What Budget light has the Most Lumens for the least amount of money? I know its a loaded question!
I would love to Purchase the Imalent MS18 with 100,000 Lumens but realistically even with codes that is not a budget Flashlight and currently out of my price range.
To me Budget means almost anyone can just drop a few bucks and have a decent Light.
Are there any lights that exceed 20,000 Lumens that are under lets say $50?
20,000 lumens would be at least 4 cells
$50 would be pushing it
ANSI lumens? Impossible, I’d say. Maybe for a split second. I had an offer for 11000 lm at start for $30, >6000 lm at 30 s. That was quite good, but no one cared.
20 000 real lumen for 50 bucks?
I don’t think so.
I suppose it can be achieved with 4 hard driven XHP70.3 LEDs.
But you’ll need 2S2P battery config with 4 cells.
But you could perhaps achieve it with 10 or 12 SST-40 LEDs on 4 parallel cells (1S4P), but it would draw 60 Amperes or so in total.
When I was saying $50 it was just an average price that I thought most could afford….
So, If you want to get a light that wows or impresses the average person, who does not know how powerful some of these lights can be, what would be the lowest price point you go for an impressive light?
Probably a quad LED light then.
They can be small yet very powerful, but the throw is not impressive.
The closest you will likely get is the Sofirn Q8 Plus, which with Samsung 40T batteries can hit 24,000 lumens very briefly. It’s $75 on AliExpress, though.
For that matter, if you are just trying to impress the uninitiated, get a Convoy C8+ with an SST-40. It will have some longish range punch and a pretty wide beam for a “thrower” Stick on some dc fix to make it a flooder.
All this with battery for 25-30 $
You are only talking about 1800-2000 lumens, but they won’t know what that means anyway…
Or a Convoy M1 with SST-40, same thing, smaller package, more spill (I think).
Or a Convoy M21A with SFT40.
You'll get more throw, and you can use a 21700 instead of an 18650 for more runtime. 
Someone less mature than I am might respond to the title of this thread with “your mom is”
I have no experience with any of the flashlights i’m about to mention but for raw power on the cheap i’d be looking at a direct driven 3V XHP50.2 or two, along the lines of the Astrolux C8, FT02S, EA01S etc
(Funtastic’s video review to give you an idea)
Or the JKK70 (single XHP70.2) or JKK80 (quad XHP50.2), or even the JKK76 SFN55.2 version if the 33000 lumens for $93 is to be believed.
10k lumens for $45?
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/72194
(Through freeme the EA01S and FT02S mentioned above are also around that price with a similar output.)
Most bang for your buck? Probably ANFO, but Black Powder is pretty cheap too.
Or you could buy the ingredients needed for Tannerite in bulk and make your own.
There’s a big big line between what is considered decent vs one that can actually produce 20,000lm
Probably the most bang for your buck when it comes to sheer lumens would be something like the amutorch XT45 or the FT03 mentioned above