We took 8 kitchen scales to our test kitchen and had our food experts assess the accuracy and how easily various food shapes and weights fit on the scale.
The Nicewell 22-lb is our favorite because of its larger surface area, high capacity, and great value.
We also have a bathroom scale review.
Editor's Note: We simplified our award section and updated our selection on November 24, 2024.The Nicewell 22-lb Digital Kitchen Scale has a clean aesthetic and much greater capacity than most others. At 10 kg (about 22 pounds), the maximum capacity is more than enough for almost any home kitchen project. The base of the Nicewell is grippy, and the overall scale is heavy. It's a firmly planted scale.
The large, smooth, stainless steel platform of the Nicewell shows smudges and fingerprints more than others. Cleaning is only possible with gentle wiping; no liquids are allowed, according to product instructions. In our accuracy testing, the Nicewell was decent but couldn't register the smallest loads. Only a few scales in our review could differentiate between masses under three grams. If you're seeking a clean aesthetic, look at this beautiful stainless steel contender with a high capacity.
The Ozeri Pronto Digital Multifunction kitchen scale is versatile, compact, inexpensive, and as accurate as it claims to be. It boots up quickly and is available in many different colors. It uses standard AAA batteries. In our accuracy testing, it and just a few others weighed every calibrated load exactly as advertised to the nearest whole gram. The six-kilogram capacity of the Ozeri is larger than average.
Our primary complaint with the Ozeri is its small weighing platform. The round platform doesn't provide much space to fit things onto the scale. The higher-than-average load capacity doesn't amount to much because you don't have space to put bigger items on the scale. One great feature is the small lip around the edge: round items are less likely to roll off. Additionally, the unlit display screen was less pleasant than the backlit versions on higher-scoring models. Overall this is a basic but high-quality scale offered at a good price.
The Greater Goods Nourish Digital food scale is a niche option for those who want to get serious about meal prep and nutritional content. This scale comes with a handbook of over 2000 foods that, in conjunction with weighing your food, lets you enter a corresponding code that will tell you the nutritional content of whatever you weighed. Want to know how many calories are in that piece of cheese? The Nourish will tell you in one step. The display, though small, is backlit and easy to read. The scale is also equipped with rubberized feet on the bottom to keep it from sliding around. It has a reasonably fast bootup time, going from off to weigh-ready in about two seconds. Although not perfect, its accuracy aligns with all the other scales we tested.
The nutritional content function makes the scale more complicated to use than most. It relies entirely on having the food code bank manual on hand (or memorized, like those brilliant grocery store checkers who know every fruit and vegetable code). With its focus on nutritional content and meal prep, the only units it displays are grams and ounces. While you could use this to weigh anything, the nutritional content display was visually distracting and too specialized for everyday use. If meal prep is part of your weekly ritual, this niche scale might be exactly what you want.
The MyWeigh KD-8000 is a robust, full-function kitchen scale. It delivers weight results in various formats, including baker-preferred percentage calculations. If you want to double (or halve or triple or adjust by 137%…) a recipe, this scale will do that for you. You can measure the initial amount and add or remove the ingredient until the screen reflects your desired mathematical change. We like that it will run on batteries or wall power. No other scale we tested could be plugged into a wall outlet.
Compared to the other offerings, the KD-8000 is neither the most compact nor the easiest to use. With sensors, electronics, and power sources getting increasingly compact, other offerings are smaller than the MyWeigh. Bulky and complicated to use, it takes up more than four times the space of any other award winner. But if percentage calculations and full functionality are what you need, look no further.
The Etekcity Kitchen Digital Scale features a wide selection of measurement units, is small, and looks clean and simple. It measures in grams, ounces, and pounds. It will accurately deduce the volume of water and milk (and liquids of similar and respective density) by these fluids' mass.
We performed four different weight accuracy tests with each tested scale. Some got every single test correct to the nearest tenth of a gram. None had more than two errors; when they did, the error was never more than one gram. The EtekCity missed two weights. This makes it the poorest performing scale, in terms of accuracy, in our test. One measurement was too much by one gram, and another was too little by one gram. This may sound dramatic, but it isn't. In all but the most precise of applications, the errors we found with the EtekCity will be entirely unimportant. If you commonly operate in such precise situations, you likely require a science-grade balance; consumer-grade kitchen electronics like this don't stack up. This is for the consumer looking for a wide range of unit selections that don't require absolute precision.
The Oxo Good Grips 6-lb Precision scale has a minimalist design. A couple of things stand out. First, especially in this age of enhanced attention to sanitation, we are glad to see the removable, washable weighing surface. You can replicate this on any scale with a dinner plate, but it is still nice to see this feature integrated into the Oxo. Next, the screen of the Oxo includes a timer. This timer counts up from zero. It is better than nothing, but we wonder why it doesn't count down and include a basic alarm for kitchen use.
The OXO is a fairly lightweight scale that offers less stability than its heavier competition. Although the difference is minor, heavier scales remain in place better during and in between use. Bumping and chasing your scale around the kitchen counter is a petty annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. We also generally prefer positive “click” buttons. The touchscreen requires more attention than buttons that give clicking feedback. We appreciate the washable surface of this machine, and if you resonate with us on the importance of hygiene, you might like this unit.
The Escali Primo Digital scale is simple and perfectly measured all four calibrated accuracy-test loads. It looks like you expect a scale to look. If you have a guest in your kitchen or office and ask them to grab the scale, they'll identify it right away. Some of the other products do not look nearly as scale-like.
The initial purchase price is more than we'd expect for a product with this level of performance. We also wish the surface was a little larger. Finally, and especially at this price range, a lit screen would be very much appreciated with the Escali. Value and usability concerns like these are minor but are the things that differentiate products like this.
The Amazon Basics Stainless Steel Digital Kitchen Scale is simple and clean. It isn't perfect, but it'll do most kitchen and office jobs just fine. Given the overall storage size and round surface, it has a relatively large weighing surface area. Small items on that surface won't necessarily roll over the lip at the edge.
While we found the unlit screen easy enough to read, it would be even better with a built-in backlight. During our accuracy test of weighing four known loads, the Amazon Basics scale misjudged three loads by one gram each time. In a real-life scenario, a one-gram error isn't a major deal. However, when a competitor could precisely measure all four weights right to the nearest tenth of a gram, the Amazon model's performance does get dinged. That said, you can't beat the price. So if you are a budget-minded person, this may be an excellent fit for you.
We have been testing home, office, and recreational equipment for many years. We do so with a rigorous, objective, repeatable protocol and employ experts in the field. For these digital scales, we employed a team consisting of long-time GearLab contributor Jed Porter and his wife, Rosie De Lise.
Jed is a full-time mountain guide known for spreadsheeting everything. He loves weighing things and loves the scales required. He has a spreadsheet that records the weight of every piece of gear in his possession, to the nearest gram. Rosie is a full-time eBay reseller, weighing packages for thrice-weekly shipping all around the world. She lent valuable insight into actual usability and efficiency. The testing protocol we developed mimics your actual use; we tested for accuracy, aesthetics, and ease of use. With the ease of use, we tested for, among other things, boot-up speed, button and screen use, units available, range, and ease of cleaning.
We've taken the time to select a wide range of kitchen scales to match the best options that'll find online. Popular in nature, we tested each across three key metrics, including ease of use, aesthetics, and accuracy. While some did really well, others have specific and niche uses that we pick apart for your reading pleasure.
For a kitchen scale to be of actual utility, it has to be easy to use. If it stows easily, is fast to boot up, is the right size (not too big, not too small), washable, and employs buttons and screens that are easy to activate and interpret, you will use it more often and with greater confidence. Ease of use is the most important consideration. They all look good enough, and all are accurate enough. How they vary in terms of ease of use is what truly differentiates them.
Let's consider the display first. We prefer large and well-lit displays, of which half the models feature the latter. So it's no coincidence that most of our award winners have lit screens. The Etekcity Stainless is the only scale with a lit screen that didn't win an award. Meanwhile, the Ozeri ZK14-S is the only award winner that didn't have a lit screen.
Next, let us talk about boot-up speed. This wasn't a criterion on our radar at first. It wasn't until we had tested for a while that we realized how much this varied and how much it informed our overall impressions. To test, we simply performed a series of “head to head” tests and compiled a ranking. The OXO Good Grips and MyWeigh KD6000 are slow enough that we found ourselves waiting somewhat impatiently to gather basic data. The otherwise unremarkable Greater Goods Scale is very fast to boot up.
Our test team preferred buttons with a positive “click”. This could be a matter of personal preference. Some tested scales have “touchscreen” style buttons. This feels modern and innovative, but it makes for clumsier use. Tactile feedback from the buttons is definitely helpful. Of the award winners, only the Nicewell has non-positive, “touchscreen” style buttons.
If your scale will sit out in view, you want it to look good. We collected a couple of opinions and found there to be enough patterns to draw conclusions. Our team preferred low profile, rectangular, steel, or glass scales. The appearance of the Nicewell is part of what earned it that award. Testers also liked that the Ozeri ZK14-S comes in a whole bunch of different colors. Few of the others have multiple color options, much less the plethora of options that Ozeri gives you.
We tested accuracy by weighing calibration masses of known weights. We did so across a range of weights over a total of four tests with each scale. The most accurate scale got the “answer” right, to the nearest tenth of a gram. The least accurate scale missed three of the weights by one gram. In the grand scheme of things, given what we're typically weighing with these scales, this isn't a huge variation. In short, for typical kitchen and office use, all the scales we tested are accurate enough.
For small loads, the Oxo Good Grips scale has a one-tenth gram resolution. For reference, 1/10 of a gram is a little more than the weight of one typical grain of popcorn. One gram is seven grains of popcorn, roughly. However, the OXO wasn't super precise. Only when rounded to the nearest gram, did it get all the masses correct.
All the rest of the scales had one-gram resolution. Among them, the Escali Primo P115C and Ozeri got all four test rounds correct. The Nicewell, MyWeigh, and Greater Goods scales were accurate with three of the four weights. For all of these scales, the only one they missed was when weighing the one-gram calibration mass. This is the hardest mass to get right, and arguably the least important. We aren't often using a scale like this to weigh exactly one gram of something.
One thing's for sure — there are many kitchen scales on the market. We've done the hard work selecting, buying, testing, and assessing each contender. Our tests are rigorous, repeatable, and unbiased, all in the name of finding out the nitty-gritty of each product. While there's an ocean of choices, we hope that we've helped you sift through the thick to find a gem that you can purchase for your kitchen.
From our favorite kitchen knife sets to mixers and top-ranked blenders, our experts have tested a wide variety of kitchen gear.
