Cricut Maker 3 vs. Explore 3: Which One Do You Actually Need?

The question I get more than any other from people new to Cricut is which machine to buy. And the answer most comparison guides give is useless: they list cutting force numbers (4,000g for the Maker 3, 1,000g for the Explore 3) without ever explaining what those numbers mean in practice.

Here is what they mean: if you work with paper, vinyl, iron-on, and lightweight fabric, you will never need 4,000g of cutting force. The Explore 3 handles everything in that list without breaking a sweat. The Maker 3’s extra power is for a specific set of materials, and if those materials are not in your project list, you are paying $100 to $150 more for capability you will never use.

This guide cuts through that. I will sort both machines by use case so you can make the call in about two minutes.

The Short Answer

Buy the Cricut Explore 3 ($299, frequently on sale for $199) if you primarily make:

Paper cards, gift tags, and paper flowers
Vinyl decals for tumblers, windows, and walls
Iron-on designs for shirts and tote bags
Light fabric cuts (cotton, polyester, felt under 1mm)
Stickers and labels

Buy the Cricut Maker 3 ($399, frequently on sale for $299) if you regularly work with:

Genuine leather or faux leather over 1mm thick
Balsa wood (up to 3/32 inch thick)
Matboard or chipboard
Heavy fabric like denim, canvas, or thick felt
Cork or foam board

If you are unsure which list describes you, read on.

What Actually Differs Between These Two Machines

Most spec comparisons emphasize cutting force, but the more practical difference is tool compatibility.

The Cricut Maker 3 uses an adaptive tool system with 13 compatible tools. Two of those tools are Maker-exclusive and cannot be used in the Explore 3:

Knife Blade: cuts materials up to 3/32 inch thick in multiple passes. This is how the Maker 3 cuts balsa wood, chipboard, and thick leather.
Rotary Blade: cuts fabric without a stabilizing mat or backing. Clean edges on woven fabric without fraying.

The Cricut Explore 3 uses two tool slots (one for cutting, one for writing or scoring) and accepts fine point blades, deep point blades, the scoring stylus, and the foil transfer tool. That covers the vast majority of crafter projects.

Both machines:

Cut Smart Materials without a mat (lengths up to 12 feet)
Connect via Bluetooth and USB
Work with Cricut Design Space on desktop and mobile
Cut at 2x speed compared to their predecessors (Maker vs Explore Air 2)

The Maker 3 is not “better” in a general sense. It is more capable in a specific way. Whether that extra capability matters depends entirely on your materials.

If You Make Gifts, Cards, Vinyl Projects, and Basic Apparel

The Explore 3 is the right machine. I say this having used both extensively.

For paper crafts, the Explore 3 cuts intricate designs that would take an hour by hand in about three minutes. I have cut 50-piece paper flower sets, 12-inch window clings, and detailed 3-inch stickers with it, and the results are consistently clean. The deep point blade handles cardstock up to 0.5mm without tearing.

For vinyl work, both machines perform identically. The Explore 3’s fine point blade cuts through standard 651 permanent vinyl, 631 removable vinyl, and iron-on (HTV) with the same precision as the Maker 3. If your Cricut use is primarily tumblers, wall decals, or iron-on shirts, you are genuinely not getting anything extra from the Maker 3.

For lightweight fabric, the Explore 3 handles cotton, polyester, and light felt cleanly when used with a FabricGrip mat. The Rotary Blade matters when you are cutting woven fabric without backing. But if you bond your fabric to freezer paper or use a stabilizer first (standard practice for most sewers), the Explore 3 cuts it fine.

For cards and scoring projects, the Explore 3 has a dedicated second tool slot that lets you load both a pen and a blade simultaneously. You can write and cut in one pass. The Maker 3 does this too, but the double functionality is arguably more elegantly implemented on the Explore.

Verdict for this use case: Cricut Explore 3. Current retail $299; buy it when Cricut runs a sale and it drops to $199 (this happens regularly around holidays and back-to-school).

If You Work with Leather, Wood, or Heavy Materials

This is the Maker 3’s territory, and there is no workaround for it.

Leather is the most common reason people upgrade from an Explore to a Maker. The fine point and deep point blades in the Explore 3 will score the surface of leather, but they cannot cut through 2mm vegetable-tanned leather cleanly. I have seen people try. The cuts are ragged, the blade drags, and you end up trimming by hand anyway. The Knife Blade on the Maker 3 cuts the same piece in multiple slow passes with clean edges every time.

Specific leather specs: the Maker 3 with the Knife Blade cuts genuine leather up to 2.4mm (approximately 6 oz leather). Faux leather at craft store thickness (0.5mm to 1mm) is within the Explore 3’s range if you use the deep point blade, but anything thicker requires the Maker 3.

For balsa wood, the Maker 3 cuts up to 3/32 inch (approximately 2.4mm) in multiple passes. This is useful for small ornaments, model components, and architectural details. The Explore 3 cannot cut wood at any thickness.

For fabric without backing (woven cotton, denim, canvas), the Rotary Blade on the Maker 3 cuts through cleanly without fraying because the rotating blade rolls across the fabric rather than dragging. If you sew and want to cut fabric directly from a pattern in Design Space, this is the correct tool. The Explore 3 can cut fabric with a stabilizer, but if you are cutting woven fabric at volume, the Rotary Blade saves significant prep time.

For matboard and chipboard (used in bookbinding, shadowboxes, and structured packaging), only the Maker 3 with the Knife Blade produces clean cuts.

Verdict for this use case: Cricut Maker 3. Current retail $399; it goes on sale to $299 with some regularity.

What About the Cricut Joy?

A third option worth knowing: the Cricut Joy ($109, frequently on sale for $79) is a compact machine roughly the size of a hardback book. It cuts vinyl, iron-on, and cardstock in widths up to 5.5 inches and lengths up to 4 feet with Smart Materials.

The Joy makes sense if you want a machine for small, simple projects (mug labels, card fronts, simple stickers) and do not have workspace for a full-size Cricut. It is not a replacement for either the Explore 3 or the Maker 3 for complex designs or most fabric work. Think of it as a label maker that can also cut intricate vinyl designs.

For anyone asking “should I get the Joy instead,” the honest answer is: if the Joy’s limitations (width, tool options, no scoring wheel) fit your project list, get the Joy and save $120 to $290. If those limitations feel like restrictions, they will frustrate you within a month.

Price and Value

Retail prices as of early 2024:

| Machine | Retail | Frequent sale price |

|—|—|—|

| Cricut Joy | $109 | $79 |

| Cricut Explore 3 | $299 | $199 |

| Cricut Maker 3 | $399 | $299 |

All three are available on Amazon and through the Cricut website directly. The Cricut website often offers bundles with extra mats or tools at the same price, which makes it worth comparing before defaulting to Amazon.

One cost note that comparisons frequently skip: the consumable costs. Mats run $12 to $20 each and last anywhere from 10 to 50 cuts depending on material. Smart Materials (the no-mat kind) cost 20 to 30% more per roll than standard materials. If you are cutting high volumes, factor mat replacement into the total cost of ownership.

The Verdict

Here is the decision tree I would give anyone buying their first (or second) Cricut:

If you can answer yes to any of these: Do you cut genuine leather? Do you cut wood? Do you cut woven fabric without backing at volume? Then get the Maker 3.

If none of those apply, get the Explore 3. The $100 to $150 you save buys a lot of vinyl and cardstock, and the Explore 3 will not limit your projects in any way that matters for your use case.

The Maker 3 is not the “better” machine in the way most reviews frame it. It is the machine for a specific type of work. Know which type of work you do, and the choice is obvious.