London Hotels Under 100 Pounds A Night: Where They Still Exist

A hundred pounds a night was once a comfortable central London budget. Market data shows how far the whole city has moved: London hotels averaged £214.90 a night in August across all star levels, per RSM's tracker, a figure that includes luxury and is a long way from a budget rate. Against that backdrop, a sub-100 room is still genuinely available, just not everywhere. We sorted the 42 stays on the roster at Cheap Hotels London by their lowest sampled rate, and 18 private-room stays, budget hotels and aparthotels, start under £100. The cheapest of them is the Dolphin Hotel in Paddington at £49 per night, and the choice is widest in Stratford and along the Piccadilly line west of the centre.

Two honest caveats before the tables. A "from" price here is the lowest rate on the dates we sampled, one-night stays checked month by month, and the live rate varies by date and availability, so nothing here guarantees a room at that price on your nights. And this page covers private rooms only: the hostels on the roster are compared separately in our guide to the best hostels in London, where dorm beds start at £14 per bed per night.

Which Stays On The Roster Start Under 100 Pounds?

Eighteen private-room stays have a lowest sampled rate under £100: two under £60, eleven between £60 and £79, and five between £80 and £99. The budget hotels dominate, with five aparthotel options and one capsule-style hotel mixed in. Areas matter more than star ratings: nine of the eighteen sit in Zones 2 or 3, and the cheapest band is Paddington and Stratford territory.

That distribution is the real story of this page. The sub-100 supply is not spread evenly across London. Stratford contributes three stays on its own, Paddington and Bayswater another three, and the rest cluster in King's Cross, Camden, Earl's Court, Greenwich and Victoria. Nothing in Shoreditch or the South Bank makes the cut: the cheapest stay in the South Bank, Waterloo and London Bridge area on our roster is a hostel dorm at £15 per bed, while its cheapest private room starts at £117.

The full list, sorted by the lowest sampled rate, with each rating printed on the listing's own scale and its review count beside it:

Read the ratings with the review counts in mind. The Dolphin Hotel's 3.7 from 845 reviews is a middling score from a decent pool; Aptel East's 4.4 comes from 215 reviews; and Bob W Earl's Court's 7.3 comes from 633. None of these are small enough to disregard, but none supports a superlative either. What the table does show is that paying under £100 does not force you into a poorly reviewed room: Snoozebox Olympic Park carries 7.7 across 7,517 reviews, and St. Athans 8 across 1,824.

For a quick feel of the three price bands before we go through them one by one:

Which Stays Start Under 60 Pounds?

Only two roster stays have a lowest sampled rate under £60: the Dolphin Hotel in Paddington at £49 and Hotel DC in Stratford at £53. Both are budget hotels with private bathrooms, both sit five minutes or less from a rail station on foot, and both sampled dramatically higher in peak months, £149 and £81 respectively at the top of their ranges.

The Dolphin Hotel is the lowest sampled private-room rate on the entire roster: £49 per night, five minutes' walk from Paddington station, 32 minutes to Charing Cross by public transport. The listing shows single, double, twin, triple, quadruple and family rooms, all with private bathrooms, breakfast paid separately. Its sampled monthly range runs from that £49 low in January to £149 in October, which tells you the sub-60 window is narrow and seasonal. Its rating is 3.7 out of 5 across 845 reviews on the listing, so it is a price decision more than a comfort one.

Hotel DC in Stratford trades centrality for price. Zone 3, thirteen minutes' walk from Forest Gate station, 47 minutes to Charing Cross, and a sampled range of £58 to £81 across the year, the tightest spread in the under-60 band. It scores 4.3 out of 5 across 523 reviews, lists family rooms with private bathrooms, and the listing notes mention air conditioning and a lift. For a reader whose 100 pound cap is truly fixed, this is the stay most likely to stay under it in every month we sampled.

The under-60 band is where the honesty framing matters most. A £49 from price is not a £49 room on a Saturday in October. The Dolphin's own monthly samples prove the point: the same property that opens at £49 in the cheapest month sampled reaches £149 in the dearest. If your dates are fixed and fall in a peak month, jump ahead to the month table further down this page before assuming anything.

What Does 60 To 79 Pounds Buy?

Eleven roster stays sit in the £60 to £79 band, and it is the widest and most varied slice of the sub-100 market: three in Stratford, two in Paddington, two in King's Cross, and single entries in Greenwich, Bloomsbury, Earl's Court, Camden and Hammersmith. Six of the eleven have private bathrooms throughout; the rest print shared-bathroom or not-stated fields.

This is the band where you can start choosing on factors other than price. The Epsilon Hotel in Stratford, £65 from, 7.8 across 3,311 reviews, sits ten minutes' walk from Maryland station and offers family rooms with private bathrooms. The Snoozebox Olympic Park, a minute from Pudding Mill Lane DLR, starts at £66 with 7.7 across 7,517 reviews, one of the largest review pools in this band, though its sampled range tops out at £89 and its rooms are a single standard double type.

In Zone 1, the trade-offs shift. The Princess Hotel near King's Cross starts at £62 but lists basic rooms with shared bathrooms and scores 4.1 out of 5 across 511 reviews. The Alhambra, five minutes from King's Cross St. Pancras at £76 from, carries 8 out of 10 across 3,667 reviews and offers six room types from singles with shared bathrooms up to quadruples. St. Athans in Bloomsbury, £75 from, is 21 minutes to Charing Cross, the best central position in the whole band, and scores 8 across 1,824 reviews, though its room list is entirely shared-bathroom types.

The band's two aparthotels add kitchens to the equation. Staycity Deptford Bridge, £69 from, 4.6 out of 5 across 1,362 reviews, three minutes' walk from its DLR station, offers studios and one-bedroom apartments with kitchen facilities, which quietly cuts food costs on a longer stay. Bob W Earl's Court, £76 from, lists compact rooms with kitchenettes and the listing notes air conditioning and a lift.

One guest review on the Alhambra's listing reads: "The property was in a great location. It is a short walk to the train station." That is the practical case for this band in a sentence: you are buying position and a review base, not space.

What Does 80 To 99 Pounds Buy?

Five stays fill the £80 to £99 band, and it is the most central slice of the sub-100 market: four of the five are in Zone 1, including two within eleven minutes' walk of Victoria station. The band includes the Z Hotel Victoria at £87 and two Zone 1 aparthotels with kitchens at £97, so the extra twenty pounds over the mid band buys centrality and self-catering rather than more luxury.

The Dover Hotel B&B in Pimlico, £82 from, 7.4 across 2,401 reviews, is eleven minutes' walk from Victoria and 26 minutes to Charing Cross, with double and family rooms and a lift. The Z Hotel Victoria, £87 from, is even closer, five minutes from the station and 21 minutes to Charing Cross, tied for the fastest central commute on the entire roster. Its rating is 4.2 out of 5 across 1,785 reviews, and its room list is double rooms without windows with private bathrooms, so read the room type carefully before booking.

The Prince Arthur in Camden, £79 from, just clips the top of the previous band and is worth naming here because it straddles the two. Seven minutes from Euston, 26 minutes to Charing Cross, 7.5 out of 10 across 1,117 reviews, with twin and studio rooms with shared bathrooms and a kitchen. Its sampled range of £79 to £99 is the flattest in the central group, meaning it holds under the cap in every month sampled.

At the top of the band, Studios2Let North Gower, £97 from, three minutes from Euston Square, offers studio rooms with kitchens at 7.7 across 2,506 reviews. Aptel East in Tower Hamlets, also £97 from, offers a standard studio with kitchen and lift but carries only 215 reviews at 4.4 out of 5. Mowbray Court Hotel in Earl's Court, £92 from, 7.6 across 3,644 reviews, is two minutes from Earl's Court station with private bathrooms and paid breakfast, the most review-established stay in the band. Our guide to cheap places to stay in Earl's Court and Kensington covers that cluster in more detail.

How Much Do Sub-100 Rates Move Through The Year?

On the dates sampled, the median private-room rate across budget hotels and aparthotels runs from £81 in January to £156 in October, a spread of £75 at the median alone. Dorm beds, by comparison, stay between £20 and £34 across the same twelve months. Individual sub-100 properties move harder than the median: the Dolphin Hotel's sampled range is £49 to £149, and Urbany Hostel's dorm range runs to £147.

The month series below is built from one-night check-ins on the third Wednesday of each month, so it is a sampling, not a market-wide study. But the pattern is consistent enough to plan around: January is the cheapest month sampled for private rooms by a wide margin, well below the next cheapest month, and the autumn months, September and October, are the dearest at £150 and £156.

Notice the last column. The number of stays with a price at all falls from 24 in the cheap months to 18 in September and October. In the dearest months, some properties simply have no bookable rate in the sample, and the ones that remain skew expensive. That is the quiet mechanism behind a hard cap failing in autumn: it is not only that prices rise, it is that the cheap inventory thins out. Our guide to the cheapest months to stay in London works through this series in more depth.

For the sub-100 reader the arithmetic is blunt. In the months where the median is £123 or higher, November, December, April through July, September and October, a sub-100 private room is a below-median find, and the from prices in the tables above are less likely to be live. In January, February, March and August, when the median is £81 to £104, several of the eighteen stays should sit under the cap simultaneously. Check availability for your dates rather than trusting any single figure.

Does Staying In Zone 2 Or 3 Actually Cost Less Overall?

Yes, on both counts: the two cheapest private-room areas on the roster, Greenwich at a £64.50 median and Stratford at £65, both sit outside Zone 1, while the travel penalty for commuting in stays capped. TfL lists an adult daily cap of £8.90 for Zones 1 to 2 and £10.50 for Zones 1 to 3, a difference of just £1.60 a day.

Run the arithmetic on Hotel DC versus the Alhambra. Hotel DC samples from £53 and sits in Zone 3, so a day of travel centred on Zone 1 is capped at £10.50. The Alhambra samples from £76 and is in Zone 1, where a day of Zones 1 to 2 travel is capped at £8.90. On the from prices alone the Zone 3 base is £23 a night cheaper, and the higher travel cap claws back £1.60 of that. Even in months where the gap narrows, the transport penalty for Stratford, Greenwich or Hammersmith rarely approaches the room saving. TfL's published caps are what we quote; check TfL for current fares before you travel.

The table uses each area's private-room figures for the sub-100 stays only, so it is a fair like-for-like read of where the cap works. The trade is time, not money: Stratford's median of 44 minutes to Charing Cross against Earl's Court's 25 is roughly an extra 40 minutes a day of commuting for a £27 median saving on the room. Our guide to London travel zones and Oyster caps for choosing where to stay lays out the full zone logic.

One more cost line worth knowing: no visitor levy is charged in London yet. The government has said mayors will be given the power to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy, charged as a percentage of the cost of accommodation rather than a flat fee, with a Bill to follow, so there is no nightly tax to add to these figures at present. UK hotel accommodation is charged at the 20% standard VAT rate, and whether a listed price includes VAT is shown on the live listing.

What Are You Giving Up Under 100 Pounds?

Across the eighteen sub-100 stays, the recurring trade-offs are shared bathrooms, windowless rooms and unstated cancellation terms. Five stays print shared-bathroom room types, the Z Hotel Victoria sells doubles without windows, and free cancellation is flagged yes on only one sub-100 row, the hostels' listings, while most budget hotels print Not stated. Breakfast is paid, not included, wherever it is stated at all.

The Princess Hotel's room names say "with Shared Bathroom" in the type itself; the Alhambra's and St. Athans's single and double types also print it, but both also offer room types where the field is not stated, so the room name is the contract. The Dolphin Hotel's row shows private bathrooms throughout, which at £49 from is the single best hardware fact on this page. The Z Hotel Victoria's "Double Room without Window" is exactly what it says. Nothing in these rows is hidden; the work is in reading the room type rather than the hotel name.

Cancellation is the quiet one. The free cancellation flag is printed yes on every hostel row in the roster, but on the budget hotel rows it is overwhelmingly Not stated, which does not mean no, it means the listing does not state it and the live listing's policy at checkout is the only authority. If a flexible date matters to you, that is a check to make before booking, not after. Our guide to London hotel deposits, cancellation and check-in rules collects what the rows do state.

Facilities, by contrast, are better than the price suggests in places. Air conditioning is mentioned in the listing notes for Hotel DC, Snoozebox Olympic Park, Zedwell Greenwich, Staycity Deptford Bridge, Bob W Earl's Court and Aptel East, which covers most of the newer builds in the sub-100 set. Kitchens or kitchenettes appear in the notes for Staycity, Bob W, Studios2Let, Aptel East and Prince Arthur. Lifts appear for Dolphin, Snoozebox, Zedwell, Staycity, Bob W, Aptel East and others. Do not assume any of these at a property whose row does not state them; "not stated" is not "no", but it is also not a promise.

How Do You Actually Book Against A Hard 100 Pound Cap?

Work the calendar first, the area second and the property third: January, February, March and August are the sampled months when the private-room median sits at or near £104 or below, and the under-60 and mid bands are live then. In peak months, accept Zone 2 or 3, where Stratford and Greenwich medians run £65 and under, and check the live listing for your exact nights, because every figure here is a sampled low, not a promise.

The practical sequence we would run: fix your dates, then read the month table above to see whether the median is with you or against you. If it is with you, shortlist from the £60 to £79 band, where eleven stays give you genuine alternatives. If it is against you, shortlist the three stays with the flattest sampled ranges: Hotel DC at £58 to £81, Prince Arthur at £79 to £99 and Snoozebox Olympic Park at £66 to £89, the three sub-100 stays most likely to hold the cap when the market lifts. Then read the room types for bathroom and window fields, and only then check live rates.

Two sister guides extend this page. If your cap has any flex at all, this article pairs with our rundown of budget hotels in London across the whole roster, including the over-100 entries that drop under it in cheap months. And if a dorm bed at £14 to £34 would solve the budget outright, the best hostels in London guide is the comparison to make; the Zedwell Greenwich capsule rooms at £60 from are the natural halfway point between the two.

The last word goes to the market context, because it explains why this page is worth reading closely. London hotels averaged £214.90 a night in August across all star levels, per RSM's UK Hotels Tracker, and while that figure includes luxury and is not a budget rate, it is the tide every budget listing floats on. Eighteen roster stays still open under £100. That is a real number, a defensible cap, and, with the right month and the right Zone 2 base, an achievable booking.

Common Questions About London Hotels Under 100 Pounds