The Best Stand Mixers, According to Our Expert Testers (2025)

Sure, you can mix up your bread dough and whip your cream by hand or with a hand mixer. But if you frequently find yourself kneading loaves of bread, making big batches of whipped cream, or whisking egg whites into swirly meringue, a stand mixer will make your life infinitely easier.

Our top picks

The term stand mixer is practically synonymous with the brand name KitchenAid at this point, but we’ve got news for you: KitchenAid’s candy-colored appliances aren’t the only quality mixers anymore.

After putting 12 models through their paces by making countless batches of cake batter, challah dough, and whipped cream, we’ve found the three best stand mixers for every kind of baker. Whether you’re looking for a budget-friendly option to get you started on your stand mixer journey or you’re a serious baker who delights in advanced features like a built-in timer, there’s a model here for you.

How we chose the best stand mixers

To test stand mixers, we first put them to work on a half batch of this cake recipe to see if they could handle small amounts of ingredients. We paid close attention to how well each mixer performed at creaming the butter and sugar, incorporating the eggs, and gently stirring in the dry ingredients.

Next, we tasked each mixer by making enough challah dough for two loaves of bread (a half batch of this recipe). Challah dough is quite dense and sticky, so we were looking to see how well the mixers were able to stir and knead a large volume of it.

Last, we tested each mixer’s ability to whip cream to billowy peaks. We made sure to chill the bowls and whisk attachments before doing so and used the highest speed setting in each test.

With our testing knowledge in hand, we evaluated the mixers based on the following criteria:

Best overall: Breville Bakery Chef Stand Mixer

When product testers at our sister site Epicurious tested a dozen stand mixers ranging from $40–$1,000, the Breville Bakery Chef came out on top. If you’re a home cook looking to use your stand mixer primarily for baking projects, there’s no better mixer on the market than this one right here.

What we love: The Bakery Chef stands out for a few reasons: It has an extremely powerful, 550-watt motor that makes light work of kneading tough bread dough, creaming butter and sugar, and whipping cream to fluffy peaks in record time. It rings in at a lower price point than the 5-qt. model of the beloved KitchenAid (our previous top pick). And it comes with several highly useful accessories, like two different mixing bowls: a 4-qt. stainless-steel bowl with two small helper handles, and a 5-qt. clear glass bowl with one handle, a pour spout, measurements markings, and a plastic lid.

Additionally, it comes with both a standard beater blade and a scraper beater blade, which allowed the Breville Bakery Chef to cream a stick of butter and a cup of sugar better than any other mixer, including the KitchenAid Professional series. And unlike KitchenAid’s paddle scraper (which must be purchased separately from the Artisan mixer), the Breville paddle attachment has the silicone scraper on both sides.

What really sets this stand mixer apart, though, are some of its design features. It has a built-in timer that can be used to log how long it takes for your mixture to reach the perfect consistency, and it also allows you to set the mixer to automatically shut off after a given duration. It also has load-sensing technology that detects when you’re mixing heavy doughs and batters, then auto-adjusts and maintains its power. One more fun feature? An automatic light that illuminates the bowl when the appliance is in use, so you can more easily monitor whatever it is you’re mixing up.

What we’d leave: Testers loved this machine and had few complaints about it. The only real drawback compared to our other top pick, the KitchenAid line, is that the Breville doesn’t have a port for attachments—so you can’t use it as an ice cream maker and a spiralizer and a meat grinder. But if you’re mostly using it for baking, that isn’t much of a consideration.

Users may also need to get used to the control knob, which adjusts speeds so smoothly that it’s easy to under- or overshoot your desired setting. Because of the mixer’s more powerful motor, you may also need to adjust the recommended speed settings for a given recipe. We had better results kneading bread dough at a lower setting than the “medium” often suggested by recipes and took extra care to use the included pouring shield when first mixing dry ingredients.

Another great stand mixer: KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-qt. Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

“Like an Eames chair or a Noguchi paper lamp, the KitchenAid stand mixer is an instantly recognizable icon in its category,” says senior test kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic. After years of testing, we can confirm: These mixers are classics for a reason. And while there are several different mixer models in the brand’s lineup, we believe the best option for most home cooks is the 5-qt. Artisan Series.

What we love: The 5-qt. capacity of this particular Artisan Series model hits the size sweet spot in that it’s large enough to accommodate all the cookie dough a home baker could possibly want to make in one batch (nine dozen or so), but not so large that it’s inconvenient for smaller tasks.

With a 325-watt motor and 10 different speeds, the KitchenAid Artisan isn’t as powerful as the Breville, but it still has enough oomph to whip, knead, and whisk to the right consistency. In our testing, we were pleased that the mixer didn’t move across the countertop when set to high speeds (a common occurrence in cheaper stand mixers). The head of the mixer does bob up and down when kneading dense bread doughs, though, which is one of the reasons why we’d recommend the Breville over this model if you’re keen on baking a lot of bread.

The streamlined shape and tilt-head design of the KitchenAid make it very easy to clean, and we liked that the mixer has a relatively compact footprint that can conceivably fit in your cabinet (though if you’re splurging on a KitchenAid and choosing from their nearly 30 color options, wouldn’t you want to display it proudly on your counter?)

Perhaps the number one reason why you might choose a KitchenAid over another brand is that its stand mixers can famously accommodate the whole menagerie of KitchenAid attachments. That means the same appliance that mixes your pizza dough can serve as a pasta maker, a meat grinder, an ice cream maker, a spiralizer, and even a food processor.

What we’d leave: As mentioned, this mixer is more suited to the cookie, cake, and pie bakers of the world—bread bakers, we think you’d be better off going with the Breville. We didn’t love how the head of the mixer bobbed up and down when kneading dense doughs, or that it doesn’t come with a scraper beater attachment or extra bowl. This mixer is also $50 more expensive than our other top pick at the time of writing—and at $450, it’s definitely an investment piece.

Best budget option: Beautiful by Drew Barrymore Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

Celebrity kitchen gear lines don’t exactly have a reputation for being great, which is why we were shocked (in a good way!) by the performance of this mixer from Drew Barrymore’s Beautiful line.

What we love: This is a straightforward, easy to use mixer that can accomplish just about anything the KitchenAid can (save for all of those extra attachment-enabled functions). Its 12 speeds are controlled by a dial located on the base of the machine, where you’ll also find a button that activates the tilt-head function.

In testing, we found that we typically had to use a higher speed setting for a longer amount of time when compared with the KitchenAid to accomplish a given task, but that the Beautiful had no trouble getting the job done (eventually). It was even able to tackle hefty challah dough—though the small suction cups on the bottom of the machine weren’t strong enough to keep it from bouncing around the counter as it stirred. At its highest setting, the Beautiful even whipped cream a hair faster than the KitchenAid did.

The body of the Beautiful is made of plastic, but we quite like its design, and that each of the detachable parts is dishwasher-safe. Overall, we think this would be an excellent starter mixer for folks on a budget or in need of a more lightweight option that’s easy to stash away when not in use.

What we’d leave: The Beautiful’s affordable price tag comes with the requisite budget-quality trade-offs: namely, the plastic construction and tendency to jump around when mixing denser doughs.

Other good stand mixers we tested

Our top picks outshone the below mixers in terms of value and size for more home cooks. But if you’re an avid baker—or are emotionally attached to the idea of having a Smeg on your counter—these options could work for you.

GE Profile Smart Mixer with Auto Sense

This mixer from GE has a hefty $800 price tag—but it’s got the advanced features to match. In addition to a built-in timer (one of our fave features on the Breville), it has a scale that allows you to add ingredients directly into the mixer bowl and see the weight as you go. Its namesake Auto Sense technology uses motor torque feedback to monitor changes in texture and viscosity of whatever you’re mixing and triggers an automatic shut off when the proper consistency has been reached. To access this feature, you’ll need to install a companion app—which also gives you access to step-by-step guided recipes.