If you have shopped for blenders, you have probably been struck by how wide the price range is. From less than twenty-five dollars to well over a thousand, you can spend as much or as little as you please. This begs the question, how much should you spend on a blender?
If you have asked yourself this question, Then we are here to help.
In this article, we will examine:
- How much should you spend on a blender?
- Is it worth it to buy a blender?
- How do I choose a good blender?
- What is a good budget blender?
- Is a 500w blender good?
- What’s the most expensive blender?
- What blenders do professional chefs use?
- What’s the most durable blender?
Let’s jump right in.
So, How Much Should You Spend on a Blender?
A good rule of thumb is to spend all that you can comfortably afford. While it can be tempting to save a few pennies by buying a cheaper model that appears the same as more expensive blenders, you generally get what you pay for. Remember, the parts you don’t see will determine the service your new blender will deliver.
Odd as it may sound, buying a blender is a very personal thing. How much you should spend will, to a great extent, depend on how you will use it. The blender and budget needs of the casual user who will only be making fresh fruit smoothies and milkshakes a couple of times a month differ from those of professional chefs. So when deciding how much to spend on a blender, first determine what your needs will be.
Blenders for Smoothies
If your blender use will be limited to smoothies occasionally for yourself, your power and capacity needs will be limited. However, if you like your smoothies thick and creamy instead of thin and sippable, you are going to need to spend a little extra for better designed blades and more horsepower.
Realistically, for one of our top choices for smoothies, you can expect to spend in the neighborhood of 80 to 100 dollars. From there, the sky’s the limit.
A few of our top choices for making smoothies include:
Blenders for Making Flour
One of the doors that blenders open is the ability to grind whole grains into flour quickly. Grinding flour or meals at home makes it possible to create healthier bread, muffins, breading, and batters for you and your family.
For a base model that can stand up to grinding dry grains, you will spend approximately $100. Good advice is to buy a model with a small capacity jug as an option or one with a tamper so you can keep the grains pushed down for consistent grinding.
The top choice would include:
Blenders for Processing Whole Foods
If you are following a Vegan or a Whole Foods Diet, one of the biggest challenges can be processing raw vegetables. Blending uncooked vegetables with their skins requires a machine with top-quality blades, capable of high speeds, and power to spare.
These features don’t come without a cost. You can expect to pay $150 or more for a blender that can handle the load, but in reality, $200 and up is a better estimate if you want a blender that will last.
At the low end of the price scale, the Ninja Professional Plus Blender DUO® with Auto-iQ is a bargain for the performance it provides at a 150-160 dollar price point. At the upper end, the Vitamix A3500 is a blender that has proven itself capable of any task asked of it and has all the bells and whistles you could ask for in a 500-600 dollar package.
Blenders for Making Nut Butter
Grinding nuts down to a smooth texture is one of the most difficult jobs you can ask of a blender. Very few non-commercial models can deliver creamy nut butter consistently, and they don’t come cheap. These top-end blenders will run from $200 to slightly over 1,000.
Our top blender picks for making nut butter include:
- Blendtec Professional 800
- Vitamix A3500
- Ninja Professional Plus Kitchen System with Auto-iQ
- Vitamix E310
Blenders for All-Around Use
Blenders today are capable of performing many kitchen tasks, including making:
- Batters.
- Dips.
- Dough.
- Flour.
- Frozen Desserts.
- Hot Soups.
- Nut Butters.
- Salad Dressings.
- Smoothies.
The price range for a do-it-all blender can vary from around $500 to well over $1,000. Our top picks in the all-around blender category include:
- Vitamix A3500
- Ninja Professional Plus Kitchen System with Auto-iQ
- Blendtec Professional 800
- Vitamix E310
Is It Worth it to Buy a Blender?
Whether or not it is worth it to buy a blender depends entirely on you and your lifestyle. If you rarely ever cook or don’t mind your homemade soups, sauces, and salad dressings being on the grainy side, and don’t enjoy frozen drinks, you could probably make better use of the money elsewhere.
If you love cooking or are transitioning to whole food or vegan diets, it is more than worthwhile to buy the best blender you can afford.
There is no better tool to:
- Create silky homemade sauces.
- Make healthy salad dressings.
- Create fluffier omelets.
- Grind whole-grain flour.
- Mix up pancake and waffle batter.
- Make creamy soup.
- Mix protein shakes.
- Blend up smoothies.
- Make ice cream shakes.
- Grind coffee beans.
- Mix your favorite frozen alcoholic drink.
The list just goes on and on.
How do I Choose a Good Blender?
Whether you’re on a tight budget or price is no object, the best way to choose the best blender for you is to evaluate how you will use your blender and then look at expert blender recommendations to see what machines best fit your needs and finances.
As a general rule, you will be better off buying more blender, than you believe you need. They are much handier in the kitchen than you may have imagined, and you will likely find yourself using them more than you thought you would. Regardless, choose a blender from a reputable company with a reputation for quality.
Blender companies that we have personal experience with and endorse are:
Shop quality before price. Cheaper blenders are often produced with less than sterling quality standards and substandard parts. It is better to pay more for one blender that will serve your needs for years than to save a few pennies buying a machine that doesn’t perform properly and will have to be replaced quickly due to wear.
What is a Good Budget Blender?
Most people, when they say budget, they are thinking cheap. A better way to look at it is to think of high value. If you are getting more than you paid for, it was a good buy. For blenders, any time you can stay at a $100 price point or below and still get good performance and longevity, you are ahead of the game.
One company with a reputation for delivering high-value budget blenders is Ninja Kitchen. They don’t have the longest warranties in the industry, but regular users point out you don’t need an extended warranty when things don’t break.
Two particular models we highly recommend are their full-sized Ninja Pro Plus with Auto-iQ with a price tag that hovers right around the $100 mark, and the personal-sized Ninja Nutri-Blender Pro, which you can occasionally find for slightly less than $90.
Ninja originally intended the Nutri-Blender Pro to be the ultimate personal smoothie and frozen drink machine. Still, its superior blade design and full 1100 watts of power make it capable of much more.
Is a 500w Blender Good?
If all you want to do is occasionally make fruit smoothies, crush ice, or puree cooked vegetables, then a high-quality 500-watt blender will suffice. For regular use or more difficult blending tasks like blending leafy greens, making nut butter, creating smooth soups and sauces or grinding grains, you will want more power.
The simple truth is that companies can’t engineer these lighter appliances to deliver the same performance that you will receive from a more powerful blender. You may get them to perform a particular task, but they will take longer, deliver inferior results and suffer much more wear on their parts.
What’s the Most Expensive Blender?
The most expensive blenders on the market are intended for commercial use and will run you well over 1k to own. Two blenders of particular note are the:
Of those blenders intended for home use, the Blendtec Pro 800 is currently the most expensive model available. It features seven preset programs, an 11-speed manual control slider, a sound enclosure, and an 1800 watt motor.
What Blenders do Professional Chefs Use?
When your reputation and livelihood depend on providing the best possible dishes in the shortest possible time, you don’t skimp on your tools, and the top restaurant kitchens will have several different models of blenders in them.
What all of these blenders will have in common is that they will very likely be one or a mix of three brands:
All three companies have excellent reputations among professional chefs, and you will have a difficult time finding a culinary professional who would want to work with any other brands.
What’s the Most Durable Blender?
There is a minor argument over who builds the most durable blenders on the consumer market.
Blendtec bills itself as “The last blender you will ever need to buy.” That speaks volumes about the confidence they have in their products.
On the other hand, Vitamix offers the longest warranties of any company in the blender industry. That says they have enough faith in their products to put their money where their durability is.
According to Consumer Reports, the single most durable blender on the market is the Vitamix TurboBlend Two Speed. It’s about as basic as a blender can get. Two speeds, a pulse/run/off switch, and two hp of power is what it offers. The upside of such a simple blender is that there is little that can go wrong.
Hey, I’m Joey. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid and love everything about it. You can find my writing about food, kitchen appliances (such as blenders) and much more. Thanks for stopping by!
