How much should I spend on a screen protector?
£8–£25 covers almost everyone. Below £8 you usually lose the oleophobic coating and it smears permanently. Above £25 you're buying a warranty, a better applicator, or a speciality finish.
The honest answer is that the useful range is narrow, and both ends of the market are worse value than the middle. Between about £8 and £25 covers nearly everyone, and knowing what changes at each threshold is more useful than a single recommended figure.
Below £8: the coating is what you lose
Very cheap protectors aren't usually worse glass. Tempered glass is a commodity, and the base material in a £4 three-pack is often much the same as the material in a £15 single. What gets cut is the oleophobic coating.
That coating is a fluoropolymer layer a few nanometres thick, applied by vapour deposition, that repels skin oil. It's a genuine manufacturing cost and it's invisible on the shelf, which makes it the obvious corner to cut. A protector without it looks perfect for a week and then holds a permanent greasy smear that no amount of wiping clears, because the oil is wetting the surface not beading on it.
This is the single most common regret in budget multipacks, and it isn't something you can assess from photographs. If a listing doesn't mention an oleophobic or hydrophobic coating at all, assume there isn't one.
£10 to £25: the sweet spot
This band buys tempered glass with a working coating, accurate model-specific cutouts, and, increasingly. An alignment tray in the box. The tray matters more than people expect: it converts fitting from a nervous freehand operation into something repeatable, and a badly aligned protector is the other main reason people end up dissatisfied.
Multipacks in this range are genuinely good value, and not only on price per unit. A spare in a drawer means a cracked protector gets replaced the same week instead of lived with for six months, which is what usually happens when replacement requires a fresh purchase and a wait for delivery.
Above £25: what you're actually buying
Spending more doesn't buy dramatically better impact protection. It buys one of four specific things.
A lifetime replacement warranty, as ZAGG and some others offer. These are real, but read the terms: most require registration and a postage fee per claim, which makes them worth having and not worth paying a large premium for.
A speciality finish — privacy, matte, paper-feel, where you're paying for a manufacturing process rather than better glass. These are worth full price if you want the effect.
A UV liquid-adhesive kit for a curved screen, where the price covers the adhesive, the lamp and the packaging, and there's no cheaper way to get full edge-to-edge contact.
Or a brand premium. Some of it buys better quality control on cutouts, which isn't nothing. Some of it's just the name.
The shape of the value curve
The jump from no protector to a competent £10 one is enormous. You've gone from an exposed £900 display to a sacrificial layer. The jump from £10 to £30 is real but modest, mostly in coating longevity and fitting ease. The jump from £30 to £60 is close to flat unless you're buying a specific speciality.
Buy in the middle. Buy a multipack if one exists for your model. Spend the difference on a case, which protects the corners that a screen protector can't.
Common mistakes
Three protectors with no oleophobic coating are three that will smear. Judge the quality of one unit first and let the count be the tie-breaker.
A lifetime warranty is worth little if the phone leaves before the protector does. Match the spend to how long you keep devices.
Related questions
Do I actually need a screen protector?
If your phone is under two years old or you carry it in a pocket with keys, yes — a £10 protector is cheap against a £150+ screen repair. Modern phone glass resists scratches well but still chips on impact.
What does 9H actually mean on a screen protector?
9H refers to the Mohs-adjacent pencil hardness scale, where 9H is the hardest graphite pencil that won't scratch the surface. It's a marketing figure — nearly every tempered-glass protector claims it, and it says nothing about impact resistance.
Should I buy a multipack or a single screen protector?
Multipack, in most cases. A spare in the drawer means a cracked protector gets replaced the same week not lived with for months, and it removes the pressure from a first fitting attempt.