Best SUV Under ₹15 Lakh, by What the Money Actually Buys

We are not going to tell you which SUV to buy. 36 of the sub-four-metre and mid-size SUVs we track have at least one variant at or under ₹15 lakh ex-showroom, and which one suits you depends on things no spreadsheet holds — how many people you carry, what your road surface is like, which dealer you trust.

9 more SUVs we track start under ₹15 lakh and are not in this table — the Mahindra Thar OG, the Mahindra Thar Roxx, the Maruti Jimny, the Tata Harrier, the Tata Safari, the Mahindra Scorpio Classic, the Mahindra Scorpio N, the Mahindra XUV 7XO and the Hyundai Alcazar, from ₹10,32,000. They are left out for one reason: we value a feature on its own segment’s scale, so coverage on a seven-seat SUV and coverage on a sub-four-metre one are not measured against the same yardstick, and ranking them together would flatter the dearer segment rather than inform you. They are compared on their own pages instead.

The MG Windsor EV is under ₹15 lakh too but has no variant upgrade below the cap that adds equipment we value, so there is nothing to rank.

That is why our page on cars under ₹15 lakh counts 46 SUVs and this page ranks 36: that page lists every car filed as an SUV and ranks them by how much equipment the best variant carries; this one ranks only the two segments that share a yardstick, by how well each car’s best upgrade is covered.

What we can answer is the question underneath it. Within that budget, where does the money buy equipment rather than badge? For every one of these SUVs we price each feature that separates one trim from the next, total it, and set it against what the variant costs extra. The table below ranks them by their single best-covered variant that lands under ₹15 lakh.

Prices are ex-showroom Delhi. Road tax moves the real figure a long way — the same car can cost over ₹1 lakh more to put on the road in one state than another, so check the state-by-state charges before you treat ₹15 lakh as your ceiling.

We price equipment, not engines, so a variant that buys a bigger engine or a different gearbox is deliberately excluded rather than scored — see what an automatic costs. Nothing here scores ride, reliability, service cost or resale. Electric SUVs are in the table: a battery pack is a powertrain choice rather than equipment, so an EV's upgrades are scored only between variants on the same pack. Every valuation is published on the methodology page, and you can change any of them on a comparison page and watch the verdict move.