Previous theoretical and simulation results indicate that anisotropic porous materials have the potential to reduce turbulent skin friction in wall-bounded flows. This study experimentally investigates the influence of anisotropy on the drag response of porous substrates. A family of anisotropic periodic lattices was manufactured using 3D printing. Rod spacing in different directions was varied systematically to achieve different ratios of streamwise, wall-normal, and spanwise bulk permeabilities ((kappa _{xx}), (kappa _{yy}), and (kappa _{zz})). The 3D printed materials were flush-mounted in a benchtop water channel. Pressure drop measurements were taken in the fully developed region of the flow to systematically characterize drag for materials with anisotropy ratios (frac{kappa _{xx}}{kappa _{yy}} in [0.035,28.6]). Results show that all materials lead to an increase in drag compared to the reference smooth wall case over the range of bulk Reynolds numbers tested ((hbox {Re}_b in [500,4000])). However, the relative increase in drag is lower for streamwise-preferential materials. We estimate that the wall-normal permeability for all tested cases exceeded the threshold identified in previous literature ((sqrt{kappa _{yy}}^+> 0.4)) for the emergence of energetic spanwise rollers similar to Kelvin–Helmholtz vortices, which can increase drag. The results also indicate that porous walls exhibit a departure from laminar behavior at different values for bulk Reynolds numbers depending on the geometry.