Are Bread Makers Worth It?

Last updated: March 2022

This post has got very popular during the COVID19 outbreak. Stores are selling out of bread machines quickly. We are endeavouring to keep the links here up-to-date to in-stock items but stock levels are all over the show (are people stock-piling bread machines?!). Skip ahead to our recommend low-cost to top of the range bread machines. If one is out of stock do try the others. And leave us a comment if you find a secret stash of in-stock items somewhere online!

Who doesn’t love the smell, the taste and the texture of freshly baked bread? No one, that’s who. So there is quite the lure to invest in a bread maker.

But before you do, you might like to consider: is home-made bread cheaper than shop-bought bread? Is home-made bread healthier? How much energy does a bread maker use? And is the whole process just a massive faff?

Questions we tackle in this blog post (or so you can skip to the bit you need!):

• About Bread Makers
• Our recommended bread makers (from top of the range to cheap-and-cheerful)
• Is making your own bread cheaper?
• Costs: Homemade vs. supermarket vs. bakery
• How much do the ingredients cost?
• How energy efficient are bread makers?
• Are bread makers easy to use?
• Bonus: Alternatives to bread makers

Whether you want to perfect your lock-down sourdough or work on your gluten-free quarantine bread we’ve got something for you.

You may also like… — Sandwich Calculator: How many slices of bread will I need? — Is a Slow Cooker Worth It? — Are Air Fryers Worth It? — What’s the cheapest way to dry clothes indoors?

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About bread makers

Bread makers (or “Breadmakers” – one word or two, take your pick) take between three and four hours to bake an average white loaf and a little longer (say four hours) to bake a wholemeal loaf.

Generally you add the ingredients to the bread maker – either in the shape of a pre-mixed bread mix or by measuring out the ingredients yourself – and the machine then kneads and proves the loaf for you before baking it. It is not a quick process though and expect it to take at least 3 hours per loaf.

Loaves from bread makers tend to be more square in shape (due to the shape of the bread pan) than shop-bought but on average are about 800g, the same as most average shop-bought loaves.

Many bread makers have a delayed timer which means you can put all the ingredients in and then set it to start baking up to 13 hours later. This is really useful if you want to have the bread maker come on over night (when electricity can sometimes be cheaper too – depending on your tariff and provider) so you can wake up to a freshly baked loaf in the morning.

The bread maker’s kneading function can also be put to good use for making pasta dough, dough for rolls and pastries. You can also bake cakes in some bread makers – the instructions will generally include a few recipes for you to try.

How to store bread

Home-made bread won’t have any preservatives in (a good thing) but it does mean it won’t last as long as shop-bought bread and tends to dry out after about 3 days.

To stop bread drying out let it cool completely before storing it. Then either wrap it in foil or seal it in a good bread bin.

This bread bag is good value and won’t take up space on your work top (you could hang it in a food cupboard). And at around £9.99 is well priced.

If you have a bit more budget, this is a nice classic bread bin – retailing at around £34.99.

This one, by Joseph Joseph is a bit more expensive (£59.99) but I love how the lid doubles as a bread board.

Loaves can be frozen so you can batch bake loaves and store them in the freezer ready to use.

Maintaining & storing your bread maker

Never put your bread pan in the dishwasher as it might scratch the non-stick surface and cause your bread to stick. Instead soak it in soapy water and wash by hand.

Bear in mind that bread makers can be quite large so may take up a chunk of space on the work top. It is a good idea to think about where your bread maker might sit while it is in use and/or if you have the space to stash it away somewhere when not in use.

As with any appliance that cooks something bread makers, although insulated, may still get quite hot when in use – especially if it has a chrome exterior – so be careful when handling a hot bread maker and keep them out of reach of small children.

Bread maker recipes

You can control the recipe for your bread so if you need gluten-free flour, or reduced salt then it’s easy to adapt the recipe or ingredients accordingly.

However as gluten is what makes the texture of standard bread then you need to make sure you use the correct gluten-free flour and have a ‘gluten-free’ setting on your bread maker to ensure it is baked to perfection.

Additionally if you are trying to reduce palm oil use (see our blog on how to avoid palm oil) then baking your own bread is a great way to do this as many shop-bought loaves contain palm oil but if you are baking your own you can avoid this.

Is a bread maker cheaper than shop-bought bread?

This can be a bit of a how long is a piece of string question because it depends entirely on the type of bread you usually buy.

If you always buy the cheapest supermarket loaf (for example from discount supermarket Lidl the basic white loaf is 50p) then the investment in a bread maker is unlikely to pay off.

However, if you love a speciality bread and haunt your local artisan bakery (for example at Gail’s a sour dough will set you back £3) then a bread maker could save you some serious cash over the long term.

So let’s break it down.

Here are a selection of bread makers on the market

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Best top of the range bread maker

From the top of the range… this top of the range Sage bread maker has multiple 13 different modes, has three different ‘crust colour’ selections, a special fruit and nut dispenser (with an alert to tell you when is the best time to add it) and includes 9 ‘custom modes’ for you to save your own favourite bake settings.

It comes with a price to match the spec though, starting at around £214.99 from Amazon (cheaper than from John Lewis, ao.com or even bargain favourites of ours Lakeland).

Through the mid-range… this Lakeland Breadmaker model has many 15 different modes and special modes for jams and cakes.  It also has a handy delay timer so you can set it all up and wake-up to the smell of fresh baked bread… yummy!

This one is a bit more affordable at around £99.99 direct from Lakeland (again, cheapest market price — cheaper than equivalents on Curry’s, John Lewis and ao.com — we like to find you the best prices!).

Best cheap bread maker

To the lower end of the market… this bread machine from Dunelm is considerably cheaper than the others but still has 10 different program settings and a 2 litre capacity — all for £55 which is hard to argue with!

In the ‘cheap and cheerful’ bracket, this 2lb Tower Bread Machine available from Robert Dyas comes in at just £40 at time of writing, including a £20 discount!

Here are the latest bargain bread makers from Amazon:

How Much do Ingredients for Bread Makers Cost?

To bake a basic loaf you can buy pre-mixed bread sachets (for example this one from Sainsburys which makes a crusty white loaf for 80p or this more fancy mixed grain mix by Wrights which is £1) which mean you just have to pop the ingredients in the bread maker and away you go.

Alternatively you can buy the raw ingredients, for example:

• Sainsburys strong white unbleached bread flour 1.5kg is £1.05 – this should make 3 loaves at 35p per loaf
• Fast action dried yeast from Sainsburys is 85p – this comes in 8 sachets and you need approximately one sachet per loaf so it breaks down as c.10p per loaf.

Most recipes advise using either a few tablespoons of oil or butter, plus a pinch of salt and/or sugar so I’ll add on a generous 15p to cover this.

This takes the cost for a basic white loaf to 60p.

Even the most fancy organic bread flour (for example this mix) is only £2 for 1.5kg, so about 66p a loaf.

Therefore long term making home-made bread will work out cheaper than all but the most basic shop-bought loaves.

If you factor in the cost of a bread maker, for example a mid-range one at £100 and… let’s say you usually buy 2 fancy loaves of bread a week at £3 each it would take you about 17 weeks of making your own bread for the bread maker to start paying off.

How energy efficient are bread makers?

Most bread makers are fairly efficient and according to expert reviews use about 0.41kWh of electricity when making a standard loaf of white bread, which works out as about 6p per loaf.

Bread maker vs. oven?

If you already have an oven you might be wondering why you need a bread maker too? After all you can cook bread in the oven too. This is very true and there are other perks to baking your home-made bread in the oven too:

• You can batch cook and make a number of loaves at a time
• You can cook a number of different types of bread at once
• It is more energy efficient to batch cook so you would save energy in the long run.

However, some people find the endless kneading and proving needed to bake your own bread in the oven is a real faff and far prefer the ease of letting the bread maker take care of that.

Additionally some people find that getting the correct proving temperature difficult and this can result in dense, hard loaves – a bread maker will ensure that the bread proves evenly and at the correct temperature which can be hard to reproduce in your own kitchen.

The Real Bread Campaign has compiled some statistics to show that bread makers are more energy efficient than ovens:

In short a standard bread maker uses 0.36 kWh per loaf to bake a white or wholemeal loaf on the standard setting whereas baking a loaf in an electric oven is about 1.6kWh per use and a gas oven typically consumes around 1.5kWh of energy per use.

Costs of a bread maker

Based on an average consumption of 8 loaves per month (96 loaves per year):

	Homemade Bread	Supermarket Bread	Bakery Bread
Bread Making Machine	£79.99
Ingredients & Yeast	£4.80 per month £57.60 per year
Electricity	£0.48 per month £5.76 per year
TOTAL	£142.36 for the first year £63.36 per year thereafter	£48 per year	£288 per year

Based on the above, if you’re currently buying bakery bread at anything north of £1.50 per loaf (not even the £3 artisinal bread cost we used here) you could make a saving by using a bread maker in your first year.

If you just buy the cheapest supermarket own brand bread – or anything south of £1.50 a loaf, you’d need to use a bread maker for over a year before you saw any savings.

If you spend less than 70 pence per loaf, you’re unlikely to see any savings by using a bread maker.

How easy are bread makers to use?

Very.

Most modern bread makers do all the kneading and proving for you so all you need to do is weigh out the ingredients and pop them in the machine.

This really takes the effort out of making bread, however each cycle on the bread machine takes at least 3 hours so it is not a speedy option if you need a sandwich right now.

Conclusion

If you like fancy bread then a bread maker is a great way of making your own for a fraction of the cost – but bear in mind it may take years and many loaves to recoup the initial cost of the bread maker (one way round this is to buy a second-hand bread maker from a site like Gumtree or a local charity shop, this is also a good way of testing out if you enjoy the process before investing in a more costly machine).

If you enjoy cooking and have the time to devote to kneading and proving then baking your own bread in batches in your own oven might work out to be even more cost effective as you need not invest in a machine (or find the space on your kitchen work surfaces).

If you only ever eat the cheapest supermarket bread and only get through one loaf a week then it is probably not worth your while investing in a bread maker.

Bonus: Alternatives to bread makers

Following on from a great comment (below) from David – we wanted to make some additions.

David suggested finding ways to make your own bread, without a bread maker.

He suggested that you can make great bread at home with a few key ‘ingredients’:

1. A Dutch oven (like a Le Creuset or a cast iron pot)
2. Two baskets for raising the loafs (bannetons)
3. A lame (a special razor knife)
4. A good book as a guide.

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There are lots of videos on YouTube which will help you with this process too. And it’s hard to overlook the icy-blue eyes of TV baker, Paul Hollywood, who shows the process for a basic loaf in this video:

David recommends: Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson or Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza by Ken Forkish.

Then, once you’ve levelled up your bread-making skills, buy Jeffery Hamelman’s book Bread – which, apparently: “…is the bible. You will never look back.”

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Thanks for the tips David! If anyone has any more please add them in a comment below.

Last update on 2026-04-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API