Best Tumble Dryer 2026: The Cost Per Load Nobody Prints

The deepest sample in this article by a factor of ten over the smallest, and the cheapest machine in it: 324 ratings at 4.6 stars, for a three kilogram vented dryer that costs £139.99. A three kilogram drum is the smallest capacity in this ranking by some distance — the full-size machines below hold eight, nine and ten kilograms — and it is the reason this dryer exists. It is for the flat with no utility room, the student room, the caravan, and the household that dries two washloads a week rather than six. Its buyers describe exactly that: one bought it because it was the cheapest way to avoid a secondhand machine, another reports it being light, space-saving, and having a pipe that can be run out of a door or a window, which is what a vented dryer requires and what its listing never mentions.

That omission is worth the entry on its own. A vented dryer must push moist air somewhere, and the somewhere is a hose of roughly a metre and a half through a window, a wall or a vent kit that the buyer usually has to buy separately. Of the three vented machines in this ranking, one includes a vent kit in its contents and this one ships with a pipe; the phrase does not appear in the specification of any of them, and every year a proportion of buyers discover it after delivery. The rest of the specification is modest and complete: 830 watts, five drying modes, a stainless steel drum, an overheat cut-out, a 180 minute timer and dimensions of 43.5 by 49.5 by 59.5 centimetres, which will sit under a worktop.

It is first because 324 buyers cannot all be wrong about whether a small dryer dries, and because at £139.99 it is the only machine here that pays for itself in a winter of drying on radiators.

The only dryer in this article that publishes the number the whole purchase turns on. A tumble dryer is the most expensive appliance in a British kitchen to run, and what it costs is its energy consumption per cycle multiplied by the price of a unit of electricity. Nine of the ten listings here give a letter — B, A+, or nothing at all — and one gives the arithmetic: an energy consumption of 5.34 kilowatt-hours per full load and 2.9 for a partial one. At a typical unit price that is the difference between a load costing about a pound and a load costing about a pound and a half, which over a winter is the price of the machine. It appears on a vented dryer, which is the least efficient of the three technologies in this ranking, and that is not a contradiction: the manufacturer has simply been honest about the running cost of the cheapest design to build.

It is also the only listing that says what arrives in the box. Its included components describe a standard vent kit with a vent hose, which is the accessory every vented dryer needs and which the other vented machines here either ship a bare pipe for or leave to a separate purchase. The rest is a nine kilogram drum, a depth of 60.7 centimetres, a weight of 28.9 kilograms — the lightest of the full-size machines here, thirteen kilograms less than the heat pump model — and sensor drying that adjusts the cycle to the moisture in the drum rather than a timer. Its brand field reads MyChoice, which is a seller's own label on a Candy machine, and its buyers are unbothered: absolutely brilliant, really pleased, very quiet, easy to use, very fast.

With 305 ratings at 4.3 stars it is the second-deepest sample in this article, and at £249 it is priced with the rest of the nine kilogram machines. It is second because a dryer that tells you what it costs to run is worth more than a dryer that tells you its letter.

The largest drum in this article and the one genuinely new idea in it. Every condenser dryer has the same recurring annoyance: it does not need a hose to the outside, because it condenses the moisture out of the air and collects it in a tank, and that tank has to be emptied, by hand, every few loads. The tanks are almost always a flat tray set low at the front of the machine, which means the job involves kneeling and a slow walk to the sink without spilling. This model replaces it with what the listing calls an AquaVision water reservoir — a sealed container designed to be lifted and carried — and describes the tray it replaces as sometimes tricky to carry, which is the manufacturer admitting the flaw in the same sentence as it sells the fix. It is the sort of detail a specification field cannot hold, and the reason this listing earns an entry beyond its capacity.

The capacity is ten kilograms, the largest here, and matters in a household that dries bedding and towels rather than shirts. It is also a 34.8 kilogram machine at 58.5 by 59.6 by 85 centimetres, which is the standard footprint for a British kitchen and fits under a worktop. Its four drying levels include a ready-to-iron setting that deliberately stops with moisture still in the fabric, which is what anybody who irons wants and nobody discovers from a letter on a label. There is a start delay, so the machine can run on a cheap overnight tariff if the household has one, which is the single most effective way to reduce what a dryer costs.

Its 200 ratings at 4.2 stars are the third-deepest sample in this article, and one buyer describes the machine in a sentence this market deserves to be judged on: absolutely fantastic, really pleased with it. It is third because the capacity and the reservoir are real advantages over the two machines above it and because 200 buyers is a smaller case than 305.

The only machine in this article with a top energy class, and the clearest demonstration of what that class costs. Its title claims A+, and its item type names the technology that produces it: a heat pump dryer. A heat pump does not make heat, it moves it — the same principle as a fridge running in reverse — which is why it uses roughly half the electricity of a condenser or a vented machine for the same load. The saving is real and it is the largest single number in the ownership of a dryer, because a dryer is used hundreds of times. The price is on the same page: this machine weighs 41 kilograms, against 28.9 for the nine kilogram vented dryer at number two and 15 for the four kilogram compact further down. A compressor, a second heat exchanger and the pipework between them are all metal, and they all arrive in the same box. If the machine is going upstairs, that difference decides who carries it.

It is a first place in its own category, the heat pump dryers, and a second one in Large Appliances overall at forty-second, which is what a well-reviewed appliance in a category of hundreds looks like. The specification is a modern one: sixteen programmes, an automatic dryness sensor that stops the cycle when the load is dry rather than when the timer ends, an anti-crease function that reverses the drum to shake out tangles, and a refresh cycle for clothes that have been stored rather than worn. The reviews are about those: buyers call it quiet, energy efficient for the price and function, and very good, with the only recurring complaint being the delivery rather than the machine.

At £289.98 it is the second-dearest machine in this ranking and 168 ratings at 4.4 stars is a solid sample. It is fourth because the class is the best here and the two machines above it are cheaper, lighter and bought by more people — and because an A+ that is not accompanied by a kWh figure is a letter, and one listing in this article gives the number instead.

The best-selling machine in its own category — twenty-second in Large Appliances and first among the condenser dryers — and a listing whose capacity field reads nine load. Not nine kilograms, or a nine kilogram drum: nine load, a phrase assembled out of a number and a word that describes no quantity, in the field where a shopper checks whether the machine will take a duvet. Its sibling in this ranking does the same thing with eight load, which makes it a family habit rather than a slip of the keyboard, and it belongs to the same family of errors as the oven glove sold with a sleeping bag filling material and the sunrise clock with seventeen atmosphere lights in a count of lights. A specification is only as useful as the units it is written in, and this market has a category leader that does not use one.

What else the page contains is the standard condenser offering and worth having: a nine kilogram drum, a B energy class stated in the bullets rather than left to a label, a condenser design that needs no hose to the outside because it collects the water in a tank, painted steel construction, a weight of 34.2 kilograms and a 60 centimetre depth that will sit under a worktop. The reviews are mild and domestic — perfect, easy to use, empty in door, no messing around, and one buyer, more honest than most, wishing the box had included a programme guide. That single complaint about a missing manual is a better advertisement than the rating average: it is the kind of thing buyers write about a machine they have otherwise understood.

At £279 it is priced a few pounds under the ten kilogram Hoover above it and 142 ratings at 4.1 stars is a moderate sample. It is fifth because the category's own verdict is on its side and its specification writes nine load where it means nine kilograms.

A dryer that cannot decide which company makes it. The title names the model as the Indesit CYDA81WWGLUK, and the brand field on the same page says Beko. Both are real manufacturers, both sell vented dryers in Britain, and the two are not related — which means the field was filled in by somebody who was listing appliances rather than this appliance. It is the same class of error as the Hoover above branded MyChoice, and the pair of them make a point that no single example could: when a marketplace's specification block is completed in a hurry, the brand is one of the fields that gets guessed. A shopper relying on the brand to judge service, spares or a warranty has one page telling them two different stories.

The capacity field has the same fault as the machine at number five, in the same deceptive shape: eight load, which should be eight kilograms, and a bullet further down describing an 8kg drum with the word capacity misspelled. Three errors of three different kinds — a wrong brand, a non-unit, a typo — on the page of a machine that is otherwise ordinary and decent: a vented design with a timer delay, a 30 kilogram body at 59 by 60 by 85 centimetres, and a ninth place among the vented dryers, which is the middle of a large category. Its buyers are as pleased as buyers of dryers generally are: absolutely brilliant, really pleased, and, from another, amazing, very quiet, easy to use and very fast.

At £249 it undercuts the two machines above it and 71 ratings at 4.2 stars is a modest sample. It is sixth because the machine may well be the equal of the machines above it, and because a shopper is being asked to spend £249 on a page that does not agree with itself about who built it.

The only listing in this article that states what temperature it dries at, and the lightest machine in it by a factor that matters more than it sounds: fifteen kilograms, against 28.9 for a nine kilogram vented dryer and 41 for the heat pump. A dryer is the appliance most often moved by one person — out from under a worktop, into a cupboard, up a flight of stairs in a flat — and a fifteen kilogram tabletop machine at 42 by 50 by 60 centimetres is the only one here that a single adult can carry without planning. It is a four kilogram drum, which is a household of one or two, and its listed maximum temperature is seventy degrees, which is the number that separates a machine that dries from a box that warms.

Its title and its bullet then disagree about how many drying modes it has — six in the name, five in the text — which is the smallest version of the fault that runs through this market, and it ships with a vent hose and an exhaust pipe, which is the accessory every vented dryer needs and only two listings here bother to include. It is currently first in the vented dryer category, which for a small tabletop machine competing against full-size vented dryers is as much a comment on the category as on the product. Its 36 ratings at 4.2 stars include one buyer whose machine arrived defective and was refunded after some effort, and another who calls it a brilliant little dryer with strong heat and short cycles.

At £169.99 it costs less than every full-size machine here and more than the three kilogram compact at number one, and it is seventh because the sample is thin and because this machine and its white twin share the same thirty-six ratings — a buyer reading them is reading the verdict of both colours.

The white version of the machine above, and worth an entry for two reasons: the review that explains why this market exists at all, and the mechanism that makes its rating count a family figure. The review is from a buyer replacing a White Knight dryer which is no longer made — White Knight was the British manufacturer whose small machines furnished generations of flats and caravans, and whose disappearance left a niche that a Chinese brand now fills with a fifteen kilogram tabletop dryer and a seventy degree element. Another buyer describes buying it to replace an old mini dryer and finding it smaller, more compact and much better, which is the whole of the compact market's argument in one sentence: the alternatives are secondhand.

The mechanism is what this article has already found twice: this listing and the black one carry exactly thirty-six ratings between them, and the same first place in the vented dryer category, because they are variations of one product in the catalogue. A shopper reading thirty-six reviews of a white dryer is reading the combined verdict of everyone who bought either, and no page in this market explains that. The specification is otherwise the same as the twin's: a four kilogram drum, a 1200 watt element, a stated maximum of seventy degrees, five or six drying modes depending on which line of the page is read, a vent hose and an exhaust pipe in the box, and a body of forty-two by fifty by sixty centimetres that weighs fifteen kilograms.

At £169.99 it costs the same as the black version and it is eighth, because when two listings are one product, the honest ranking puts the second of them at the bottom of the pair and says why.