Best Powerful Blenders under $50

The under $50 blenders do not come with all those fan­cy bells and whis­tles that are typ­i­cal for high-end machines. They will not cook soup or sim­i­lar but do a great job with blend­ing for those who only make fruit smooth­ies and need the blender for light-duty kitchen tasks. These bud­get gad­gets could also be an attrac­tive gift, espe­cial­ly for begin­ner blender users. Although this cheap and sim­ple machine will not last for many years, they are so cheap, and if they die after the war­ran­ty, it will not be big trouble.

Check the Best Blender for Smooth­ies and More arti­cle for more options.

How the Ratings were Assigned

We select­ed the most pop­u­lar blenders on Ama­zon, Wal­mart, Bed, Bath & Beyond from the Oster, Hamil­ton­Beach, Black and Deck­er, Bel­la, VonChef, Proc­tor-Silex, and FARBERWARE brands. Then we select­ed the brands that pro­duce the best selec­tion and vari­ety of blenders with a motor not low­er than 450 watts.

How­ev­er, select­ing the best blenders under $50 is not real­ly an easy task. The prob­lem is that most of them are equipped with almost iden­ti­cal tech­ni­cal para­me­ters that influ­ence the per­for­mance of machines — motor pow­er and con­struc­tion, jar design, blades design, and motor-to-blade cou­pling. They are also designed to per­form a sim­i­lar range of light-duty tasks and only dif­fer by col­ors, the base unit’s shape, and the con­trol pan­el’s design. So, we decid­ed to rate not the per­son­al blenders but the best brands — Oster, Hamil­ton Beach, Black + Deck­er — with a good selec­tion of machines with­in the brands. It allows a con­sumer to choose the most attrac­tive inte­ri­or design among the sim­i­lar machine with­in the brand.

Dis­clo­sure: As an Ama­zon Asso­ciate, we may earn an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion for pur­chas­es you make when using the links on this page.

#1 Oster Blenders

The Oster man­u­fac­tures a very large selec­tion of blenders under $50. This mul­ti­tude could eas­i­ly con­fuse any con­sumer. In fact, all these machines could be bro­ken down into two cat­e­gories — 1000 watts motor and 700 watts motor. How­ev­er, some machines indi­cate 450 watts of pow­er, but in fact, they are 700 watts of pow­er at peak and 450 of effec­tive pow­er per­for­mance. It is all about how Oster presents this tech­ni­cal para­me­ter. If most man­u­fac­tur­ers indi­cate only a peak pow­er of their blenders; but Oster usu­al­ly spec­i­fies both peak and effec­tive pow­er. So 1000 watts mean the peak per­for­mance and 600 watts of the effec­tive pow­er of the same motor, while those that have 700 watts at peak per­for­mance cor­re­spond to 450 effec­tive power.

So all basic Oster blenders under $50 come with 1000 at peak (600 effec­tive) watts and 700 at peak (450 effec­tive) watts pow­er motor, and some include extra attach­ments such as the sin­gle-serve cup or food pro­cess­ing accessories.

Func­tion­al­i­ty and Con­trol Panel

The con­trol pan­els dif­fer between blenders huge­ly from the clas­sic Oster Bee­hive gad­get design with only 2 speeds to the 16 speed in some mod­els. In fact, for such a basic blender and rel­a­tive­ly low-pow­er motor, there is no room for such vari­a­tions of speed, and they are most­ly designed for mar­ket­ing pur­pos­es. The real func­tion­al­i­ty will nev­er exceed 2–4 speeds in total. The oth­er but­tons will be more or less just a fan­cy fea­ture that func­tions the same way as all oth­er but­tons and is pre­sent­ed on the con­trol pan­el just for mar­ket­ing purposes.

So, all the Oster blenders can out­put the fol­low­ing range of functions:

• Make smooth­ies from soft, hard, and leafy ingre­di­ents. Of course, the drinks do not come out per­fect­ly smooth as with the high-end machines, but if the user runs the process for at least 2 min­utes, the qual­i­ty of out­put will be close to smooth. Anoth­er fact the user should remem­ber when using these basic blenders is that they will require to stop it a few times dur­ing pro­cess­ing by shak­ing the jar or mix­ing ingre­di­ents man­u­al­ly with the spat­u­la. This is espe­cial­ly valid for pro­tein shakes and drinks made from large pieces of food.
• Crush ice and frozen ingre­di­ents in the drinks fair­ly well if the user puls­es it ini­tial­ly to break the ice first, then use the con­stant high speed for 20–30 sec­onds to bring it to the homog­e­nized con­sis­ten­cy. The blenders can also shave pure ice cubes into nice tex­tured snow but usu­al­ly han­dle not more than 5–6 cubes at once. How­ev­er, those machines with 1000 (600) watts pow­er han­dle more than 5–6 cubes at once and process them much eas­i­er than 700 (450) watts gadgets.
• All Oster blenders with glass jars are per­fect for pro­cess­ing hot liq­uids and homog­e­niz­ing them with­out pri­or cool­ing. For exam­ple, they will puree hot ingre­di­ents for soup or bul­let­proof process cof­fee. At the same time, the Oster Sim­ple Blend 100 10-Speed Blender with plas­tic is not suit­able for this task.
• Per­form light food prep tasks such as mak­ing sal­sa, sal­ad dress­ings, and mari­nades, chop­ping nuts and veg­gies for coleslaw, grat­ing cheese, or cook­ing meat. All blenders are equipped with pulse and low-speed func­tions, which are nec­es­sary for this kind of task.
• Puree-cooked veg­eta­bles for dips, spreads, and pesto but with enough liq­uid added and man­u­al mix­ing of the ingredients.
• Grind herbs, cof­fee beans, or soft mill grains like oats.

Con­tain­ers and blades

Oster blenders equipped with qual­i­ty shat­ter and tem­per­a­ture proofed 48 oz. Boro glass con­tain­ers. Only the Oster Sim­ple Blend 100 10-Speed Blender comes in a plas­tic con­tain­er, and thus it is the cheap­est blender in our selec­tion, con­sid­er­ing that it also comes with a sin­gle-serve bul­let attachment.

The Oster machines come with remov­able high-qual­i­ty stain­less steel blades and all-met­al assem­bly, includ­ing shaft, gear, and dri­ve sock­et. It has a plas­tic col­lar cup but good qual­i­ty and does not have con­tact with the food. Thus the Oster machines are tru­ly very durable machines.

Since the blade assem­bly is not nec­es­sary to remove after each use and it is sup­posed to be dis­as­sem­bled com­plete­ly only for a thor­ough clean­ing, these machines are very easy to use and clean. More­over, all remov­able gad­get parts are dish­wash­er safe or may be cleaned by hand.

War­ran­ty and Cus­tomer Service

All Oster blenders come with a good 3‑year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty for all parts and 10 years war­ran­ty for an all-met­al dri­ve and motor. Oster Cus­tomers’ ser­vice has a very good rep­u­ta­tion. There is a 30-day return policy.

Weak points – the machines trav­el and vibrate dur­ing blend­ing; the 700(450) watts blenders have rather inse­cure lids which are made from very pli­able and thin rub­ber, while 1000(600) watts machines come with good qual­i­ty lids.

Blender	Pow­er	# of Speeds	Con­tain­er	Extra Attach­ments
Oster BRLY07‑B 600-watt	1000(600) watts	7	48oz. (6 cups) Glass	No
Oster BPCT02-BA0-000 Bee­hive Blender	1000(600) watts	2	48oz. (6 cups) Glass	No
Oster Core 16-Speed Blender (6878)	700(450) watts	16	48oz. (6 cups) Glass	Food proces­sor
Oster 12-Speed Blender (6811/6812/6844)	700(450) watts	12	48oz. (6 cups) Glass	Com­pat­i­ble with mason jars
Oster Sim­ple Blend 100 10-Speed Blender (6640/6706)	700(450) watts	10	48oz. (6 cups) Plastic	Sin­gle-serve cup option
Oster 6647 10-Speed Blender	700(450) watts	10	48oz. (6 cups) Glass	no
Oster Blend 8‑Speed Blender (BCCG08)	700(450) watts	8	48oz. (6 cups) Glass	Food proces­sor option

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#2 Hamilton Beach Blenders

Hamil­ton Beach is well known for man­u­fac­tur­ing bud­get-qual­i­ty blenders with an aver­age price of under $50. Most of our best selec­tion Hamil­ton Beach Blenders are equipped with 700 watts, and an HB 52400 mod­el with 650 watts at peak motors is more than enough for a low-priced machine.

Func­tion­al­i­ty and Con­trol Panel

Hamil­ton Beach has no inten­tion to impress con­sumers with fan­cy con­trol pan­els and equip them with 1 to 6 speeds and pulse func­tions. This reflects the true speed capac­i­ty of this kind of 700 watts machine designed to per­form only light-duty tasks. So the typ­i­cal bud­get Hamil­ton Beach blender must be capa­ble of accom­plish­ing the fol­low­ing functions:

• Make rea­son­able qual­i­ty smooth­ies from soft and hard ingre­di­ents, includ­ing leafy greens. The out­put will be slight­ly grainy but per­fect­ly drink­able and decent for the bud­get blender. The green smooth­ies will be a bit grit­ty but drink­able with the straw. How­ev­er, the hard ingre­di­ents will require man­u­al mix­ing and scrap­ing walls to push them into a vor­tex. Pro­tein shakes may require more stir­ring, but it mix­es them well at the end.
• Process ice and frozen ingre­di­ents well enough but only with liq­uid added. Even with man­u­al stir­ring, these machines will leave some chunks of unprocessed ice or frozen fruits. In addi­tion, they are not able to make snow cones, frozen desserts, or shave ice into slush.
• Process hot liq­uids. It can per­fect­ly puree any hot veg­gies for soup or pro­duce bul­let­proof coffee.
• Chop food for prepar­ing dif­fer­ent recipes like sal­sa, sal­ad dress­ings, sauces, and mari­nades. The machines are even able to pro­duce pesto, var­i­ous dips, and spreads. In addi­tion, the units are very good at chop­ping veg­gies, nuts, and oth­er ingredients.
• Grind cof­fee, herbs, and soft mill grains like oats, espe­cial­ly mod­els with food proces­sor attachment.

Con­tain­er and blades

The major­i­ty of Hamil­ton Beach gad­gets come with a qual­i­ty shat­ter and tem­per­a­ture resis­tance of 40 oz. glass con­tain­ers. While the HB (52400) mod­el with high-qual­i­ty Tri­tan copoly­ester 32 oz. con­tain­er. The (58149), (58161), and (52400) Hamil­ton Beach mod­els come with sin­gle-serve bul­let cups or sim­ple food proces­sor attach­ments. Although these attach­ments are quite prim­i­tive, they slight­ly expand the func­tion­al­i­ty of units.

All units are equipped with remov­able ones for easy clean­ing but are designed not to be dis­as­sem­bled after each use. That makes the units very easy to use and requires min­i­mum effort to set up for running.

The blades are made of stain­less steel, and the assem­bly includes the blade shaft, the dri­ve gear, and the dri­ve sock­et made of plas­tic or rub­ber. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this makes machines not very sol­id and durable. 

War­ran­ty and Cus­tomer Service

All Hamil­ton Beach blenders come with a 3‑year lim­it­ed war­ran­ty which is quite good for such a cheap gad­get. HB also is known for help­ful cus­tomer ser­vice. 

Weak points – the motor-to-blade con­nec­tion is plas­tic, short (2 feet), and the blender is not designed to han­dle ice well.

Blender	Pow­er	# of Speeds	Con­tain­er	Extra Attach­ments
Hamil­ton Beach Pow­er Elite Blender (58148A/58149)	700 watts	4 speeds 2 puls­es	40oz. Glass	Chop­per option
Hamil­ton Beach Wave Crush­er Blender (54221)	700 watts	6 speeds 2 pulses	40oz. Glass	Com­pat­i­ble with mason jars
Hamil­ton Beach Blender (56206)	700 watts	3 pre­sets 1 pulse	40oz. Glass	No
Hamil­ton Beach Wave Crush­er Blender (58161)	700 watts	4 speeds 2 puls­es	40oz. Glass	20 oz. sin­gle-serve cup
Hamil­ton Beach Blender (52400)	650 watts	1 speed 1 pulse	32oz. Tri­tan	16 oz. sin­gle cup/chopper

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#3 BLACK+DECKER Blenders

Black + Deck­er is also famous for pro­duc­ing inex­pen­sive blenders for under $50. These machines are equipped with 450 watts, 550 watts, and 700 watts at peak motor pow­er and out­put less noise than oth­er com­pa­ra­ble blenders on the mar­ket. The prices for them are direct­ly cor­re­lat­ed with the pow­er of the motor. 

Func­tion­al­i­ty and Con­trol Panel

Black + Deck­er machine equipped with gen­er­ous 4 to 12 speeds and pulse func­tion options. How­ev­er, the same as with anoth­er bud­get blender, these speeds are almost use­less and show lit­tle real RPM dif­fer­ence. The pulse mode with low and high speeds is just enough to do most of the job. So, a typ­i­cal Black + Deck­er machine is designed to accom­plish the fol­low­ing functions:

• Able to process soft, hard, and leafy ingre­di­ents into slight­ly tex­tured con­sis­ten­cy with some chunks. The food should be cut into small­er sizes of 1–1.5 inch­es for easy blend­ing. Oth­er­wise, the user needs to stop the machine a few times to shake the jar or man­u­al­ly mix the ingre­di­ents with a spat­u­la. The large pieces are hard to push into a vor­tex. The whole flaxseed, sesame seeds, and nuts are also not ful­ly pul­ver­ized. As a result, there will be some small unprocessed residues left in the drink.
• Processed frozen ingre­di­ents and ice cubes were only bro­ken into a size of 1–1.5 inch­es and with enough liq­uid added. The large pieces of frozen fruits and ice are nev­er involved in a vor­tex and tend to jam around the blades. They will need a lot of stir­ring effort to be blend­ed. Shav­ing ice is also beyond the capa­bil­i­ty of these machines.
• Han­dle hot liq­uids eas­i­ly. Suit­able for pro­cess­ing built and baked veg­gies with­out cool­ing and for mak­ing bul­let­proof coffee.
• Chop to pre­pare sal­sas, sauces, and dress­ings, whip and mix ingre­di­ents for baked goods, grind hard cheese, or cooked meat. They will also be able to pre­pare some spreads with enough liq­uid added.
• Not good at grind­ing cof­fee beans, herbs, or grains but can pow­der them with some effort. 

Con­tain­er and blades

All Black & Deck­er blenders come with 48 oz. or 42 oz. shat­ter, and tem­per­a­ture-proofed glass con­tain­ers. In addi­tion, the BL1820/BL1821 Fusion­Blade mod­els come with an extra 20 oz. poly­car­bon­ate bul­let cup for blend­ing and tak­ing a drink out in the same container.

All Black & Deck­er gad­gets are equipped with a remov­able blade assem­bly. The blades are stain­less steel with a plas­tic base and screw­ing col­lar. The built-in gas­ket makes the assem­bly very easy to remove for thor­ough clean­ing. How­ev­er, the machines come with plas­tic and rub­ber blade to a motor cou­pling that makes the sys­tem togeth­er with the plas­tic col­lar very frag­ile and not durable.

The machines are very easy to assem­ble for run­ning and cleaning.

War­ran­ty and Cus­tomer Service

All Black & Deck­er machine comes with 2 years Lim­it­ed war­ran­ty, which reflects the dura­bil­i­ty of these gad­gets. In addi­tion, cus­tomer ser­vice is help­ful and has a good rep­u­ta­tion for solv­ing the issues with their products.

Weak point — a frag­ile blade assem­bly plas­tic col­lar; non-durable plas­tic blade to motor cou­pling sys­tem and plas­tic blade assem­bly base.

Blender	Pow­er	# of Speeds	Con­tain­er	Extra Attach­ments
BLACK+DECKER BL1820/BL1821 Fusion­Blade Dig­i­tal Blender	700 watts	4 speeds 2 pulse	48oz. Glass	20 oz. Sin­gle-serve cup
BLACK+DECKER BL1110/BL1111 Fusion­Blade Blender	550 watts	12speeds 1 pulse	48oz. Glass	No
BLACK+DECKER BL2010BG Blender	550 watts	10 speeds 1 pulse	48oz. Glass	No
BLACK+DECKER BL1130 Fusion­Blade Blender	550 watts	12 speeds 1 pulse	48oz. Glass	No

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Summary

The Oster machines are no doubt lead­ers among these inex­pen­sive blenders. They eas­i­ly han­dle all ice-crush­ing tasks. While the Hamil­ton Beach and Black + Deck­er blenders are strug­gling when per­form­ing the ice-relat­ed job. The Oster machines are even able to shave ice to pro­duce a vari­ety of frozen treats. The Osters are also the best-con­struct­ed machines with all-met­al blade assem­bly and motor to blades cou­pling. Thus show­ing the best dura­bil­i­ty com­pared to the Hamil­ton Beach and Black + Deck­er units. The Hamil­ton Beach is slight­ly bet­ter built and more durable than Black + Decker’s units.

How­ev­er, the Black + Deck­ers pro­duce less noise than the blenders in the price range of under $50. As a result, the Oster is prob­a­bly the nois­i­est unit in our selection.

So, cus­tomers look­ing for a well-built and durable bud­get blender but pre­fer the one with a sin­gle-serve attach­ment should select among the Hamil­ton Beach machines. And those who are look­ing for the qui­etest blender will be bet­ter off with the Black + Deck­er brand.