While often promoted for their size and versatility, not all SUVs are big, spacious boxes that impede other motorists’ view ahead, cost a pretty penny, and take up a bunch of space. There are ample small crossover options on dealership lots that have a bit more space than compact and midsize cars, plus a slightly elevated driving position for better overall visibility. Those pluses don’t come at the expense of taking up a lot more space on the road. Or a whole lot of financial expense, either.
From compact two-row machinery like the Toyota RAV4, Hyundai Tucson, and Honda CR-V to midsize-three row family fare like the Honda Pilot and Kia Telluride, there’s an immense amount of options out there on the new car market for reasonable prices. But we’re after even-more-reasonable with this selection.
Unfortunately, price increases continue to narrow options, but that still leaves the sleek Buick Envista, as well as recently redesigned versions of the Chevrolet Trax and Hyundai Kona.
Check out our list of the best SUVs as practical, safe, and ultimately, low-cost options.
The 10 Cheapest SUVs on Sale Today
- 2025 Buick Envista
- 2025 Chevrolet Trailblazer
- 2025 Chevrolet Trax
- 2025 Hyundai Kona
- 2025 Hyundai Venue
- 2025 Kia Soul
- 2025 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport
- 2025 Nissan Kicks
- 2025 Toyota Corolla Cross
- 2025 Volkswagen Taos
2025 Buick Envista
Base price: $24,795 MSRP: $23,700 Destination Charge: $1,095
It may come from a semi-premium brand, but the Buick Envista has a rock-bottom price. Including destination, the Envista starts at just $24,795 and offers slick, crossover-coupe styling not unlike a half-price BMW X4. This is a recent addition for the automaker, and it slots in beneath the existing, but smaller, Buick Encore GX SUV. Stylish inside and out, the Envista looks appreciably premium inside, too, with an 8-inch driver display and 11-inch infotainment screen under a single pane of glass, though the interior materials don’t feel as nice as they look.
The Envista is fairly roomy too, but the sloping roof does eat into some of the cargo space, with 20.7 cubic-feet behind the rear seats and 42.0 with them folded, a little less than the related Chevy Trax. Like its Chevy sibling, the Envista comes only with a 137-horsepower 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine mated to a six-speed automatic transmission driving the front wheels. It’s not meant for speed or off-roading, but the Envista looks great and its price is hard to beat.
2025 Chevrolet Trailblazer
Base price: $24,395 MSRP: $23,100 Destination Charge: $1,295
Last year’s Chevrolet Trailblazer got refreshed styling, new colors, and a new dashboard featuring an 11-inch infotainment screen and 8-inch driver display. The screens are a big upgrade over pre-refresh 2023, and the whole package just looks nicer inside and out. It’s a stylish machine loaded with easy-to-use connectivity and a solid overall value. It’s also hugely roomy inside, with more backseat legroom than the Toyota RAV4.
The starting trim’s 1.2-liter turbo three-cylinder engine is shared with the Trax, and it offers decent if unexciting specs for the class. The powerplant's 137 hp and 162 pound-feet of torque are more than enough to get it moving along at a satisfying speed, and there’s an optional 1.3-liter, 155-hp engine if you want it. All-wheel drive (AWD) is available too. Although the modern Trailblazer is much smaller than the 2000s-era version, it still offers impressive cargo space; 25.3 cubic feet behind the second-row seats is more than you’ll find in the Honda HR-V.
2025 Chevrolet Trax
Base price: $21,495 MSRP: $20,400 Destination Charge: $1,095
That’s right, Chevrolet has not one, but two of the least expensive small SUVs. After a brief hiatus, Chevy brought an all-new Trax to market last year and the new model offers a whole lot more value. Amazingly, this Trax is quite a bit larger than either its predecessor or its Trailblazer sibling, and its chiseled looks are much more stylish. However, the base model starts at just $21,495 (including destination) and even mid-tier models kick off below $25,000. That makes the Trax the third cheapest SUVs on the market.
Base models get an 8-inch touchscreen, but the 11-inch unit in the Trailblazer is optional, both with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Wireless charging and a Wi-Fi hotspot are also optional, and the interior looks as pretty as the outside even if there’s plenty of gray and black plastic (as with most SUVs at this price). Despite being 4.5 inches longer overall and close in size to the Honda HR-V, the Trax’s interior and cargo space are similar to the Trailblazer (and also better than the Honda).
The only real downside? For now, you can get the Trax only with the 1.2-liter, 137-hp three-cylinder engine shared with the base-model Trailblazer, so performance isn’t sparkling. But as a way to stretch a budget, the Trax has lots to offer.
2025 Hyundai Kona
Base price: $25,900 MSRP: $24,450 Destination Charge: $1,450
The Hyundai Kona was redesigned last year and sports flashier styling, a bigger footprint and best of all: More room. You’re getting more than before, but a starting price of $24,450 in base trim, you’re also paying noticeably more than 21,000-or-so bucks—like it was just two years ago. Happily, it’s easy to see where the cash went. In addition to the futuristic new exterior, with its pretty accent lighting, the new Kona’s interior also gets lots of upgrades.
A pair of available 12.3-inch screens, for instrumentation and infotainment, are integrated into a single glassy expanse atop the clean-looking dashboard. The new Kona’s back seat is much larger than the old version and, with all the seats folded down, total cargo volume also rises from the previous iteration’s 45.8 cubic-feet to a very appealing 63.7. A few fewer driver-assist features are standard, with blind-spot monitoring now optional.
Under the hood, there’s a standard 147-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and optional 190-hp turbocharged 1.6-liter, with the 2.0 delivering up to 31 mpg combined and the turbo up to 28. AWD is optional on both. Despite its larger size (5.7 inches longer and 2.3 inches wider overall than before), the Kona is still a fairly fun-to-drive little SUV. Plus, it also comes as an electric SUV that we’ll cover in a separate guide.
2025 Hyundai Venue
Base price: $21,550 MSRP: $20,100 Destination Charge: $1,450
Few cars look and feel as charming or as fun as the little Hyundai Venue. Offered with only front-wheel drive (FWD) and a 121-hp, 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine, the 2025 Hyundai Venue’s base trim also delivers an incredibly affordable price tag and a good amount of standard equipment. A truly subcompact SUV, this Hyundai is the the cheapest and smallest SUV on the market. At 159.1 inches long, it’s nearly the same size as a four-door Mini Hardtop.
The Venue’s height means it offers brilliant visibility, an upright seating position, lots of standard features, and a surprisingly spacious cargo area, with 18.7 cubic-feet of space behind the rear seats and 31.9 with them folded. The back seat is small, as you’d expect in such a tiny machine, but smallness has its virtues. The light, lithe Venue can park nearly anywhere, it handles well, and it returns 31 mpg combined. Best of all, shoppers can pick up a Venue for only $21,550. Now that’s what we call a budget-friendly SUV.
2025 Kia Soul
Base price: $21,885 MSRP: $20,490 Destination Charge: $1,395
The Kia Soul, made famous by those catchy commercials and the driving hamsters, delivers plenty of style, loads of room, and some pretty good driving dynamics, too. Like the Venue, the Kia Soul is not offered with AWD, and given its relatively low ground clearance, this cheap SUV is arguably something other than an SUV entirely. But, thanks to its big hatchback proportions, we’re not sure we’d classify it as anything other than a crossover.
Either way, the Soul includes Kia’s impressive UVO infotainment touchscreen, and the base’s sub-$21,000 MSRP is hard to beat, too. The Soul’s tiny footprint belies its interior room. It has more rear legroom than a RAV4 or a Nissan Rogue, and it offers lots of cargo space too. There are 24.2 cubic-feet behind the rear seats and 62.1 with them folded, making it one of the most capacious vehicles on this list despite being one of the smallest on the outside.
2025 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport
Base price: $25,240 MSRP: $23,745 Destination Charge: $1,495
Mitsubishi knows its bread is buttered in the low-cost, high-value corners of the auto market. The Outlander Sport is a prime example. Although it’s been restyled at least three times and had numerous updates since it first debuted way back in 2010, the Outlander Sport is the oldest crossover design on the market now, and it feels that way inside. It’s no less popular than it used to be, but it feels cheap inside, isn’t all that fun to drive, and can only manage 27 mpg combined. Doesn't sound too appealing, right? Well, there are some value points in its favor.
Mitsubishi offers standard AWD, a feature that’s usually a costly option elsewhere (notably, the very fresh Subaru Crosstrek costs about $2,000 more), and an attractive design that was last updated in 2021. Better still, the company offers one of the best warranties in the industry, with five years or 60,000 miles of limited warranty coverage plus ten years or 100,000 miles of powertrain coverage, matching the offerings of Hyundai and Kia.
2025 Nissan Kicks
Base price: $23,220 MSRP: $21,830 Destination Charge: $1,390
For a moment, Nissan had a couple of low-cost SUVs, but the Japanese automaker discontinued the old and uninspiring Rogue Sport in 2022. Happily, the redesigned Nissan Kicks remains as an affordable SUV option. The FWD Kicks starts at $21,830 in its lowest trim level, a price only a handful of other SUVs can beat. Shoppers will appreciate the Kicks’ stylish, almost coupe-like, design and easy-to-use technology, which includes Nissan’s driver-assistance features (called Nissan Safety Shield 360).
Like the larger Nissan Rogue, the Kicks scores high on fuel efficiency, capable of up to 31 mpg combined and 35 on the highway. It’s not particularly fun to drive, but it does benefit from a new 140-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine paired with powered by a 122-hp, 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine. The Kicks's standard configuration is FWD, but AWD is avaialable.
There’s plenty of room up front too, and the cargo area is a definite bonus. It measures 30 cubic-feet, a figure that balloons to 60 cubic feet when the seat is folded.
2025 Toyota Corolla Cross
Base price: $25,385 MSRP: $24,035 Destination Charge: $1,350
If there is a prime example of the SUVs taking over the market, the Toyota Corolla Cross is it. Although the Corolla nameplate is undeniably famous, the Corolla Cross SUV looks like the future of low-cost car ownership. More practical than the compact sedan version in essentially every way, the Corolla Cross delivers a decent amount of cargo space, and an impressive array of standard safety features, including standard adaptive cruise control. It’s stylish, too, at least on the outside.
The Corolla Cross’ interior is decidedly more plain, and while cargo room is okay, the back seat is fairly small considering this SUV’s overall size (it’s almost a foot longer than the much roomier Kia Soul). The Corolla Cross borrows its 2.0-liter, 169-hp engine and continuously variable transmission (CVT) from its sedan sister, but in both vehicles, this is a fairly coarse, noisy engine. Despite this, it possesses a surprisingly fun driving experience. Back in the 2023 model year, Toyota launched a smoother, quieter and more powerful Corolla Cross hybrid, but it also starts at more than $28,000 but comes with standard AWD.
This little crossover brings Toyota’s long rep for reliability and a whole bunch of standard features you won’t find elsewhere at this price. It’s worth a test drive.
2025 Volkswagen Taos
Base price: $26,420 MSRP: $24,995 Destination Charge: $1,425
Effectively a replacement for the discontinued Golf (though not the GTI), the Volkswagen Taos translates the sharp styling of the German automaker’s larger SUVs into a more compact, affordable package. Amazingly, the Taos has a slightly larger back seat than the bigger Tiguan and just about as much total cargo space (65.9 cubic-feet compared to the Tiguan's 65.3), though it does not offer a tiny third-row option like its bigger brother.
Like the Buick Envista, the Taos’ cabin looks modern and sophisticated but it’s slightly let down by some the plastic materials, which feel built to a cost. A small-ish 6.5-inch infotainment screen is standard but an 8-inch unit is optional. What’s not optional, happily, are lots of active-safety features including blind-spot monitoring and adaptive cruise control, both of which cost extra on many other SUVs at this price.
The Taos’ 1.5-liter, 174-hp four-cylinder engine isn’t wildly powerful and the Taos isn’t as athletic a handler as the Golf was, but it’s not a bad driver and AWD is optional. FWD versions get good EPA-rated fuel economy, to 31 mpg combined, but AWD ones fall to 28. All told, the Taos is a stylish, roomy choice with enough standard gear to make it a good value.
