Best Stainless Steel Pod Machines
The best stainless steel pod machines, ranked by our review scores. The only finish that looks the same in ten years: it does not yellow, fade or chalk. What it does do is show fingerprints and, in hard water, spots - and brushed and polished behave completely differently there, with polished collecting marks hourly and brushed forgiving them. The word is also used loosely. On cheaper machines "stainless steel" often describes a trim panel or a steel-look wrap over plastic rather than a steel body, so it is worth reading which part the maker is talking about.
Ranked by our review score, which is worked out from the specifications each maker publishes rather than from opinion, so you can open the arithmetic on any product page. Anything commercial is labelled and sits outside that order, and how we score explains what each criterion measures.
Ranked, and why
scored on what the maker publishes · open a row for the working1
Nespresso Creatista Plus6.8- Drink Quality (pump pressure not published)
- 6.3
- Capsule System & Choice
- 8.5
- Running Cost Per Cup (cost per cup not published)
- 10.0
- Ease of Use & Speed
- 6.0
- Build Quality & Reliability
- 6.0
- Maintenance & Cleaning
- 6.0
- Machine Value for Money
- 4.0
Weakest link: Machine Value for Money — 4.0 of 10, carrying 8 of the 87 points scored here.
2
Nespresso Pixie6.6- Drink Quality (pump pressure not published)
- 6.3
- Capsule System & Choice
- 7.0
- Running Cost Per Cup (cost per cup not published)
- 10.0
- Ease of Use & Speed
- 7.0
- Build Quality & Reliability
- 5.5
- Maintenance & Cleaning
- 4.0
- Machine Value for Money
- 7.0
Weakest link: Maintenance & Cleaning — 4.0 of 10, carrying 10 of the 87 points scored here.
3
Cuisinart SS-10P1 Single Serve Coffee Maker6.1- Drink Quality (pump pressure not published)
- 4.3
- Capsule System & Choice
- 8.5
- Running Cost Per Cup (cost per cup not published)
- 10.0
- Ease of Use & Speed
- 4.2
- Build Quality & Reliability
- 5.0
- Maintenance & Cleaning
- 6.5
- Machine Value for Money (no price published)
- 5.0
Weakest link: Ease of Use & Speed — 4.2 of 10, carrying 14 of the 87 points scored here.