Buying the right motorcycle helmet at the right price

Published 9 April 2026
Last updated 9 April 2026

Selecting a motorcycle helmet within your price range is easy once you know a few basic facts. In this short article, our friends at SHARP will help you to evaluate the options based on your budget.

In the UK, you must wear a motorcycle helmet when riding a motorcycle or a moped. How much you pay for your helmet though is down to you. There’s a natural assumption that a premium-priced product must be “better” than one at a much lower price, but when it comes to helmets and safety, this is often untrue. Try to avoid the pressure of thinking you need to pay more for higher protection.

Regardless of price, if a new helmet is labelled as UNECE 22.06 it is a legal helmet. The UNECE 22.06 label means it has been approved as a safe helmet; in other words, the design has passed a series of tests confirming its basic safety performance. However, when buying an expensive helmet, you may not be able to tell what features (if any) have been included for additional protection. At the same time, it might not be clear if any extra protection has been left out to compensate for the cost of other features. 

What this means is that you can buy a helmet for £100 and it can be just as safe as a £600 helmet, because an expensive helmet may only provide the bare minimum of safety. 

Confused? This is where we come in! The SHARP scheme exists to help motorcyclists make sense of this. The SHARP star rating is a simple way to understand how much more protection a helmet offers beyond the legal minimum.

Is a cheap helmet an unsafe helmet?

Every year, we test some of the most popular helmets in all price brackets. Each helmet is then given a star rating of between 1 and 5, with a 5-star helmet providing a lot more protection than a 1-star helmet. 

After decades of testing hundreds of helmets, we’ve proven that there’s no connection between a SHARP star rating and the price of a helmet. A low-cost helmet is just as likely to achieve a top 5-star rating as an expensive helmet.

So, keep this in mind when you’re buying a new helmet and remember that price is not always an indicator of safety. A budget price helmet can have 4 or 5 stars. An expensive helmet can have a low star rating.

Will a premium price helmet offer better protection?

The price of a helmet is affected by many things, but the most important factors are

• the materials used in its construction, such as a thermo-plastic vs carbon fibre shell
• the features of the helmet design, for instance a modular or system helmet vs a full face helmet
• additional components supplied with the helmet, such as communications systems
• the sales and marketing strategy of the brand (for example, limited editions or models sold widely in Europe at low profit margins).

None of these things affect the safety of the helmet, only the price of the helmet.

How can I tell if a helmet is good value?

With the introduction of the new safety standard UNECE 22.06, manufacturers have had to invest heavily in research and production to meet the higher safety requirements. This has meant that the average price of new helmets has risen. Manufacturers commonly recommend replacing a helmet every 5 years, depending on usage, wear, and care. This is not a legal requirement, but a common industry guideline based on typical material degradation over time. However, helmets also now frequently come with 5, or even 7-year warranties. It might help to think of the price of a helmet like an insurance policy, spread over 5 or more years of use.

Choosing safely

In terms of safety quality, the only way to know how a helmet would perform in a collision is to check if SHARP has tested it and given it a star rating. It takes just a few seconds on the website and can help you make a final choice. If a helmet fits well and is comfortable, a helmet with a star rating is a reassuring sign that you’ve made the safest choice for your budget.

Whether you’re just starting to learn to ride or you’re a seasoned rider, you’ll find more advice and guidance in the Safe Driving for Life advice section. And remember, our shop is the go-to place for learner riders preparing for the theory and practical tests. You’ll find the number one best-selling Theory Test and Hazard Perception Kit for Motorcyclists e-learning, as well as the industry standard riding manual, The Official DVSA Guide to Riding – the essential skills. Happy browsing! 

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