Ordering Glasses online used to be something of a last resort: a way to pick up a budget pair or try something new without breaking the bank. But with more and more fashion-forward brands online than ever, venerable brick-and-mortar opticians launching Web shopping, and the industry as a whole embracing the idea, it’s easier than ever to get that new look or get that new prescription with a few clicks.

We tried a dozen of the leading online eyeglass retailers, and after months of shopping, measuring, ordering, and wearing the results for work, workouts, and everyday, we’ve found  found the best online eyeglass retailers for you, whether you’re looking to save money, find something specific you can’t get close to home, or just want access to the widest range of styles.

With a mix of affordable house brands and good deals on a range of premium brands, Eyebuydirect offers flexible, complete search tools and a shopping process that is smooth and easy to navigate, with superior VR/AR try-on tools. If you’re looking for value comparable to Zenni’s but want the option of browsing familiar names, it’s hard to beat.

Eyebuydirect’s collection is huge, which means you’ll find both a wide range and a lot of variations on similar themes. The search tools let you filter effectively by enough criteria that you can narrow things down quickly.

We really liked the glasses we got from Eyebuydirect, especially given the inexpensive pricing. The fully-spec’d browline pair we ordered compared very favorably to name-brand versions of the same concept from Ray-ban and others, with solid build, very clear optics and a wide field of vision in the premium progressive prescription we ordered, and fit the was in order with what we’d expected from the online fit tools. A pair of basic Wayfarer-style frames we ordered as readers similarly met our expectations, with quality acetate construction and similarly good optical quality to the pricier pair.

Basic single-vision prescriptions are very inexpensive; well under $100, while pricing for a fully-loaded pair (before discounts) runs about $400 for house brands — $100 more than Zenni — and in the $500-600 range for branded options like Ray-Ban. This is still very affordable compared to many brick-and-mortar opticians and high-end retailers, where you’d spend in the neighborhood of $1,000 for a similarly spec’d pair but not far off major discount retailers such as Costco.

Eyebuydirect’s try-on tools are the most complete and easy to use of all of the eyeglass retailers we tested. A full-featured viewer works with your live webcam, an uploaded still image or a recorded video, and lets you enter your PD measurement and even adjust the fit of the virtual frames on your nose, which we didn’t encounter anywhere else — it really makes the fitting experience better and gave us the best sense of how the frames might look when worn.

Like most low-cost online retailers, Eyebuydirect doesn’t directly accept insurance, but the site provides a simple way of applying for reimbursement from a wide range of vision insurance plans, potentially saving you money even over other lower-cost online retailers depending on your plan’s out-of-network coverage.

2-day delivery (one day faster than even Zenni’s express service) is available for a select range of frames, with single-vision prescriptions — it’s about the cheapest way to get a pair of glasses in a hurry. With regular shipping, we got our glasses in 9 business days.

Interestingly, and perhaps understandably given the need to keep down costs, you don’t get a case with your Eyebuydirect glasses; just a cardboard box. If you’ve bought glasses in the past this is probably welcome (since there’s definitely a drawer full of excess cases somewhere in your house) but it can be a little inconvenient if you’re new to eyewear.

You only have 14 days — two weeks — to return your glasses if you don’t like them, among the shortest return periods of any online glasses retailer we looked at. That said, you do get a full refund (unlike Zenni, where you get a 30-day window, but only store credit), so if you don’t like their styles, you can easily recoup your investment and shop elsewhere.

While overall Eyebuydirect’s frames are of good quality and comparable to everything else in the under-$300 price range that we saw, some of the more basic plastic frames we checked out did feel a bit cheap by comparison with Zenni’s similarly priced frames. We don’t expect they’d fail in use or anything, but if you want a luxury feel you might not want to select the least expensive frames on offer here — Zenni has a slight edge here at the low end.

One flaw in Eyebuydirect’s ordering system — which most people might not find an issue, admittedly — is that it doesn’t flag multifocal prescriptions that are out of spec for a given frame until you’ve made your way through most of the ordering process (and the alert doesn’t give enough clear advice on what to do or what’s wrong). We’d prefer to see this alert earlier in the process.

Zenni’s pricing has always been hard to beat, but as the company has expanded their range of styles and options, it’d be hard to recommend that online glasses shoppers looking to save money go anywhere else. They also have the best shopping tools and prescription management of any of the online glasses retailers we looked at, and Zenni’s prescription entry tool was the most flexible of the bunch, even letting you manage multiple orders for different members of a family. If Zenni’s styles work for you, you really can’t lose.

Zenni has been a consistently popular choice because it sells a full-featured pair of glasses for significantly less on average than its competitors. It’s possible to get a pair with all the fixings — premium, high-index progressive lenses, with the latest Transitions XtraActives photochromic treatment and a full suite of protective coatings — for under $300, even before coupons or discounts. Plus, the company has made the shopping and ordering process among the simplest and most straightforward of all the retailers we looked at for this review.

The company’s offerings have expanded over time, and while styles tend toward bright, fun colors and fashion-forward looks, you can get anything from classic wire rims to wraparound nylon activewear models at this point. Everything is well made, with quality fittings like spring hinges employed across the line. That said, Zenni’s glasses don’t have the fine-tuned, substantial feel you’d get from a luxury frame — Zenni’s acetate finishing is not always up to the level of a Moscot or Salt frame, for instance — but at the price is a whole lot of bang for the buck. The pairs we received were all solidly built, with no creaking or looseness, and adjustments were easy to make where needed — nothing feels cheap here.

If you already know what you like {or just prefer precision}, you can search the company’s catalog by almost any parameter you can think of, from color to any frame or lens dimension, by specific number or range. It’s just better than any other site we tried (though Eyebuydirect gets pretty close). Zenni’s virtual try-on tool lets you see every frame on a search result page already displayed on your face, a helpful guide for comparison shopping

The prescription data entry tool is simple and straightforward (it was surprisingly obscure on several competitor sites), and we found it easy to place orders for multiple prescriptions for different people within the same order — which was not the case for the great majority of eyeglass retailers we checked out. There’s also great account-based record-keeping which regular customers will appreciate, making it easy to revisit past orders, reorder, and keep prescriptions organized. On tools and pricing, Zenni sits comfortably at the top of the heap.

Zenni offers a limited selection of frames with single-vision prescriptions with a “Fast Frame” three-day delivery guarantee. But even outside of the models covered by the two-day offer, shipping is very fast (we received one of our orders, a pair of progressive, photochromic curved exercise glasses — a tall order for most manufacturers — in 7 business days; the others within 2 weeks).

While Zenni will make almost anything, there are limits — for instance, it’s optically challenging to make progressive prescriptions in a highly curved lens, and to avoid distortion most manufactures don’t make stronger prescriptions (+/- 4.00 or above) in that format.

Luckily for Zenni shoppers, rather than simply kicking you back to the beginning of your order without clear explanation (as we found with GlassesUSA), the Zenni site gives you an informative alert when you’ve tried to order something that’s gone over the line, making it easy to figure out what to do.

Zenni’s main downside is that though they have a 30-day no-questions-asked return policy, you can only return for store credit (towards another pair of Zenni frames) or you can choose a 50% refund. If you find after trying them on that you don’t like the overall look or feel of Zenni’s frames or lenses, you’re out of luck. That said, the typically low prices offset the potential loss (and the range of styles is broad enough you’ll likely be fine with one of their looks, at least as a spare pair, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

There’s no in-home sample try-on available, either as part of shopping or fitting — that’s in keeping with most of the lower-priced competition but the company would be very hard to quibble with at all if they offered such a thing.

Annoyingly, Zenni doesn’t put measurements on their frames. While it’s easy enough to look these up in your account on the Zenni site, it’s nice to have the numbers handy if you ever want to look elsewhere in the future. Like the return policy, it seems calculated to keep you in the Zenni ecosystem, which is understandable from the company’s perspective but is not particularly consumer-friendly.

The best place to buy performance glasses and workout sunglasses: Roka

Roka has carved out an interesting niche. They offer a small number of fashionable styles, but all with an activewear focus. With lightweight nylon frames, replaceable (and adjustable) non-slip nose pads and arm contact points used in all of the frames the company sells, these glasses are always ready for action. The range of styles is much more limited than most of the online eyeglass brands, but the focused approach is much like the one Apple’s taken with the Apple Watch Ultra: these glasses are meant to be high-end fitness devices that you can wear all the time.

We’ve been running and cycling and doing outdoor chores for several months using a pair of Roka’s Hamilton frames, and we’ve found them as comfortable and non-slip as claimed, comparing very favorably with mainstream performance models from Oakely, Tifosi, and other specialist brands. They’re also stylish and have great optical clarity, as good as anything we saw from any of the makers we tested.

The replaceable “Geko” nosepads (you get three sizes in the box, much like you might with silicone eartips for earbuds) really make a difference in getting a secure non-slip fit even when you’re sweaty — they really stay put, even when running or cycling on a hot, humid day; a challenge for every other frame we tried. The 3 sets of nosepads made it easy to get a good fit, and there’s a good few millimeters of variation available.

Roka doesn’t offer a huge variety of styles — you mostly get a bunch of variations on the slightly oversized chunky look, though in lightweight materials and with a gentle curve for better performance, along with some vintage-style looks and a few mixed material and browline styles. It’s utilitarian, but uniformly good-looking and should suit a wide variety of faces.

Roka has a 30-day return policy, though they deduct a $20 restocking fee (waived if you’re returning because the company didn’t get your prescription right). This isn’t that significant a cost given the relative expense of the glasses themselves, so we consider it a reasonably good policy in the context of the brands we reviewed for this piece.

If you don’t have a current prescription, Roka partners with the online vision test provider Visibly to offer a virtual vision test. There’s a $25 fee for the service. We didn’t assess this for purposes of this piece (and may return as more of these services emerge) but the option is there and integrated with the process.

Roka is relatively expensive compared to many of the other brands we checked out, with a fully decked-out pair of photochromic progressives costing around $750. While this is probably offset for most potential buyers by the fact it’s actually pretty hard to find good performance eyewear even at most brick-and-mortars, especially if you don’t like the sci-fi look of Oakely’s offerings. Just keep in mind that you won’t save a ton of money over the in-store experience.

As of this writing it appears that Roka has discontinued their in-home try-out option, which we appreciated during the shopping process.

GlassesUSA, a sizeable online retailer that’s part of Optimax, one of the big international eyewear companies, offers a huge selection. With a ton of famiilar name brands along with house brands such as Muse, Ottoto and Revel, there’s likely to be something you’ll like here, whether you’re looking for oversized aviators or chunky acetate, retro or futuristic.

Shopping tools begin with a style quiz that aims to point you in the right direction based on some questions about what you’re currently wearing, along with your stylistic and brand preferences. It got us in the ballpark pretty effectively, but you can tune to be as general or specific as you like.

From there you can use a very well-implemented virtual try-on service which lets you upload an image (which then works across the site on search result and detail pages), and they also provide interesting tools like a prescription scanner that lets you scan your existing glasses (assuming they are an up-to-date prescription) if you don’t have a copy handy. The GlassesUSA virtual try on tool asks you to place crosshairs on your pupils to take a virtual PD measurement, then to enter your actual PD if known — this made for about the most accurate sizing of any of the virtual try-on tools we tested, in line with Eyebuydirect’s great tool.

Pricing is on the low end — so long as you take advantage of the company’s frequent sales and discount codes. If you sign up for an account you’ll get daily coupon offers — a blessing and a curse if you like to save money but don’t like marketing emails. The discount codes can save you a lot of money — we regularly saw 40% off or buy-one-get-one-free offers that amounted to very significant savings. If you’re interested in any of GlassesUSA’s frames, you’ll want to sign up for an account and keep an eye on the site’s coupons and promotions page.

As is typical of the sites in this review, you’ll get the best deal on simple single-vision prescriptions — progressives, high-index lenses, tints, and coatings can add up, though you’ll generally save compared to brick-and-mortar opticians.

We received our pairs in two weeks, about on average for the retailers we tested. We really liked the glasses we got from GlassesUSA (we stuck to the Muse house brand). Fit and finish were excellent overall (we found one small tooling mark on the edge of a frame piece, but it was in an area on the rear face of the frame that was invisible and couldn’t be felt. Prescriptions were cut accurately and sizing was exactly in line with the virtual try-on.

While virtual try-on tools are everywhere on the GlassesUSA site, the images are presented in a fairly low resolution, and while it’s easy to get a sense of proper sizing it’s tough to make a call on colors or patterns. (this was really the case for most of the sites we reviewed, so it isn’t necessarily a strike against GlassesUSA). We found we had to spend some time comparing sample 360° photos of models rather than just judging solely by our own uploaded photos in order to make final decisions.

If you sign up for an account GlassesUSA is very persistent about getting your business. At one point after browsing while logged in a representative called us on the phone to offer a coupon — it was a good offer, but some shoppers may find such policies overly aggressive.

With great virtual tools and useful search, GlassesUSA has made it very easy to comparison shop their huge selection, and it’s easy to find a great pair of glasses whether you’re interested in house brands or premium names. Abundant discount codes keep the prices low, but you’ll get a lot of them.

The brand most people think of when they think of buying glasses online, Warby Parker is an independent online retail (with an expanding brick-and-mortar presence) that offers a range of house-branded stylish frames. The overall look tends toward retro styles — if you’re into chunky acetate, there’s a lot to choose from.

Warby Parker built its reputation on its home try-on kit: before the practice was widely adopted the company made it easy to try things on in person even if you don’t live near a Warby Parker location. Once you’re narrowed down the frames you’re interested in you put together a list of up to 5 frames that interest you, place a no-cost order and  the company will send out a home try-on kit of frames with clear lenses for you to check out (you can repeat the process once you return them if nothing ends up working out).

The virtual try-on tools in the Warby Parker app (these are much better than the tools available on the desktop site, which is fairly limited) gave us a good idea of what might work for us, so we requested a home try-on kit of five likely candidates aiming for a range of sizes that would give us an idea of the overall dimensions of Warby Parker stuff, then picked one and went ahead and placed an order. Warby Parker doesn’t do any photo-based fitting based on the home-try on; the samples are strictly intended to give you a better idea of what fits and how it’ll look.

Warby Parker is an in-network provider for many insurance plans and provides links to apply for out-of-network reimbursement for many others. The company estimates you can save an average of $100 on a pair of glasses each year by using insurance, bringing its average prices down significantly, especially for single vision prescriptions.

Like most of the retailers we checked out, pricing ranges from inexpensive (especially for

basic single vision) to middle-of-the-pack if you need anything more elaborate. You’ll spend less than you would on brand-name at many independent brick and mortar shops, but it isn’t bargain-basement either. A single-vision prescription with standard coatings comes in around $100.

If you order a high-index progressive prescription with the full suite of coatings and a photochromic lens you’ll probably come in a bit over $400.

We quite liked the retro-styled Kimball frames we ended up ordering, though the acetate had a couple of rough edges that needed a little emery cloth and polishing (we could also have visited a Warby Parker location for this — always an option if you are near one — but chose to take care of it at home since we had tools on hand.

Warby Parker’s shopping approach is very much mobile-first; the desktop site design is minimal to a fault, which does a nice job setting off the frames, but makes some important information a little obscure. Full measurements for each frame aren’t given, so if you’re picky about lens sizing (especially lens height, which isn’t part of the standard sizing given for most frames) you may just have to go with your gut. You can’t search the collection by size (which i useful if you’re not looking to make a switch and feel confident that you like your current glasses or know exactly what you like).

The site’s virtual try-on tools can give you a general idea of how a frame might look, but they are much less developed than those within the Warby Parker mobile app. We’d love to see these brought more in line.

As the pioneering independent direct-to-consumer online glasses brand, Warby Parker continues to maintain an interesting curated selection of stylish frames, at fair prices relative to bigger chains. Shopping tools are minimal, perhaps to a fault, offset a bit by their very usefu home try-on kit and the option of visiting a store for fittings if you like.

LensDirect is an independent retailer best known as an online contact lens retailer (the company has been in that business for decades), but it has moved into glasses as well, offering a small, well-curated lineup of house-branded frames tending toward chunky, retro styles.

Both pairs of glasses we got from LensDirect — a retro-styled chunky acetate frame and a Wayfarer-like sunglass frame — were of very high quality throughout (though the first pair arrived damaged and needed replacement — more on that below). Lenses were accurately cut, the finish of the frame was excellent, and fit corresponded reasonably well with what we expected from given sizing and virtual try-on tools.

Pricing is middle of the range for online shops; a basic pair with single-vision lenses, no tints, and standard coatings will cost around $100; progressives with high-index photochromic lenses will end up in the $400-$500 range depending on style and specifics — at least before discounts. As with many of the shops we looked at, you’ll want to look out for special offers, sales, and coupon codes — the savings can be pretty significant, knocking $100 or more off the final cost.

LensDirect also offers a lens-replacement service; the company will take a frame you already own (with some limitations) and replace the lenses (costs range from $84 on up to just over $300, depending on prescription type, tints and coatings, and while we didn’t test this or similar services (such as Lensabl), they’re certainly an alternative if you own expensive frames you already like that aren’t overly worn.

Since we received a damaged frame, we did need to deal with LensDirect’s customer support, and we were impressed with their handling of the situation. Every representative we interacted with was very responsive and helpful.

Only a limited selection of LensDirect’s frames allow for virtual try-on. While we found plenty of styles to our taste within this group, you may well find that the glasses that interest you aren’t available for a look. That said, measurements tracked well with what we expected given out experience of other glasses frames, so if you know exactly what you’re looking for you should be able to try similar frames in the tool to triangulate on what you want.

We didn’t love LensDirect’s prescription upload system — you upload a PDF or photo of your prescription, and once you’ve placed the order an optician contacts you by email to confirm. There’s not a good way to look back at your order to confirm that the order’s gone through with the data you intended, however (Zenni and Eyebuydirect, for example make all of the information you’ve entered available at every point in the process).

This led us into making an error as we initially tried to place an order for two separate pairs of glasses with two different prescriptions, and managed to order both with the same prescription, leaving no record anywhere of the second Rx.

LensDirect has a great range of styles, and offers great-looking vintage looks at a very reasonable price once discounts are rolled in. The shopping experience is a little clunkier than our top recommendations, but we were easily able to find frames that really suited us felt the resulting glasses were among our favorites of the group.

Liingo highlights their excellent home try-on program, and we felt it was a great option to have and let us get a pretty good idea of what we wanted. And if you’re not happy, they have a very generous return policy: 60 days, twice as long as most online glasses retailers, and they cover shipping.

Solid search and shopping features, a well-thought-out virtual try-on-tool that provides useful feedback on fit as well as a general guide to what size ranges will work (this was accurate in our testing, recommending a “medium” width in our case — a general recommendation, but certainly correct in the company’s sizing. A smartphone app lets you scan your current glasses (assuming you’re happy with them) to generate a prescription if you don’t have one on hand.

We requested a sample kit and ended up ordering three pairs from it, though after checking out the sample kit we decided on different frame colors. The pairs we received were all of very high quality (on par with Warby Parker’s offerings and GlassesUSA’s house-brand Muse lineup) , with spring hinges, securely fitted lenses and well finished save for a couple of barely perceptible tooling marks.

Prices are relatively low: basic pairs including single-vision prescriptions start at well under $100; fully decked-out progressives with photochromic lenses will run you in the neighborhood of $400.

Liingo isn’t in-network with any insurance provider, but the company will assist you with the proper forms and an itemized receipt to submit for out-of-network reimbursement (of course you’ll want to check to make sure what your vision coverage includes).

Liingo gives you a 60-day return period, with full refunds — the longest of any of the retailers we looked at, which should give you more freedom to experiment with the frames on offer.

Liingo offers a relatively limited selection of frames compared to Eyebuydirect or Zenni. The range of styles is pretty representative of common styles, from Wayfarer-styles to round and square and rectangular acetate, browline, and wireframes, but if you are looking for a wide range of funky styles or are very particular about finding a variant of something in exactly the size and shape you want, you may be out of luck.

We liked Liingo’s selection of stylish frames, and the company delivers a good quality pair of glasses for a reasonable price. Frame selection is somewhat limited, but a home try-on kit makes it easy to make decisions with confidence, as does the two-month return window.

Caddis, has in the past addressed the needs of fashionable Gen Xers and Boomers with a line of quirky readers, and has introduced prescription lenses more recently. The overall aesthetic is chunky, oversized, and fun, with bright colors and fanciful touches — extreme coastal grandmother, if your grandmother promoted indie shows in Portland.

Caddis bills itself as a “cult”, and the site highlights the lifestyle angle with stories of the company’s charitable efforts, a magazine-style blog featuring the varied activities of the company’s very hip fans, playlists, some interesting culture writing, and more.

We liked that once we ordered our frames, we were sent a sample along with instructions for taking a photograph for proper fitting (this is, as mentioned above, particularly helpful for setting segment height for progressive lenses). The resulting glasses we received were of very high quality and smooth finish, with a premium feel that compared with frames that cost much more, and the lenses were well cut, with a wide field of vision from distance to reading (the oversized lens are really nice for reading).

As befits the older crowd Caddis addresses, though the company’s single vision pricing is high it’s more favorable on the high end: high-index photochromic lenses, even with a progressive prescription, top out at just over $500. If you like Caddis’s style, you’ll get your money’s worth.

Caddis has an impressive range of styles and colors, but the great majority run towards the chunky and oversized — if you’ve got a small or narrow face, you might be out of luck. The Caddis site features a ton of beautiful product photography, but the shopping experience is still a work in progress. If you browse the prescription glasses collection you won’t find any measurements — they’re only given for readers (luckily the same frames are used for both sides of the operation), which you might not realize at first unless you do some poking around.

Caddis’s prices are relatively high at the low end: you’ll be paying about what you would in an optician, as frames with single-vision lenses begin around $250, though the glasses are of very good quality and are, in our opinion, worth the money if you like the style.

The brand doesn’t try to be all things to all people so options are somewhat limited, but if you like the aesthetic you can’t really go wrong with Caddis’s frames, which back up their looks with solid builds and quality optics.

Lenscrafters probably needs no introduction — if you’ve ever purchased glasses; as one of the biggest optical chains in the US you’ve probably bought a pair from the Luxottica-owned brand. It’s moved into online retail now, providing an overall similar experience to its sibling online-only brand Glasses.com, but with the added bonus of a hybrid approach that takes advantage of its brick-and-mortar locations to get you an exam or a fitting  — the site really seems built more as an entry to Lenscrafters in-person shopping more than a standalone experience (whic