Ukuleles
Are ukulele starter kits worth it?
A bundle is a pricing decision dressed up as a convenience. Sometimes that decision is in your favor, and it is worth knowing which times those are.
By Sawyer V. · Published · Last updated
Search for a first ukulele and roughly half the results are bundles: the instrument plus a bag, a tuner, a strap, picks, spare strings, a cloth and a chord chart, for a number that looks like a saving. Sometimes it is. More often it is a way of selling a mediocre instrument by surrounding it with things that cost almost nothing to include.
The picks here state their Starter Path band, and we have not physically tested any of them.
Judge the bundle by the instrument alone. If you would buy that ukulele at that price with nothing attached, the extras are a genuine bonus. If you would not, the bundle is a way of distracting you from a nut, a saddle and a set of tuners that are not good enough.
The one rule
Cover up the accessory list and look at the instrument. That is the entire test.
A gig bag, a tuner, a strap and a pack of picks have a low combined cost to a seller buying them by the pallet. The ukulele is where the money is, and it is where the money gets saved. A bundle that leads with the accessories is telling you which part it wants you looking at.
The mirror version of this argument for electric guitars is in are guitar starter packs worth it, and the conclusion is the same for the same reason.
What is genuinely worth having in the box
A gig bag. The most useful bundled item by a distance. What damages a ukulele in a home is not a fall; it is the room. A dry winter house shrinks the top and a damp one swells it, and a bag slows both changes down while the instrument is not being played. See ukulele care and humidity.
A clip-on tuner. The second most useful. A Snark clip-on chromatic tuner#ad reads pitch through vibration in the headstock rather than through a microphone, so it works in a room with a television on, and it is chromatic, so the same tuner covers every stringed instrument in the house. If the bundled tuner is a no-name clip-on, it will usually do for a few months and then the clip breaks.
Good strings, if they are named. If the listing says Aquila, that is a real inclusion. The Kala KA-15S#ad ships with Aquila Super Nylgut fitted from the factory, which is the upgrade most people make in month two already done.
What is filler
Spare strings you cannot identify. Almost always plain nylon, which is duller, quieter and slower to settle than Aquila Super Nylgut ukulele strings#ad. Keep them as an emergency set for the day one breaks and buy a proper set when you actually restring.
Picks. Most ukulele playing is done with fingers and a thumb. Felt picks have their uses; a handful of plastic guitar picks in a ukulele bundle is packaging.
A chord poster. Free online, in better form, with audio.
A cleaning cloth. A cloth.
The full list of what a beginner really needs, in priority order, is in ukulele accessories you actually need.
The case where the bundle genuinely wins
A child under about eight, where the instrument is going to be treated like a toy because at that age it is one.
The Enya Nova U Mini#ad ships with a semi-hard case, a strap, a capo and spare strings as standard, and the instrument itself is a composite body that does not crack in a dry house. That is a bundle where the extras are matched to the buyer rather than padding the listing, and the case in particular stops being optional the moment the ukulele leaves the house in a school bag.
The second case is a classroom or a group class, where one purchase has to cover several players and a tuner per instrument is genuinely required. We work through that scenario in best ukuleles for classrooms.
How to price a bundle honestly
Find the same ukulele sold on its own. Subtract. What remains is what you are paying for the accessories, and you can then ask whether you would have bought those accessories separately at that figure.
Very often the answer is yes for the bag and the tuner and no for everything else, which means a small bundle is fine and a large one is not. A bundle with eleven items in it is not eleven times better than a bundle with two.
If the instrument in the bundle is unbranded and the listing does not publish scale length, nut material or string brand, that omission is the answer. Brands confident in their specifications print them, and the ones that hide behind a photograph and a color name are telling you something. That is the same line we draw in are cheap ukuleles worth it.
What we would do
Buy the instrument on its merits, then add a tuner and a bag. For an adult that usually means a concert; for a child it means the composite soprano and its included case. Either way, the instrument decides and the accessories follow — never the other way around.
What actually arrives in the box with a ukulele bought on its own varies more than people expect, and we itemize it in what comes with a ukulele.
What we would buy
Kala KA-15S
Kala Brand MusicBest for: The honest floor, soprano
Mahogany throughout, a GraphTech NuBone nut and saddle, and Aquila strings fitted from the factory. The nut material is the spec that separates this from the pile of look-alikes.
Published specifications
- Size:
- Soprano
- Top / back / sides:
- Mahogany
- Neck / fretboard:
- Mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard
- Nut and saddle:
- GraphTech NuBone
- Scale length:
- 13.625"
- Frets:
- 12
- Nut width:
- 1.375"
- Overall length:
- 21.062"
- Strings:
- Aquila Super Nylgut
What it gets right
- NuBone nut and saddle rather than molded plastic — this is what decides whether the instrument plays in tune up the neck
- Aquila strings fitted at the factory, so the first thing you would otherwise replace is already done
- 21 inches overall and light enough for a small child to hold unsupported
Where it gives ground
- 12 frets only, and the body joint stops you well short of the high notes
- Soprano scale means less room between frets — adult fingers with wide fingertips will find it cramped
What it is not good at
Adult hands, sometimes. A 13.625 inch scale is genuinely tight. If the player is a grown-up with large hands, read our soprano-versus-concert comparison before buying this size.
How the specs score against a beginner’s needs
Scores are our reading of the published specifications above against what a beginner physically needs. They are not test results — we have not played this instrument.
Specifications from Kala Brand Music — KA-15S specifications.
Enya Nova U Mini
EnyaBest for: Young kids, survives anything
A 21 inch carbon-fiber-and-polycarbonate body weighing 430 grams. It is water resistant and it does not care about humidity, which is the honest reason to buy it for a six-year-old.
Published specifications
- Size:
- Soprano, 21"
- Top / back / sides:
- 30% carbon fiber and polycarbonate composite
- Weight:
- 430 g (0.9 lb)
- Overall length:
- 22"
- Nut width:
- 1-3/8"
- Body:
- Arched back, radius fretboard, cutaway
- In the box:
- Semi-hard case, strap, capo, spare strings
What it gets right
- Composite body — it does not crack in a dry house or swell in a damp one, which is what actually kills cheap wooden ukuleles
- 430 grams; a five-year-old can carry it around by the neck all day, and they will
- Case, strap, capo and spare strings included
Where it gives ground
- It does not sound like wood, and no amount of playing will change that
- The composite body is a fixed quantity — there is no breaking-in and no improvement over time
What it is not good at
Tone. A mahogany Kala sounds warmer and fuller, plainly. You are buying survivability, and that is a legitimate thing to buy for a young child, but be clear that is the trade.
How the specs score against a beginner’s needs
Scores are our reading of the published specifications above against what a beginner physically needs. They are not test results — we have not played this instrument.
Specifications from Enya Music — Nova carbon fiber ukulele collection.
Snark clip-on chromatic tuner
SnarkBest for: Tuning anything with strings
Clips to the headstock and reads pitch from the vibration of the wood, so it works in a noisy room and an adult who plays nothing can tune the instrument in twenty seconds.
Published specifications
- Type:
- Clip-on chromatic
- Sensing:
- Vibration through the headstock, not the microphone
- Fits:
- Guitar, bass, ukulele, violin, mandolin
- Display:
- Full-color rotating screen
What it gets right
- Vibration sensing means it works in a room with a television on, which a microphone tuner does not
- Chromatic, so one tuner covers every instrument in the house
- The rotating display means it reads correctly whichever way the instrument is held
Where it gives ground
- The clip is plastic and it is the part that eventually breaks
- Battery-powered, and it will be flat the one time you need it in a hurry
What it is not good at
Wind and brass instruments. It reads vibration through a solid body, so there is nothing for it to clip to on a flute or a trumpet.
How the specs score against a beginner’s needs
Scores are our reading of the published specifications above against what a beginner physically needs. They are not test results — we have not played this instrument.
Specifications from Snark tuners (retail listing with published feature set).
Aquila Super Nylgut ukulele strings
AquilaBest for: The cheapest real upgrade
The string set most good ukuleles ship with from the factory, and the single most transformative thing you can do to an inexpensive one that did not.
Published specifications
- Material:
- Super Nylgut synthetic
- Tuning:
- Standard GCEA
- Fits:
- Soprano, concert or tenor — buy the set for your size
What it gets right
- Louder and brighter than the generic nylon fitted to cheap ukuleles, with far more sustain
- They settle and hold pitch faster than plain nylon, which shortens the miserable first week of constant retuning
- Cheap enough that it is the obvious first upgrade on any instrument that did not come with them
Where it gives ground
- Sets are size-specific, and a soprano set on a tenor will not reach
- New strings of any kind stretch for a few days before they settle
What it is not good at
Fixing a bad instrument. New strings cure a dull sound; they do nothing for intonation error, which is built into the bridge position and cannot be strung out.
How the specs score against a beginner’s needs
Scores are our reading of the published specifications above against what a beginner physically needs. They are not test results — we have not played this instrument.
Specifications from Kala Brand Music — KA-15S, fitted with Aquila Super Nylgut from the factory.
Questions people actually ask
Are ukulele starter kits worth buying?
Sometimes. A bundle is worth it when the bundled instrument is one you would have bought anyway and the extras are a case and a tuner. It is not worth it when an unbranded ukulele is being padded out with items that cost the seller almost nothing.
What should come with a beginner ukulele?
A gig bag, a clip-on tuner and decent strings. Everything else in a typical bundle — picks, a strap, a spare set of low-grade strings, a cleaning cloth, a chord poster — is filler you may or may not use.
Do you need a case for a ukulele?
A gig bag, yes. It is the single most useful bundled item, because the thing that damages a ukulele is a dry or damp room rather than a fall, and a bag slows both down.
Are the strings in a ukulele bundle any good?
Usually not. Bundled spare strings are generally plain nylon, which is duller and slower to settle than the Aquila sets good ukuleles ship with. Treat a bundled spare set as a backup, not an upgrade.
Sources
Still deciding?
Every recommendation on this site is built the same way, and the method is published in full — including what we do not do and what would get a pick dropped.
Read next
- Ukulele accessories you actually need
The three items that genuinely matter, the best cheap upgrade, and what a bundle is really padding with.
- Are cheap ukuleles worth it?
The intonation failure that cannot be repaired, what causes it, and the two specs that tell you whether an instrument has it.
- What comes with a ukulele, and what you still need
What is really in the box, what the bundle accessories are worth, and the three things you genuinely need.
- Best beginner ukuleles: what's worth it from $60 to $120
Segmented by hand size rather than price, with the nut-material spec that separates a real ukulele from a decoration.
- Are guitar starter packs worth it?
Which pack contents hold up, which get replaced within a month, and the four-item alternative that costs about the same.