If you're looking for a new toaster, you'll find plenty of affordable options. The best affordable toasters on the market offer useful quality-of-life features, like a way to check your toast's progress without interrupting the cycle or slots that lift high enough to make it easy to grab small items. They should also toast evenly and offer a good toasting range, so you can reliably get your favorite shade. And if you want to make multiple batches in a row, you should also look for a model that doesn't make increasingly dark toast as the unit heats up.
We've tested more than 20 toasters, and below, you'll find our recommendations for the best budget and cheap options. If you're curious about what more money will buy, check out our recommendations for the best toasters, the best 2-slice toasters, and the best 4-slice toasters.
We've put our 20 toasters through the wringer to help you make a confident buying decision. But how do we do it? It starts with buying the products ourselves, just like you. We take it a step further with our lab, where we measure a variety of characteristics, like toasting evenness, so that a prospective toaster's performance doesn't come as a shock. You can even compare models and results, making it easy to find the right toaster for your needs.
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Best Budget Toaster
The best toaster we've tested at a budget-friendly price is the Oster 2-Slice Toaster with Quick-Check Lever. This inexpensive model has a couple of extra features that set it apart from other budget models. The 'Quick-Check Lever' feature lets you lift the slots and check your toast's progress without interrupting the toasting cycle, and when your toast is ready, the slots lift up higher than most toasters, making it easier to grab smaller items, like English muffins or frozen waffles. And as a bonus, it's available in a few different colors, and its wavy plastic shell gives it a retro look that may suit your style.
It does a fantastic job of evenly toasting the surface of the bread on both sides, and it toasts pretty consistently, so you can make multiple batches in a row without changing the settings. It offers a good toasting range, too, so you can get pale or golden-brown toast reliably. That said, it can't char sandwich bread in one cycle, which suggests you may have to toast denser breads twice to thoroughly toast them.
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Best Cheap Toaster
If you'd prefer a no-frills model for the sake of paying as little as possible, then check out the Black+Decker 2-Slice Toaster T2569B, the best cheap toaster we've tested. Compared to the Oster 2-Slice Toaster with Quick-Check Lever, it lacks extra features. It has basic functions like 'Bagel,' 'Frozen,' and 'Stop Cycle,' which almost all toasters are equipped with, but there are no cycle countdown indicators to let you know when your toast will be ready. And while our top pick is also made of plastic, this one has a less premium look overall.
When it comes to toasting performance, however, this model is a real standout. It has a fantastic toasting range: you can get anything from barely warmed to completely charred bread with one of its six settings in a single cycle. It evenly toasts the entire surface of the bread on both sides and performs consistently batch after batch, so you don't have to lower the setting to get the same result each time.
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Best Budget 4-Slot Toaster
The Black+Decker 4-Slice Toaster TR400SSD is the best affordable toaster with four slots we've tested. This toaster offers a higher capacity for busy mornings, with two sets of slots that operate independently. It has a fantastic toasting range, so you can easily make golden-brown toast from sandwich bread and denser brown carbs like rye bread in a single cycle. It also toasts very evenly on both sides and produces similar results after multiple batches.
Like the Black+Decker 2-Slice Toaster T2569B, it lacks quality-of-life features, like cycle countdown indicators. However, it does have the usual settings for frozen items and bagels, as well as a cancel button. If you want something more convenient, the Beautiful 4-Slice Toaster with Touch-Activated Display is slightly more expensive, but it features cycle countdown indicators for each set of slots and an option for gluten-free bread. However, its button controls don't let you fine-tune the shade setting like a dial, so you're stuck with the seven preset settings. While it can brown denser bread in a single cycle, if you're using basic sandwich bread, none of the settings yield golden-brown toast.
Recent Updates
Feb 04, 2026:
We reorganized this article to list our recommendations by price and made edits throughout for clarity and conciseness.
Dec 02, 2025:
We've verified that our picks are in stock and made small edits for clarity.
Apr 14, 2025:
We made minor updates to the text and checked that the products are in stock.
All Reviews
Here are our recommendations for what we think are the best affordable toasters for most people. We factor in price, feedback from our visitors, and availability.
If you'd like to do the work of choosing yourself, here's the list of all our toaster reviews. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. There's no perfect toaster; most are good enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you really look for them.