Best work lights under $100

This is the bracket where work lights are actually bought, and the good news is that output stopped being the constraint years ago. Every light here publishes at least 500 lumens and the brightest publishes 4,000. The constraint now is information. Across this whole bracket, one light publishes a beam distance, one publishes an ingress rating, and not one publishes a runtime or a color rendering figure.

So this page ranks on what a work light is actually judged by on a job — where the light goes, how it stays where you put it, and how it gets its power — and names the missing figures rather than assuming them.

How we judged these

1. Beam shape before brightness. At arm's length inside an engine bay or a panel, 3,000 lumens is not three times as useful as 1,000 — it is glare coming back off painted metal into your eyes. We say whether each light is an area flood, a bar, or a spot.
2. How it stays put. Magnets, hooks, kickstands and rotation. Both your hands are busy, so a light you have to hold is a light that is not working.
3. How it is powered. A tool-platform battery you already stock beats a proprietary charger. Replaceable cells beat both when there is no power on site.
4. Published figures where they exist, and named as absent where they do not. Currently purchasable, verified against the live listing before writing.

We have used none of these lights. Every figure is the maker's own with its source linked — see our methodology. We do not print a fixed dollar figure in the copy either, because a price typed into an article is wrong within a week; the bracket is checked against the live price layer instead.

What the bracket publishes

One beam distance and one ingress rating across eight lights. That is the state of disclosure in this category, and it is worse than any other category on this site. Work lights are sold on toughness and endurance, and toughness and endurance are the two things nobody prints.

The one light that publishes a distance

One important caveat that a price bracket can hide: the DeWalt's battery is sold separately. The light is comfortably under a hundred dollars; the light plus a 20V MAX pack is not. It only makes sense if those packs are already circulating in your van or on your site.

The picks, and who each one is wrong for

Klein Tools 56417 — the work zone, at the top of the bracket

3,000 lumens, six modes and 360-degree rotation, built to be set down and aimed rather than held. This is the light that turns a dark bay, a floor plate or a parking lot into somewhere you can work. The rotation matters more than the mode count: you place it once and turn the head as the work moves.

Skip it if it will live outdoors — no ingress rating is published. Skip it if you need reach; it is a broad area flood and will not identify anything at the far end of a yard. And no CRI figure, which for anything color-coded is a real gap. See why color accuracy matters on a jobsite.

DeWalt DCL043 — if your tools already run 20V MAX

1,500 lumens and 464 m, running off the same packs as the drill and the impact. Two arguments in one: it is always charged if your tools are, and it is the only light in this bracket that genuinely throws. For checking a structure, a pole or a perimeter at night nothing else here does the job.

Skip it if you are not on the DeWalt platform — buying into a battery system for one light is poor value, and the pack is an extra purchase that takes the real cost past this bracket. Skip it as your area light; a spotlight leaves a work zone's edges dark.

Klein Tools 56416 — the magnetic one

1,000 lumens, three modes, 360-degree rotation, a magnet and a kickstand. On anything ferrous — a vehicle wing, strut, a site box lid, a stepladder — the magnet is the fastest way to get light where you need it with both hands free. 1,000 lumens is also about the right amount for close work without glaring back off painted surfaces.

Skip it as a whole-area light, and skip it if the magnet has nothing to hold. No runtime, ingress rating or beam distance published.

Nebo Slyde King 4K — the most output, and both beam types

A 4,000-lumen spot and a 1,000-lumen COB work light in one sliding body — the highest output in the bracket and a sensible way to carry both beam shapes as one object. For a subcontractor arriving with one bag that combination is worth real money.

Skip the spot mode indoors, where 4,000 lumens off plasterboard is glare rather than light. Nebo publishes no beam distance, so we cannot tell you how far the spot actually reaches — on a light sold partly on its spot, that is the figure you would most want. No runtime or IP rating either.

Streamlight Siege — the one rated for weather

540 lumens of 360-degree area light, IPX7, on replaceable cells. The lowest output here and, for anything that meets rain or has no power nearby, the most defensible purchase in the bracket. Replaceable cells mean it works in the first week of a build before temporary power arrives, and on the weekend after every charger has gone home. A lantern also beats a directional light indoors, where a single hard shadow is what makes people trip.

Skip it if 540 lumens is not enough to work by — it is a presence and safety light more than a task light. Skip it if you want rechargeable convenience.

Astro Pneumatic 90SLC — the slim one that charges on a pad

900 lumens in a body thin enough to slide between an engine and a fender, with a quick-charge pad so it goes back on the bench rather than onto a cable. A drop-on pad is a habit that survives a bad day in a way plugging in a cable does not. The bar format also throws a long even wash, which suits a panel or an open hood.

Skip it if you need to light a whole area — 900 lumens in a narrow bar is a task light. No runtime, ingress rating or beam distance published.

Streamlight Stinger Switchblade — the folding bar

800 lumens in a folding bar with multiple modes, USB rechargeable. The bar shape throws a long even wash rather than a circle, which suits a bench, an open hood or the length of a panel — and it folds flat to travel. Streamlight is the brand that publishes per-mode runtimes on its handhelds, which makes their absence here more conspicuous.

Skip it if you want a spot; the bar shape is deliberately the opposite. No runtime or ingress rating published.

Klein Tools 56073 — the one that folds flat

500 lumens, folds flat, pivots 180 degrees and rotates 270, charged over USB-C. The lowest-priced light in the bracket and the easiest to carry into a customer's building. USB-C means it charges from the same cable as everything else in the van.

Skip it as your only work light — it is a close-work tool for panels and enclosures, genuinely good at that and not intended for anything larger.

How to buy in this bracket

• You need to light a whole work area — Klein Tools 56417 at 3,000 lm with 360-degree rotation.
• It will be rained on — Streamlight Siege, the only published IPX7 here, and accept 540 lumens.
• Your site or van runs DeWalt 20V MAX — DCL043, remembering the pack is sold separately.
• You want both a flood and a spot in one object — Nebo Slyde King 4K.
• You work in narrow gaps — Astro 90SLC, or the Klein 56073 for panels and enclosures.
• You want a light that sticks to steel — Klein Tools 56416. See work lights for mechanics.

What we would not tell you

We would not tell you how long any of these run. Not one manufacturer in this bracket publishes a runtime figure, including for the 4,000-lumen mode on the Nebo, which will draw hard. In a category where the buyer's real question is whether the light lasts the shift, the industry answers with a lumen number.

We would also not tell you seven of these eight lights are weatherproof. Their makers publish no ingress rating and a work light without one is a genuine unknown rather than a safe assumption. It would be easy to write that a rugged-looking jobsite light shrugs off rain; it would not be evidence.