Top rated
Top rated
- best buy
- Cleaning performance
- Battery performance
- Ease of use
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Every electric toothbrush will clean your teeth, but some come with features and accessories that can enhance the brushing experience – and add to the price.
Here you can read about the best electric toothbrush features on offer, and discover whether they're worth paying more for. Our round-up of some of the best electric toothbrushes to pass our tough lab tests will also help make the most of your budget.
Find the perfect electric toothbrush using our electric toothbrush reviews.
With models costing from around £10 to upwards of £250, it can be hard to know which to buy. That's where our Best Buys come in...
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Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Table updated January 2024.
All these cheap electric toothbrushes scored more than 70% in our rigorous lab tests, so you can be confident they won't let you down.
Only logged-in Which? members can view our recommendations. If you’re not yet a member, join Which? today to get instant access.
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Full Access first month £5, then £10.99 per month, cancel at any time
Table updated January 2024.
Want to see more reviews like this? See all our electric toothbrush reviews.
When buying an electric toothbrush, important factors to think about include:
See our guide to electric toothbrush brush heads explained for more on this.
Basic models have a standard brush head and one cleaning program. Higher-spec models, on the other hand, often come with a raft of features and accessories that tot up the price.
Here are the features we think are worth paying more for:
With such a wide range of toothbrushes available at different prices, it can be difficult to decide how much to spend. But don't be fooled into thinking a higher price means better cleaning. Our reviews reveal that there’s no direct link between price and quality – you can pay less than £50 for a Best Buy, or over £100 for an electric toothbrush that doesn’t reach that level.
Unless you find these brushes on offer, the price can be eye watering. But what benefits are there to paying more?
If you’re not interested in these sorts of features, and just want something simple but effective, we’ve found plenty of good toothbrushes for £50 or less.
There’s a big difference in how long rechargeable batteries last. In our tests we found the best lasted for more than 184 minutes – that’s about six and a half weeks of brushing twice a day for two minutes before you’d need to top up the power.
But others won’t last as long – we found the least powerful brush needed recharging after just 16 brushes.
Before you buy your electric toothbrush it’s worth considering how often you’re likely to charge it. If you plan to keep the charger readily to hand and the battery constantly topped up then it’s less important to choose a model with a powerful battery. But if you prefer to keep the charger packed away, or you want to take your brush with you on long trips without the charger, look for a toothbrush with a long-lasting battery.
Read our expert electric toothbrush reviews to find a toothbrush that excelled in our independent battery performance tests.
From electric toothbrush heads and toothpaste tube to floss boxes and interdental brushes, the oral care industry is a heavy user of plastics.
Much of this still isn't recyclable via kerbside collection, and for a long time the only option was to put most of these items in the bin.
But widely accessible recycling programs are now available.
These oral care industry giants have stepped up in partnership with TerraCycle to offer recycling solutions to almost every plastic oral care product there is.
Colgate's Oral Care Recycling Programme currently has over 740 drop-off locations where you can deposit electric toothbrush heads, toothpaste tubes, empty boxes of floss and lots more from any brand. You can't currently recycle interdental brushes through this scheme, and there are a number of other restricted products. You can find out the full list on the website.
The Philips Dental Care Recycling Programme has 240 drop-off locations, although not all are currently accessible. Interdental brushes along with electric toothbrush heads are recyclable via this programme, but manual toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes aren't. The full list of prohibited items is on the website.
We carry out a set of ease-of-use assessments to find the electric toothbrushes that will make cleaning your teeth as stress-free as possible. We look at how easy the brush head is to attach and detach, how comfortable the toothbrush feels in the mouth, how clear the instructions are, and how it feels in the hand.
We take our testing seriously and each electric toothbrush we review goes through a full gamut of thorough tests at an independent lab. We focus on how good a toothbrush is at cleaning, how long the battery lasts and how easy it is to use.
We have a panel of triallists clean their teeth multiple times with every electric toothbrush we review, and we collect more than 2,200 before and after plaque readings to find out which toothbrushes get rid of the most.
Ever experienced the slightly ridiculous feeling you get when manual brushing with an electric toothbrush that has no charge? Well then, you’ll appreciate the importance of finding a model with a reliable battery. We test to see how many two-minute brushes you’ll get from a fully charged battery and check exactly how long each battery takes to recharge, too.
Only after all this, and more, are we fully confident about giving it a Best Buy status.
Read more about how we test electric toothbrushes.