The 6 Best Blenders For Smoothies - Fall 2024

The best blender for smoothies that we've tested is the Vitamix A3500. While it's a very expensive way of making smoothies, it's worth considering if you want the smoothest blends with basically any recipe. It's one of the few full-size blenders we've tested that can blend smaller batches just as well as bigger batches in its main jar. That means you can whip up a personal smoothie or multiple batches to serve a crowd in about a minute without any stirring or scraping. It makes a virtually perfectly smooth blend with fibrous elements like kale and fruit and easily crushes ice.

It's also very well-built and works well for most blends. When you're not making smoothies, it can hot blend and make very smooth, spreadable nut butter. It's decently quiet, and all of its accessories are dishwasher-safe. Its controls include a wide range of manual speed settings and several automatic blending programs. Its 'Smoothie' blending program lasts about a minute, and one cycle is enough for very smooth blends with stubborn ingredients like kale.

The Vitamix Explorian E310 is a good option if you want the best smoothie blender for less. This blender is well-built, just like the A3500, and while it lacks that model's bells and whistles, it performs similarly for smoothies. You can use its 48oz jar to make very smooth blends with difficult ingredients like leafy greens, whether you're working in small or big batches. It doesn't blend big batches as fast as the A3500, but still makes well-blended smoothies in a few minutes.

However, it doesn't have any automatic blending programs, so you must start and stop the blender manually, unlike the A3500. It's also considerably louder, which might be an issue if you make your smoothies early in the morning. That said, it has a fantastic performance for blending common smoothie ingredients like fruit, leafy greens, and ice and offers enough versatility for other recipes as well.

The Breville the Fresh & Furious is the best smoothie blender in the mid-price range. This blender isn't as well-built or versatile as previous picks, but you might prefer it if you only use your blender for smoothies or just want a more affordable option. While it won't blend smoothies as fast as either of the previous picks, it produces the same extremely smooth results, even if your recipe includes fibrous ingredients like kale. It has no problem crushing ice, either. It's decently quiet and very easy to clean by hand.

It has a few automatic blending programs, including 'Smoothie' and 'Green Smoothie,' although one cycle isn't enough for the best results. It can't hot blend, so it's not as good for multi-purpose use as previous picks.

The best budget blender that we've tested for smoothies is the nutribullet Blender Combo. In the lower price range, more full-size blenders struggle with blending small amounts of ingredients. Their big main pitchers aren't always convenient for blending single-serve smoothies since ingredients can splash around, forcing you to stop and use a spatula to scrape the jar. The nutribullet solves that issue by including a couple of 32oz personal jars that you can use for personal smoothies. Using a 32oz jar, it produces a very smooth blend with fibrous ingredients, just like the previous picks. It blends bigger batches more slowly in its 72oz pitcher but makes similarly well-blended smoothies with no grains left over.

It comes with resealable lids for the personal jars, so you can easily bring your smoothie on the go. However, its lower price comes with less versatility. It's not meant for crushing ice without liquid in the jar and really struggles to keep thick recipes moving, so making nut butter or hummus is a long and difficult process. That said, it can hot blend, so it's not a bad option for soups. It's decently quiet and easy to clean by hand.

If you'd like to see more inexpensive blenders, you might find what you're looking for on our list of the best budget blenders.

If you want to spend as little as possible on the best smoothie maker, consider the Black+Decker Quiet Blender with Cyclone Glass Jar. This inexpensive blender is available for well under $100, and it's the first blender listed that doesn't make a nearly perfectly smooth blend with fibrous ingredients. However, it gets pretty close. Whether you're blending in its 48oz main jar or its 24oz personal jar, it makes a mostly smooth blend with kale or fruit smoothies, with some unprocessed bits left over. It's not a great ice crusher since it works best with smaller batches of about six ice cubes, but adding a bit of ice into a smoothie recipe isn't an issue. 

Unfortunately, it's not as well-built as the nutribullet Blender Combo. While it comes with a sturdy 48oz glass pitcher, some of its other components feel flimsy and plasticky. It has limited speed settings and a few automatic blending programs, including 'Smoothie', but it only lasts for 35 seconds, so you'll need several cycles for the best results. That said, as its name suggests, it's very quiet for a full-size blender. 

If you want a quiet blender without sacrificing build quality or motor power, the Hamilton Beach Professional Quiet Blender is the best blender for smoothies. Unlike the Black+Decker Quiet Blender with Cyclone Glass Jar, it's very sturdy. It makes a smoother blend with fibrous ingredients and uses a plastic dome to muffle noise, making it marginally quieter than the Black+Decker despite its more powerful motor. It also does a much better job of crushing ice, so it's more suitable for recipes like slushies or blended margaritas.

However, it's not ideal for bigger batches since its main jar only has a 32oz capacity. You can use the noise dome as a serving pitcher but not for blending. This blender also isn't ideal for thicker recipes like smoothie bowls since the ingredients can get pushed to the corners of the jar, and you have to remove the noise dome to use the tamper. That said, it'll easily handle most smoothie recipes, and it's very easy to clean either in the dishwasher or by hand.

If the noise level is a priority, you can also check out other options on our list of the best quiet blenders.