5 Best Electric Guitars Under $5000 (roundup)

Image via Wild West Guitars

You're doing alright for yourself if you can afford a $5000 electric guitar. You're also probably a pro-level player who knows a lot about the industry and a lot about what you want out of an instrument. So this list is simply going to serve as a tool and loose guidelines, showing you some of the best electric guitars under 5000 dollars, though with plenty of room to read between the lines.

Best Electric Guitars Under 5000 Dollars

PRS McCarty 594

Best Overall

You'll have trouble finding a nicer electric guitar that can handle a wider range of styles. You get versatility and as much attention to detail as possible. Made by hand in the United States.

Gibson Les Paul Custom

Best for Rock and Metal

Very high playability and responsive to touch and picking dynamics. Lots of iconic appeal and elegance as well. 

PRS Custom 24

Best for Versatility

Nothing that PRS makes in this price range is going to be a bad deal. The Custom 24 is one of the nicest guitars on the planet, and we love it for its versatility and heavy, modern rock profile.

Fender Custom Shop Eric Clapton Stratocaster

Best for Blues

For lead styles built on sweet and bluesy tones, it's hard to beat Eric Clapton's Custom Shop Strat.

Ibanez Joe Satriani Signature JS1CR - Chrome Boy

Best for Speed

Incredibly slick look and fantastic tone with the Sustainiac/humbucker pickup combination.

Which features matter most?

In this price range you should expect everything to be top dollar and the highest possible quality grade. Parts, electronics, pickups, tonewood, construction methods - all of this should be without compromise. You should also expect that your particular guitar is made by hand, or at least has a healthy dose of first-hand attention to detail.

However, it's also true that most of the quality indicators for a $5000 electric guitar are about the same as the $2000 electric guitar. At the end of the day, it's a piece of wood with some electronics and strings. Complexity and variety eventually run out. As such, we recommend focusing on the following list of quality indicators.

What to Look For

• Pickups/humbuckers: Should be specialty pickups or built by a third party (Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, etc.)
• Tonewood recipe: Should have high grade tonewood in the body and in the top piece (if the guitar uses a top piece)
• High grade hardware: No stock or filler parts
• High grade electronics, setup by hand: Nothing factory or without a high degree of customization
• Customization: High degrees of customization should set these guitars apart from the typical stock variety of other guitars in lower price ranges

Keep in mind, in a guitar this expensive, a lot of what you pay for is the novelty and the nuanced levels of customization, particularly in signature guitars like the Eric Clapton model. For it to be worth the added expense, you should be able to recognize and appreciate the novelty of the guitar and the subtle customizations that have been made. 

How did we choose?

We used all of those factors to analyze and choose the best electric guitars under 5000 dollars. First, we filtered out the less reputable brands and went only with leading manufacturers that have been producing great electric guitars for decades. We also avoided boutique guitar builders in an effort to appeal to as many people as possible, primarily focusing on the following brands:

• Fender
• PRS
• Ibanez
• Gibson

From within these brands we filtered by price, focusing on the best-selling guitars between $4500 and $5000. Among those best sellers, we looked for guitars that fit our aforementioned quality standards:

• Humbuckers from reputable third party
• High degree of customization
• High ratings and accolades from the community
• No stock or "processed" parts of any kind

After going through all these filters, we were left with just a few guitars that fit our requirements. 

And while this list isn't comprehensive, we think it definitely gives you some solid direction to go in and some great options to start with. 

More Electric Guitar Roundups

In this section we've added some content that might be helpful to you as you research electric guitars, either in this price range or another.