The best ice makers in Australia

We could price 58 countertop machines across 23 brands sold here. The uncomfortable conclusion is that most of them are close to the same machine: similar rated output, similar cycle, the same hollow bullet ice. So this page is organised around the four things that genuinely separate them, rather than around a ranking that would pretend at a precision the specifications do not support.

Prices and specifications checked 9 September 2026

The four things that actually differ

1. What ice it makes. Nearly all of them make hollow bullet ice. Genuine chewable nugget ice comes from a different mechanism and only 5 machines in our data can be verified as having it.
2. Whether it can be repaired here. The sharpest divide on this page, and the one nobody shops on.
3. How fast it works, not how much it makes. Basket size stops a machine long before its daily rating does.
4. Where you buy it. The identical unit sells at materially different prices and, more importantly, from sellers with very different willingness to take it back.

Repairable against disposable

18 of the 58 machines here carry a brand whose own published policy says it does not supply spare parts or offer a repair service in Australia, and 6 carry a brand with a verified Australian parts and service pathway. That is not a quality judgement about the machines and it is not hidden: it is written in the brands' own warranty documents.

Since running cost is a rounding error and purchase prices are low, lifespan is the whole financial question. A machine that cannot be repaired is not a bad buy, but it is a consumable, and it should be priced against that expectation. The brand-by-brand detail is in the warranty and parts register.

Recommendations by situation

• You want ice at home and do not care what shape it is. Buy near the bottom of the market. The cheapest machine we could price is the ALFORDSON Portable Ice Maker Machine Bar Countertop 12kg Ice Cube Tray Black at $74.85, and it makes the same ice as machines several times the price. Spend the difference on nothing.
• You want the most ice per dollar. On published output against published price, that is the ALFORDSON Portable Ice Maker Machine Bar Countertop 12kg Ice Cube Tray Black at $74.85 for 12kg per 24 hours. Treat rated output as a measure of speed rather than of daily supply.
• You specifically want soft chewable nugget ice. Only 5 machines here can be verified as making it, from $281.07 up. Nothing cheaper substitutes, and 5 further listings sold as nugget could not be verified. See the nugget page.
• You want to take it camping or in a caravan. Read the portable page before buying anything. Not one machine in our data accepts 12V DC, so every one of them needs mains power or an inverter, whatever the word portable in the product name suggests.
• You want ice as fast as possible. The shortest published first-cycle time is 5 minutes, on the Devanti Nugget Ice Maker Machine 1.1L. Bear in mind a fast cycle also means the harvest clatter happens more often, which is the noise people actually complain about.
• You need volume for a party or a work site. The highest rated output here is 20kg per 24 hours from the Devanti Ice Maker Machine 20kg Chewable Nugget Ice Countertop with Self Cleaning, but honestly a bag of ice is the better answer for a one-off. The arithmetic is in machine against bagged ice.
• You want ice without a machine on the bench. A fridge with a built-in ice maker is the alternative, at several times the price. The catch is plumbing, and it is not the catch most people expect. See fridges with ice makers.

Every machine we could price

Sorted by price. Ice type is recorded from the specification and the product imagery rather than from the product name, which in this category is frequently wrong.

Noise is missing from that table on purpose. Of 58 products across every brand sold here, 6 publish a decibel figure, so a noise column would be almost entirely empty. Why that matters, and what predicts noise instead, is in the noise register.

Go deeper

Common questions

What is the best ice maker in Australia?

There is no single answer worth giving, because the machines differ on things that matter to different people. What we can say is that almost all of them make the same hollow bullet ice at broadly the same rate, so if that is all you need, the cheapest one from a retailer with a real returns desk is a rational buy. The decision only gets interesting if you want chewable nugget ice, need it to travel, or intend to keep it for years.

How much should I spend on an ice maker?

Prices here run from $74.85 to $1,222, and the extra money mostly does not buy more ice. Machines at four times the price often publish the same rated output. What the money can buy is a stainless housing, a genuine nugget mechanism, or a brand with an Australian repair pathway, and only the last two change what you end up with in three years.

Are cheap ice makers any good?

For making ice, generally yes, and that is the honest finding. They are broadly the same machine. The real difference is what happens when one fails: Devanti and Anko (Kmart) state in their own policies that they do not supply spare parts or offer repairs in Australia, so a cheap machine is a consumable rather than an appliance. Buy one on that basis and it is good value. Buy one expecting to service it and it is not.

How much ice will one actually make?

Considerably less than the rating on the box, and not because the rating is dishonest. A rated output assumes the machine runs continuously for 24 hours with the basket emptied as it fills. In a real kitchen the basket fills in a couple of hours and the machine stops until someone empties it. Rated output tells you how fast it works, not how much ice you will have.