Suppose you’re anything like the majority of Americans you drink a lot of coffee. If you’re like me, you have at least a cup a day, and the first one comes way before you’re awake enough to drive somewhere to buy coffee from a shop.
Between that and how expensive it ends up to buy coffee out of the house every day. Making coffee at home is a must.
In case you don’t want to have to empty your savings buying a coffee maker for your home, here are the five best coffee makers available on Amazon for under $50.
Best Coffee Maker Under 50 Dollars – At A Glance
- Mueller Ultimate Single Serve Coffee Maker
- Betty Crocker 12-Cup Coffee Maker
- Brentwood Iced Tea and Coffee Maker
- Mueller Ultra Coffee Maker
- Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Coffee Maker
1. Best Drip Coffee Maker Under 50 – Mueller Ultimate Single Serve Coffee Maker Review
This coffee maker is just barely under $50 at the time of this article, but it’s also the best single-serving coffee maker that I could find on Amazon for this price. If you like K-Cups and other brands of coffee pods, then you’ll probably like this coffee maker.
Suppose it’s a nice, little coffee maker that doesn’t take up a lot of space. It seems pretty reliable, and it can make a 10oz cup of coffee in about five minutes and ifs cheaper than the Keurig alternatives. If it suits your coffee-drinking style, this should definitely be a coffee maker you look at more closely.
Pros
• Works with any brand coffee pod
• No wasted coffee if you drink just one cup
• Small footprint
Cons
• Only makes one cup at a time
• Water reservoir needs to be refilled each time
• No options for cup size
2. Best Coffee Maker Under $40 – Betty Crocker 12-Cup Coffee Maker
Betty Crocker is a well-respected brand in the kitchen, and they seem to do a decent job with coffee makers. This is the best coffee maker if you want something bright and fun. It can make 12 cups of coffee at a time, like a lot of standard coffee makers.
This coffee maker has a digital clock, which is good if you don’t already have one visible from where you want the coffee maker to live. It’s also got an auto-off function, which is great for saving power, but some reviewers complained it didn’t keep the coffee warm for long enough to drink it all.
Pros
• Bright color stands out
• Trustworthy kitchen brand
• Has a digital clock
Cons
• Bright color might not match your kitchen
• Reviews say it’s loud
• Power-saving function shuts off after two hours
3. Best Coffee Maker Under $50 – Brentwood Iced Tea and Coffee Maker Review
If you’re more of an iced coffee drinker, this might be the best coffee maker for you. It can handle either tea or coffee. Some reviewers say it can be used for hot coffee, but it’s really not recommended, so keep this one in mind only if you prefer iced coffee. The reviews on the iced coffee for this product are great!
It also features a 64oz pitcher, so if you want to make your coffee at the start of the day, drink a cup. then put the rest in the refrigerator for later; that’s easy to do Its available in both black and a blue/green color, so it can work whether you want it to blend in or stand out.
Pros
• Great for iced coffee • Good color options • Large pitcher
Cons
• Not great with hot coffee
• Takes up space
• Not efficient if you only drink a cup or two
4. Best Pick for Stainless Steel Kitchen – Mueller Ultra Coffee Maker Review
This coffee maker will look right at home in a kitchen with stainless steel or black appliances, and even better than that, reviewers say it makes a good cup of coffee. If you like the look and enjoy a standard coffee maker complete with coffee grounds and the rush of hot water along with the building smell of coffee, this might be the best coffee maker for you.
It’s also programmable and lets you choose between strong or regular coffee. Some reviewers do say it’s a bit too lightweight and easy to slide around your countertop, but with 4.6 stars and over 8k ratings, there’s a near consensus that it’s worth the price.
Pros
• Reliable
• Good coffee
• Attractive
Cons
• Feels lightweight and potentially cheap
• Steam gets on the control panel
• Some reviews say its loud
5. Best Cheap Coffee Maker – Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Coffee Maker
This is the cheapest coffee maker on the list. It s also probably the most classic. As with the other standard coffee makers on here, it can brew up to 12 cups of coffee at a time. It’s available in either black or white, and both colors look sleek, somehow both classic and modern at once.
More importantly, it’s easy to use and makes a good cup of coffee, it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but if you’re just looking for the best coffee maker and you don’t need it to do anything special, then this is probably the right choice for you.
Pros
• Sleek look is not bogged down by buttons
• Makes good coffee
• Easy to use
Cons
• Doesn’t come with a reusable filter
• No real extra features
• Can burn the coffee if it’s on long
Buyer’s Guide
So what is the best coffee maker to buy?
It really depends on what you’re looking for in a coffee maker. As far as reliability and basic function for a low price, the Mr. Coffee 12-Cup Coffee Maker gives you the most coffee for your money.
That said, maybe you’re not just looking for something cheap that makes coffee. If you have more specific needs, you’ll have different priorities and may find a different coffee maker to be the best.
Considerations
Below are some things you might want to consider in your search for a coffee maker. This guide will help you figure out the best coffee maker for you and your budget!
Price
Start by setting your budget. If you don’t have a limit on how much you can spend, then chances are you can find a coffee maker that does absolutely everything you want. For the purposes of this list, looking at the best coffee makers under $50, you don’t necessarily get everything you want in a single item.
It can be worth it, though, to avoid spending too much money, and $50 is a pretty good price point to get something cheap but worth spending money on.
Capacity
Do you make one cup of coffee a day, or do you make four or more cups of coffee a day? Are you making enough coffee for everybody to drink at once, or are you making coffee that’s supposed to last throughout your day?
Take a minute to look at your needs for the quantity of coffee. In my household, if more than one person is drinking coffee, it’s at different times, so a single-serve unit makes sense. At a home office with contractors in and out, you might want as much coffee at once as you can make. It all depends on your needs and what’s going to work for you.
Variety
If you like to have the same coffee frequently, then a standard coffee maker that uses coffee grounds is a good bet. You can get a nice sized bag of coffee and use it for a little while. The same applies if you like to switch between maybe two or three kinds of coffee, you can get a lot at once, and it’ll last you a little bit.
If you like to mix it up more frequently, or if you’re the type of person who gets something different every time they go to a coffee shop, then you might want to go with a coffee maker that uses coffee pods. This way, you can buy a variety pack or even a few, and you can choose a new flavor each day according to your mood.
At a $50 price point, there really aren’t any coffee makers that do both K-Cups and traditional coffee with coffee grounds, but if your budget is much higher, they are out there.
Ease of Use
Consider what’s easiest to use for the people who will be using the coffee maker. For some, this means the best coffee maker is one for which you press just one button, and it makes coffee. For others, this means multiple different options, all clearly marked.
Coffee makers with a bunch of buttons and lack of clarity aren’t likely to be the easiest to use for anybody, but they can be worth it if this isn’t your highest priority and you’re willing and able to take some time to learn how they function.
Cleaning
Some coffee makers require very little cleaning. Some have special tools you need in order to clean them, and they have to be cleaned at regular intervals. Decide how much maintenance you’re willing to put into a coffee maker.
Programming
If you wake up at different times each morning, you might not find programming on a coffee maker very important if you wake up at regular times and enjoy waking up to the smell of your coffee hot and fresh and ready for you.
Then programming might be a high priority. Programming doesn’t take a very high price point to get (three of the products on this list include it), but you might find that if you go up a little bit in price, it’s dropped in favor of other features. It does make a return at higher price points, though.
Features
If you need your coffee maker to take a certain brand of coffee pod. that will need to be a consideration. If you want it to have a clock, keep that in mind. Do you need it to light up because you start your coffee in the dark?
Add that to your list. Need to grind your coffee? Write it down. Most features you can possibly imagine exist somewhere, but it’s a matter of what’s important to you and how much you’re able to pay for it.
Location
Are you using this coffee maker at home? At work? In the kitchen or the bedroom? This makes a big difference as to what you might be looking for.
Appearance
Finally, does the appearance of the coffee maker matter to you?
If so, do you want it black? Another neutral color? Do you want it bright in order to make a statement? Is there a particular color that matches your kitchen well?
Do you want it to look modern? Retro? Somewhere in between?
Is there another aesthetic that works well for you or for a coffee maker that you’ll probably see daily?
How to Choose the Best Coffee Maker
Now that you’ve figured out what your priorities and budget are. It’s time to find the best coffee maker for you. Take your list, whether it’s in your head, digital, or written down, and go shopping!
For the purposes of this article, we’ll be focusing on how to find the best coffee maker under $50 on Amazon.
Narrowing down Your Options
Amazon has a lot of great tools, and it can make shopping a breeze! Navigate to Amazon.com, and start by entering ‘coffee maker* into the search bar. Next, under ’Department” dick. ’Coffee Machines ’ Amazon is now showing you all of its coffee makers.
Next, depending on how quickly you want it. If you have Amazon Prime, you can click the toggle to limit your search to items that will ship with Prime, which will get them to you faster than they would otherwise arrive.
The rating system on Amazon is very helpful, so usually, the next step is to dick to limit the results to products rated four stars or better. All of the items on our list were in this top rating tier.
Now, think back to what your price range was. Under ’Price.* you can enter a minimum and a maximum you’re willing to spend. Go back to your budget consideration and enter what works best for you.
Scroll through your other options to limit the search. You can always make it wider later if there your minimum requirements. For example, if you need your coffee maker to provide you with at your search to coffee makers with ’ 12 Cups & Above” capacity. By selecting more options, you sort through.
You should now have a list that’s pretty specific to your needs.
Choosing the Best Coffee Maker
Now comes the hard part: looking at product features and reading through product reviews. Let’s use this coffee maker as an example. It has nearly 3k reviews with a four 4-star average. That’s nothing to sniff at!
Check the information near the product photo. It tells you what the coffee maker is made of. The brand, the color, the capacity, and whether it has voice commands available (it does not). Just below that in ‘About This Item’ there’s even more information from the official item listing.
Look at the pictures. If this seems like what you want in a coffee maker after reading about and looking at the coffee maker, then you’ll want to check out the reviews next.
Aren’t enough results but for now, try selecting at least 12 cups at a time; there’s an option to limit have fewer results that you’ll need to manually
Check the information near the product photo. It tells you what the coffee maker is made of, the brand, the color, the capacity, and whether it has voice commands available (it does not). Just below that in ‘About This Item ‘ there’s even more information from the official item listing.
Look at the pictures. If this seems like what you want in a coffee maker after reading about and looking at the coffee maker, then you’ll want to check out the reviews next.
If there are a lot of reviews, Amazon makes it easy to see patterns in the reviews by pulling the most common words and phrases and listing them at the start of the review section. Browsing those makes it pretty clear that it’s a small, easy-to-use coffee maker. If that sounds good, you may have found the best coffee maker for you! If not, it’s back to the narrowed-down list we go.
When I have a lot of results to go through, I skim through the list, opening items in a new tab if they seem to fit my needs at a glance. Then. I go through and close the tabs of ones that don’t work for me or that I’ve changed my mind as to whether I like the look of them.
That narrows things down, usually to just a few, and I click through them until I decide on a favorite. If the decision is really close, then I might choose the cheapest product or the one with the fastest shipping or the one with the most reviews.
Final Thoughts
There’s a lot that can go into choosing the best coffee maker for you. But hopefully, this article helped! Thank you for taking the time to read through these recommendations and advice. Now it’s time to pick out a coffee maker and enjoy a wonderful cup of coffee to celebrate a job well done!
