Shanghai has a abundance of two and three star hotels that would qualify as cheap hotels in Shanghai. we found the area close to the main train station had the most for choices, and was also convenient to the rest of the city from the metro train system. The Pudong Shanghai airport was easy to access from via the Maglev train which we had a great time on.
The Lu Feng hotel in Shanghai
This was one of favorite hotels in China. They went out of their way right from the start to make sure that are needs were met they suggested as there were two of us that we might want to get a suite and they lowered the price with out us even asking which as you can imagine was quite refreshing. we also liked that the rooms had a view. which was especially rewarding as we there during thier Chinese New Year so there was allot of Fireworks to enjoy for the 4 nights that we were staying at this Shanghai Cheap hotel.
Normally we would put the phone number and the address as well as the email address unfortunately all I could find was the map to the hotel.