the GCI Kickback Rocker, both at $70. There’s nothing at all between $60 and $70.
• The benchmark: my YETI Trailhead costs roughly 8.5 times what the Broadband does, and scores 1.6 points higher.
• Three of the seven aren’t picks. The Cascade Mountain Tech and the ALPS Rendezvous are low chairs that sit under 5in off the ground, and both land below the value line below. The Quechua Reclinable scored highest of the seven, but it’s been discontinued.

What you actually get for the money

I plotted every chair I own by what it costs against what it scored, then let Excel fit a line through all 21 points. Anything above that line gives you more than you paid for, and anything below it gives you less.

Hover over any dot, or tap it on a phone, to see which chair it is. The four named in orange are my picks, and the shaded strip is the cheap band.

• How to read it: the dashed line is the fit through all 21 chairs. Above it you get more than you paid for, below it you get less.
• Four of the seven cheap chairs sit above the line: the Coleman Cooler Quad, the Kijaro Dual Lock, the REI Campwell and the Quechua Reclinable.
• Three sit below it: the Coleman Broadband, the Cascade Mountain Tech and the ALPS Rendezvous.
• The Broadband is still my cheapest pick. Nothing else here costs so little, and sitting under the line at the bottom of the range costs you far less than sitting under it at the top.
• The Campwell goes on sale. REI drops it by 30% often enough that I’ve never paid full price for one, which pushes it further above the line than its list price suggests.
• Expensive doesn’t mean good value either. The two chairs furthest below the line are the Big Agnes Big Six and the REI Camp Dreamer, and they’re both well over $100.

Where the money goes: the frame

The frame is where the saving comes from. It’s also what gives out first when a cheap chair doesn’t last.

The crown goes to the best of the cheap chairs. My YETI is at the bottom of the table so you can see what the extra money buys in a frame.

• The spread: 0.61 to 0.69in of pole across the four, against 1.14in on my premium pick.

• All four use simple rivets at the pole joints, which is the cheapest way to hold a frame together.

• The warranty follows. All four of these are covered for 1 year and my YETI is covered for 5.
• The one cheap chair that breaks the pattern: the ALPS Rendezvous carries a limited lifetime warranty at $60, and it’s the only lifetime cover I’ve found under $70.
• None of it has actually failed on me. My Campwell is three and a half years old, and the worst of it is surface rust.

Cheap chairs are the fastest to set up

This one caught me out. I assumed the expensive chairs would be the easy ones, and it’s the other way round: the more a chair costs, the longer it takes to get out of the bag.

All timings are after dozens of setups and pack aways, so a first attempt will take longer.

• The pattern: every chair I own that takes longer than 25 seconds to set up costs over $90, and every chair under $60 is up in 16 seconds or less.

• Why it happens: the more expensive and thus more feature-rich a chair, the longer it takes to set up.
• The slowest of the four: the Kijaro at 16 seconds, and even that beats every chair I own over $90.

The tradeoff: the seat sinks

A cheap seat sags. The fabric’s thinner, there’s nothing pulling it flat, and you end up sitting a long way below where the seat starts.

The sink is how far the seat drops from its front height once I sit in it. I’m 5’3 and 117lbs, so a heavier person will sink further. My YETI is in the table for comparison.

• The spread: 3.3 to 5.3in across the four, against 1.5in on my premium pick.

• What it costs you: a seat that sinks pulls your knees up and puts the weight onto the back of your thighs, which is why none of these scored well on comfort.
• The Kijaro sinks too, by 4.5in, but it starts from 20.0in at the front, so you still end up higher than in anything else here.
• How to check before you buy: the height a brand prints is the front height. Sit in the chair and measure from the ground to where you actually are.

What you don’t give up

The Cooler Quad takes the crown because it adds a 4-can cooler to the highest capacity here. Weight includes the carry bag.

• Capacity: 250 to 325lbs across the four, which covers most people without thinking about it.
• Storage: the Kijaro has 2 cupholders and 3 pockets and the Cooler Quad has a cooler in the armrest. My YETI has no pockets at all.
• Weight: 6.0 to 9.7lbs, against 14.7lbs for the YETI.
• The scores: three of these four landed on 7.3, and all four sit within 1.6 points of the highest score I’ve given a camping chair.

So is a cheap camping chair worth it?

Five months in, here’s where I think a cheap chair is the right buy, and where it isn’t.

• Worth it if: you camp a handful of weekends a year. Every one of these is up in 16 seconds and all four did the job.
• Not for you if: you need lower back support, because all four sink between 3.3 and 5.3in and none of them holds its shape once you’re in it.
• Not for you if: you want to rest your head, since the tallest backrest of the four is 23.5in and the top of it folds away under any weight.
• Not for you if: you want a chair that lasts a decade. These are 0.61 to 0.69in steel frames held together with rivets, covered for 1 year.