Best Gaming Headsets Under $100 in 2025
The gaming headset market under $100 has gotten remarkably competitive. Three years ago, you were mostly choosing between which compromise to live with — bad mic, uncomfortable earcups, or mediocre sound. Today, the best sub-$100 headsets are genuinely excellent, and figuring out which ones are worth your money just takes knowing what to look for.
We spent several weeks testing the most-recommended options in this price range. Here are the ones that earned a spot on our list.
Top Picks
The Cloud Alpha has been a go-to recommendation for years, and there's a reason it refuses to leave best-of lists. HyperX's dual-chamber driver design genuinely makes a difference — lows and mids are separated from highs at the driver level, resulting in less distortion and noticeably cleaner audio than most competitors at this price. The braided cable is durable, the aluminum frame feels premium, and the earcups are comfortable for long sessions.
SteelSeries stripped the Arctis Nova down to essentials and landed at $50 without sacrificing what matters. The audio is balanced and clear, the retractable mic is better than most at this price point (retractable mics tend to lag behind detachable ones, but SteelSeries has narrowed the gap significantly), and the ski-band suspension headband system distributes weight evenly — meaning it sits comfortably even after 4+ hour sessions. Multi-platform compatible out of the box via 3.5mm.
Getting wireless for under $100 used to mean serious compromises. The G435 changes that. It's the lightest wireless gaming headset we've tested — just 165g — which makes a real difference during long play sessions. Battery life sits at around 18 hours, Logitech's Lightspeed wireless is rock solid at low latency, and the audio profile is tuned well for gaming without being obnoxiously bass-boosted. No 3.5mm jack is the trade-off, but on PC this rarely matters.
If you play a lot of single-player games — horror, open-world, cinematic titles — the HS65's Dolby Audio surround sound processing is worth the premium over a basic stereo headset. Positional audio in games like Cyberpunk or Alan Wake becomes noticeably more immersive. The build quality is solid aluminum and plastic construction, the earcups are plush, and the mic is one of the better detachable options under $100.
What We Looked For
When evaluating headsets in this price range, we weighted these factors: comfort over 3+ hour sessions (the single biggest quality-of-life factor), audio clarity for footsteps and directional cues (critical for competitive play), microphone intelligibility (teammates need to understand you), and build durability (budget headsets often break at the headband or cable joints — we stress-tested these areas specifically).
We deliberately excluded headsets with gimmicky features — fake 7.1 surround on cheap drivers, excessive RGB, or software-dependent "enhancements" that don't add real value.
Final Recommendation
For most PC gamers, the HyperX Cloud Alpha is the easy recommendation — it simply sounds better than competitors at the same price. If you want wireless, the Logitech G435 is the one to get. If you're playing lots of immersive single-player games, the Corsair HS65 will enhance your experience in ways you'll notice immediately.