Best Countertop Ice Makers UK

A countertop ice maker earns its space the first time you host and the freezer tray runs dry. It sits on the worktop, takes tap water, and drops a fresh batch of cubes in five to thirteen minutes, which is roughly the time it takes to build the first round of drinks and get everyone settled.

This guide compares twelve machines you can actually buy in the UK, from a £44.99 starter to a £245 ice ball maker, and it covers the part most buyers get caught out by. A countertop machine makes ice quickly, but it does not keep ice frozen the way a freezer does. The basket is a holding tray rather than a freezer compartment, so if you want cubes still solid four hours into a party you need to plan for that separately. We cover exactly how, and what to buy, further down.

Quick Picks

Twelve Countertop Ice Makers Compared

The Twelve, Reviewed

1. EUHOMY Countertop Ice Maker, 12kg

Around £89.99 - best overall

This is the machine we point most people towards, and it is the one already sitting on plenty of home bar worktops. It quotes twelve kilos across a full day, nine bullet cubes in about six minutes, and two cube sizes so you can run smaller ice for mixed drinks and larger ice for a whisky tumbler. The self-cleaning cycle runs from the same panel, which matters more than it sounds, because a neglected ice maker starts smelling of the tank within a week.

The practical size is roughly a small microwave footprint, so it fits under a wall cupboard on a normal kitchen worktop. It holds about 0.6kg of finished ice in the basket, which is enough for a round of drinks rather than a whole party, so plan to keep the machine running while you host.

Pros: two cube sizes, self-cleaning cycle, six-minute first batch, plenty of owner feedback online. Cons: the basket is small, and the price sits above the budget machines for a similar daily output.

2. COMFEE' Countertop Ice Maker, 12kg

Around £44.99 - best budget

COMFEE' keeps turning up in budget kitchen conversations for a reason: the specification sheet looks close to machines costing twice as much. You get twelve kilos a day, a self-cleaning function and a compact body, and it is the cheapest way into countertop ice among the twelve here. For someone who mostly wants two or three cubes in a gin and tonic on a weeknight, the extra money on a premium machine buys features you will not use.

The trade-offs are the usual budget ones. The body is plastic rather than brushed steel, the basket is modest, and it has fewer controls than the mid-range machines. Set against a £44.99 price, none of that feels unreasonable.

Pros: lowest price here for a 12kg machine, self-cleaning, small enough for a tight worktop. Cons: plastic build, basic controls, no second cube size.

3. FOHERE Ice Maker 14KG

Around £54.99 - fastest first batch

FOHERE quotes nine cubes in five minutes, which is the quickest start time on this list and the reason it earns a place. It also steps the daily output up to fourteen kilos and gives you a choice of two bullet sizes, all for around £55. If your main irritation is standing around waiting for the first tray while guests arrive, this is the pick that solves it.

It is the same class of machine as the others with a carry handle, so moving it between the kitchen and a garden table is straightforward. The five-minute claim assumes the machine has been running and the reservoir is full, so switch it on before the doorbell goes rather than after.

Pros: fastest quoted first batch, 14kg daily output, two ice sizes, low price. Cons: the speed advantage only shows on the first batch of a session.

4. SONGMICS Portable Ice Maker, XZB001B1UK

Around £59.99 - best for small kitchens

SONGMICS builds this one for people short on worktop, and the footprint is the selling point rather than the ice output. It quotes the familiar twelve kilos a day and a bullet cube, in a matte black casing that does not look like a catering appliance. In a flat where the ice maker has to live between the kettle and the toaster, that matters.

There is a viewing window on the lid so you can see how full the basket is without lifting anything, and the water tank is filled from the top rather than the back. Neither feature is exciting, and both make the machine easier to live with daily.

Pros: compact, neat black finish, top-fill tank, viewing window. Cons: no second ice size, and the small body means a small basket.

5. Silonn Countertop Ice Maker, 12KG

Around £67.99 - best first machine

Silonn sits in the middle of the budget band and does the standard job well: nine cubes in about six minutes, twelve kilos a day, self-cleaning, and a body light enough to shift with one hand. It is the machine I would suggest to someone buying their first ice maker and unsure how much they will actually use it, because it costs little enough to be an experiment and works well enough to keep.

The controls are a single row of buttons with indicator lights for ice full and add water, which is all a countertop machine really needs. There are no app features and no timer, and in practice nobody misses them on a machine this simple.

Pros: sensible middle price, light and portable, simple controls. Cons: nothing distinguishes it from the cheaper COMFEE' on paper.

6. WIE Ice Maker Countertop, 12KG

Around £79.99 - quietest of the budget group

WIE's twelve-kilo machine targets the noise complaint that comes up most often with countertop ice makers. Compressor machines of this size generally land around 45 to 50 decibels, which is roughly a quiet conversation, and the drop cycle is the part people notice because it repeats every few minutes. This one is built around keeping that background hum low.

It does the same nine cubes in six minutes as its rivals and adds a self-cleaning cycle. If the machine will sit in an open-plan kitchen where the television is, paying the small premium for the quieter unit makes more sense than paying it for extra features.

Pros: quieter running, self-cleaning, standard 12kg output. Cons: no second cube size, and the price is close to the EUHOMY.

7. HiCOZY D5 Ice Maker

Around £89.99 - best looking

The HiCOZY D5 makes the same twelve kilos and the same six-minute first batch as the machines around it, then adds built-in lighting so the ice basket glows when the machine is running. That sounds like a gimmick until you set it up on a home bar in the evening, where the lit basket does most of the decorative work you would otherwise buy a lamp for.

Underneath the lighting it is a conventional bullet ice machine with a self-cleaning cycle and a removable basket. Buy it because you want the machine on show and switched on, not because you expect the ice to be different.

Pros: built-in lighting, self-cleaning, standard 12kg output, looks good on display. Cons: you pay a premium for appearance rather than performance.

8. ecozy Ice Maker Machine, 12KG

Around £109.99 - best everyday machine

ecozy is the step up buyers take when they want the machine to feel solid rather than cheap. It quotes twelve kilos a day with a choice of two ice sizes and a self-cleaning cycle, and the build is noticeably more substantial than the £45 machines. This is the point in the range where the casing, the basket and the lid all start to feel like they will survive a few years of daily use.

It is the machine for someone who has decided ice is part of their routine rather than a party trick. The jump from the COMFEE' to this one is roughly £65, and what you get for it is build quality and a second cube size rather than more ice.

Pros: solid build, two ice sizes, self-cleaning, dependable daily machine. Cons: same daily output as machines costing half as much.

9. EUHOMY Ice Cube Maker, 15KG with External Water Tank

Around £127.49 - best for long sessions

The external water tank is the whole point here. Fifteen kilos a day, sixteen cubes every thirteen minutes, and a reservoir you top up far less often than the standard 1.2 litre machines, which is what stops an evening of hosting turning into a routine of refilling the tank between rounds. If you have ever run a smaller machine dry mid-party, you know exactly why this exists.

The cubes are the same bullet shape as the rest of the EUHOMY range, so it suits mixed drinks and long serves rather than neat spirits. It takes up more room than a compact unit, so measure the worktop before committing.

Pros: bigger external tank, 15kg daily output, fewer refills. Cons: larger footprint, slower per-batch cycle than the six-minute machines.

10. TANGZON 22KG Ice Maker

Around £149.90 - best for parties

Twenty-two kilos across a day and twenty-four square cubes every thirteen minutes puts this well clear of everything else here on raw capacity. Square cubes are denser than bullets, so they melt more slowly in the glass, which suits whisky highballs and punch bowls alike. There is a two litre tank, an eight-hour delay timer and a self-cleaning cycle on the same panel.

The delay timer is more useful than it first appears, because you can set the machine to start producing an hour before guests arrive rather than listening to it work all afternoon. This is the machine for people who host large numbers regularly rather than a couple of times a year.

Pros: 22kg output, 24 cubes a batch, square ice, delay timer, two litre tank. Cons: bulkier, and it needs more counter space and clearance than the compact units.

11. EUHOMY Nugget Ice Maker

Around £170 - best nugget ice

Nugget ice is the soft, chewable pellet you get from cinema counters, and it is a genuinely different product rather than a marketing label. The extra surface area chills a drink faster than a bullet cube, and the pellets stay chewable once the glass is empty, which is why frozen cocktails, slushy pitchers and iced coffee all work better with it. This machine quotes 15.5kg across a day with a batch ready in around six minutes.

The costs are real. You pay roughly double the price of a bullet machine, the pellets melt faster in the glass, and nugget ice soaks up whatever it sits in, so a delicate gin loses its edge if you leave it too long. Buy it when chewable ice is the whole point, not as a general-purpose upgrade.

Pros: chewable nugget ice, fast chilling, good for frozen drinks and pitchers. Cons: roughly twice the price, melts faster, absorbs surrounding flavours.

12. EUHOMY Ice Ball Maker, 2.4 inch Spheres

Around £245.09 - best for whisky

The top of this list exists for one job: a single large sphere that chills a dram without watering it down. It quotes three 2.4 inch ice balls in about forty minutes and up to 108 across a full day, and a sphere that size melts slowly enough to sit in a measure of single malt for an hour. Pair one with a heavy tumbler from our guide to whisky glass types and you have the setup most whisky drinkers are actually chasing.

It is a specialist purchase and the price reflects that. Forty minutes for three balls means you cannot serve a crowd with it, so treat it as a whisky shelf companion rather than a party machine. If you want big slow-melting cubes without spending £245, a set of large silicone trays does most of the same job for a fraction of the money.

Pros: proper 2.4 inch spheres, slow melting, ideal for spirits served neat. Cons: expensive, slow output, useless for a crowd.

What Actually Matters When You Compare These

First batch time is not the same as output. A machine quoting five or six minutes is telling you how long the first set takes once the compressor has cooled, and the fast figure only helps on the first round of a session. After that you are limited by the daily and per-batch numbers, not the headline speed.

Daily output figures are ceilings. The 12kg, 15kg and 22kg figures assume the machine cycles continuously for twenty-four hours, which no home bar does. On a normal evening you will produce a fraction of that, so read the numbers as relative capacity between machines rather than as what you will get.

The basket size decides how you host. Bullet machines typically hold around 0.6kg of finished ice, which is a few rounds rather than an evening. If your machine has a small basket, the practical answer is to run it throughout the evening and serve from an insulated bucket rather than expecting the basket to carry the party.

Ice shape changes the drink. Bullet cubes are the default and work everywhere. Square cubes are denser and slower to melt, which suits spirit-forward drinks. Nugget pellets are soft, chill fastest and melt quickest. Spheres are the slowest of all and exist for a single measure of something worth treating properly. Our guide to countertop ice makers goes through the shapes in more detail.

Noise is a real difference. Machines in this class mostly run between 45 and 50 decibels, and the drop cycle repeats every few minutes, so it is that repeated clatter rather than a constant hum that people notice. If the machine lives in an open-plan room, the quieter models justify their price.

Cleaning is not optional. The water tank is a damp, dark, room-temperature box, which is a good place for mould to start. Every machine here with a self-cleaning cycle still needs the tank emptied, the basket wiped and a proper descale every couple of weeks. That single habit is the difference between ice that tastes of nothing and ice that tastes of the machine.

Why a Countertop Ice Maker Will Not Keep Ice Frozen

This is the expectation that catches people out, so it is worth stating plainly. A countertop ice maker makes ice, but it does not store it at freezing temperature the way a freezer does. The internal basket sits in a cold but not frozen compartment, so finished cubes start to soften within an hour or two, and they clump together into a single lump if you leave them in there long enough.

There are three practical answers, and the cheap ones work best. The first is to move ice to the freezer as it is produced, using the basket as a staging area rather than a store. The second is to serve from an insulated ice bucket with a scoop and a lid, pre-chilled in the freezer beforehand, which holds cubes solid for hours on the table and looks better than a plastic basket anyway. The third is to keep a stock of big cubes made overnight for spirit-forward drinks: large silicone trays freeze slowly enough to make clear, slow-melting cubes for a few pounds, and they need no electricity at all.

Put those two accessories together with any machine on this list and you have a home ice setup that survives an evening. Buy the machine for speed, and buy the bucket for staying power.

How We Compared These

Every machine here was assessed on the specifications its listing publishes, the price at the time of writing in September 2026, and the job it is actually built for. Where a listing publishes owner ratings we read them, and where it does not we leave ratings out rather than guess. We have not run every unit side by side in a kitchen, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.

Prices on Amazon move with promotions, so check the current figure before you buy. The ranking by job, from budget starter to specialist ice ball maker, holds regardless of a few pounds either way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do countertop ice makers keep ice frozen?

No. The basket is a cold holding tray, not a freezer compartment, so cubes soften within an hour or two and can clump together if left. Transfer ice to a freezer as it is made, or serve it from an insulated bucket with a lid, and the problem disappears.

How long does ice last in a countertop ice maker?

Expect an hour or two before the cubes start to melt and stick together. In an insulated bucket that has been chilled first, the same cubes will hold for several hours, which is why the bucket matters as much as the machine.

Bullet ice or nugget ice for cocktails?

Bullet ice for almost everything, because it is dense, melts slowly and suits shaken drinks, highballs and spirits. Nugget ice earns its extra cost for frozen cocktails, slushy pitchers and iced coffee, where the soft chewable texture is the point rather than a side effect.

How much does a countertop ice maker cost to run?

The listings for machines in this class quote something in the region of 90 to 150 watts while the compressor is running, and the compressor only runs while it is making ice. The running cost then depends entirely on your electricity tariff and how often you switch it on, so a machine used for a couple of hours at weekends costs very little across a year.

Do countertop ice makers need plumbing?

None of the twelve here need plumbing. You fill a water tank by hand, which is what makes them portable enough to move to a garden table or a campervan. Plumbed machines exist in the commercial range, and that is a different product at a different price.

How often should you clean a countertop ice maker?

Empty and rinse the tank every day or two, wipe the basket when it is empty, and run a full descale every couple of weeks using the self-cleaning cycle with citric acid or white vinegar. Ice picks up the taste of a dirty tank faster than almost anything else in a kitchen.

How much ice do you need for a party?

A rough working figure is around 0.5kg of ice per guest across an evening of mixed drinks, which for twenty people is 10kg. That is close to a full day of output from a 12kg machine, which is exactly why high-capacity models and an insulated bucket both earn their place.

The Verdict

For most UK home bars the EUHOMY 12kg countertop ice maker is still the machine to buy, because it hits the balance of price, six-minute first ice, two cube sizes and a self-cleaning cycle without any obvious weakness. If £45 is your ceiling, the COMFEE' 12kg machine does the everyday job and leaves money for a proper bucket.

If you host large numbers regularly, the TANGZON 22kg machine is the one that will not leave you short, and the square cubes hold up better in the glass. If chewable ice is what you actually want, the EUHOMY nugget machine is the honest answer and worth the extra. For neat whisky, the EUHOMY ice ball maker sits at the top of the range and does something no bullet machine can.

Whichever you choose, add the insulated bucket. It is the cheapest upgrade on this page and the one that decides whether the ice is still solid when the last guests leave.

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D

Dan Whitfield

Drinks Writer, HomeBarPro

Dan compares barware for HomeBarPro, from cocktail shakers and bar tools to ice makers, buckets and home bar setup. He buys with his own money and says when the cheap option wins.

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Last reviewed: 14 September 2026 · Evidence-based content · Contains affiliate links