Countertop ice makers in Australia

We could price 58 countertop machines in Australia, and they run from $74.85 to $1,222. Most of them make the same ice, at the same rated speed, in a box roughly the same size, which changes what the extra money is for.

Prices and specifications checked 9 September 2026

Every countertop machine we could price

Sorted by what you pay. Blank cells are fields the retailer does not publish, left blank rather than estimated.

Some retailers publish the same machine's width and depth the other way around, so read those two numbers as a pair rather than as separate facts. Height is the one to trust, and it is the one that decides whether the machine fits under a cupboard.

What actually separates them

Six specifications matter on a bench machine, and only some of them are published often enough to compare.

• Rated output. 52 of 58 machines publish a kilograms per 24 hours figure. 25 of them publish exactly the same number, 12 kg per 24 hours, which tells you how little this specification separates the category. It is also the softest number on any listing, because it assumes continuous running with the basket emptied every time it fills.
• First cycle. 48 of 58 publish it. The most common figure by a wide margin is 6 minutes, published by 27 machines. A first cycle is nine cubes or so, a glass of ice rather than a bucket. Where a machine quotes a range we record the low end and say so in its note.
• Tank. 45 of 58 publish it, and this is the number that decides how long the machine runs unattended. The largest tank here is 3.2 litres, on the Devanti Portable Ice Maker 120W 3.2L Silver at $169.95.
• Basket. Only 25 of 58 publish a basket capacity, which is a shame, because it is the specification you live with. The ALFORDSON Portable Ice Maker Machine Bar Countertop 12kg Ice Cube Tray Black is rated at 12 kg per 24 hours with a 0.65 kg basket, so at the rated speed that basket is full in about 1.3 hours and the machine then stops until somebody empties it. That arithmetic is ours, from the two published figures. The largest bench basket we found is 1.8 kg, on the Morphy Richards Stainless Steel Ice Maker 2.8L.
• Footprint. 46 of 58 publish dimensions, and they are more alike than different. They are ranked on the small ice maker page.
• Noise. 6 of 58 publish a decibel figure, which is why the noise register is a record of an absence rather than a ranking.

What the extra money buys

Start with the cleanest comparison available. 24 machines here publish an identical rating of 12 kg per 24 hours, and they are priced from $74.85 to $369. That is 4.9 times the money for the same published output, from machines that all freeze bullet ice around metal spikes and all quote a first cycle in single-digit minutes.

The point holds at the extremes too. The most expensive machine on this page, the Artusi Freestanding Ice Maker Black at $1,222, is rated at 9 kg per 24 hours. The cheapest, the ALFORDSON Portable Ice Maker Machine Bar Countertop 12kg Ice Cube Tray Black at $74.85, is rated at 12. More money buys less ice, which is what the published specifications say however odd it reads.

On dollars per rated kilogram of daily output, the range runs from $6 per kilogram on the ALFORDSON Portable Ice Maker Machine Bar Countertop 12kg Ice Cube Tray Black to $136 on the Artusi Freestanding Ice Maker Black. The expensive end of that range is not a rip-off so much as a different product: it is where the sphere, nugget and solid cube machines sit, and those are slower by design.

So what does the money get you? Four things, in order of how reliably.

• A stainless housing instead of painted plastic. This is the most common difference between a cheap machine and a mid-priced one, and it is a real difference if the machine lives on a bench you look at. It does not make more ice.
• A bigger tank and a bigger basket. Fewer interruptions is the upgrade most people actually feel, and both figures are published often enough to shop on.
• A different kind of ice. Nugget, sphere and solid cube machines cost more because they are built differently, not because they are premium versions of the same thing. See what each machine physically makes and, for the soft chewable kind, the nugget page.
• Occasionally, a longer warranty. The longest term we found is 60 months, on the Wolstead Crystal Ice Maker 12kg at $139.95, which is not close to the most expensive machine here. Warranty does not scale with price in this category. Who honours it, and whether parts exist in Australia, is the more useful question.

Above $400 there are only 4 machines here, against 24 under $150 and 29 in between. The market is concentrated at the cheap end because that is where the machines are the same.

Which one to buy

• If you want ice on a bench and nothing more. The ALFORDSON Portable Ice Maker Machine Bar Countertop 12kg Ice Cube Tray Black at $74.85 is the cheapest machine we could price, rated at 12 kg per 24 hours, which is the same rating as machines costing several times as much. It is sold by Bunnings, which pays us nothing, and it is the sensible default for most households.
• If refilling is the thing that will annoy you. The Devanti Portable Ice Maker 120W 3.2L Silver at $169.95 carries the largest tank here, 3.2 litres. On a bench machine the tank is the run time, so this is what to pay for if it will work through an afternoon rather than fill one glass.
• If emptying is the thing that will annoy you. The Morphy Richards Stainless Steel Ice Maker 2.8L at $225 publishes the largest bench basket, 1.8 kg. On a busy afternoon that is worth more than a higher rated output.
• If you need volume for a party. The highest rated bench output here is 20 kg per 24 hours, on the Devanti Ice Maker Machine 20kg Chewable Nugget Ice Countertop with Self Cleaning at $342.85. Read that as a speed, not a promise: you have to stand there emptying the basket to get near it, and for a large gathering bagged ice from the servo is cheaper and already made.
• If it should look built in rather than sit on the bench. The Artusi Freestanding Ice Maker Black at $1,222 is the only freestanding undercounter unit we could price, rated at 9 kg per 24 hours. You pay for the cabinet and the finish, not the ice.
• If you want soft chewable ice. No bullet machine will give it to you at any price. That is a separate short list on the nugget page.

Two things to check before you order

The same machine sells for very different money. Devanti in particular appears across Bunnings, Amazon, Kitchen Warehouse, Harvey Norman and Myer under names that differ by a word or two, at prices that differ by a great deal more. Check the price register first, because on this page the retailer matters more than the model.

They need cleaning, and most people do not do it. A tank of standing water grows a film and the ice tastes of it long before anything fails. What the manuals require is a twenty minute job every few weeks. Power is the other running cost, worked out state by state in the running cost register. For the whole category side by side, including fridges and commercial cabinets, start at the main comparison.

Common questions

How much ice does a countertop ice maker actually make in a day?

Less than the number on the box. The rated figure assumes the machine runs for a full 24 hours with the basket emptied every time it fills, which nobody does. A basket that holds 0.6kg on a machine rated at 12kg per 24 hours is full in a bit over an hour, and once it is full the machine stops. Treat the rated figure as a speed rather than a daily total: what it really tells you is how fast a batch arrives, not how much ice you will have at the end of the day.

Do countertop ice makers need plumbing?

No. Every machine on this page is filled by hand from a jug and drained by hand from a plug in the base, which is the entire reason the category exists. That also means the tank is the limit on an unattended run: when the water is gone the machine stops, and the tanks in this category are small, as the table above shows. If you want ice without refilling anything, the answer is a plumbed fridge or a plumbed undercounter machine, not a bench unit.

Is a $300 machine better than a $100 one?

Not at making ice, usually. Most machines here carry the same rated output and the same six minute first cycle whether they cost under a hundred dollars or over three hundred. What the extra money reliably buys is a stainless housing rather than painted plastic, a larger tank and basket so you interrupt it less often, sometimes a longer warranty, and in a few cases a genuinely different product such as nugget, sphere or solid cube ice. If none of those matter to you, the cheap machine makes the same bullet ice.

How loud are countertop ice makers?

Almost nobody publishes a figure, so honestly nobody can tell you from the listings. Barely any of the machines we sourced publish a decibel number at all, and the ones that do state it as an upper bound during ice production rather than as a measurement. Noise is the most common complaint in the category and the least published number in it, which is why we keep a separate noise register rather than guessing.