Best Blender for Smoothies – Ultimate Buyer’s Guide

Looking for the best blender for smoothies? Check out our in-depth reviews, comparison charts to help you make the right pick to stay in shape.

Most Recommended Smoothie Blender

Vitamix G-Series 780 w/ Cookbook: If you’re looking for a top-notch blender, bar-none, Vitamix G-Series is our top pick! And making it worthy of that top sport is its ability to consistently deliver the perfectly textured smoothies. Plus with features like a touch panel, a powerful yet durable motor and blades, this one a no-brainer pick.

Best Blender for the Money

NutriBullet 12-Piece High-Speed Blender: If you’re strapped for cash and just want an affordable, yet consistent no-frills blender, this NutriBullet blender is the right choice for you. While not the workhorse like our top pick, it’s powerful enough to blow through tough ingredients, stems, bust open seeds and shred through skins for the perfect tasting smoothie.

Quick Navigation

• Blender for Smoothies Comparison Chart
• Best Smoothie Blender
• Best Budget Blender
• Blender for Smoothies Buying Guide
• Benefits of a Blender for Smoothies

If you’re looking for a blender to create healthy smoothies, shakes or other mashed up concoctions you’ve come to the right place. We’ve looked at some of the most in-demand smoothie makers available and have come up with a comprehensive list of the top 5. We review these appliances and compare their features, prices, and performance to help you determine the ONE that suits all your needs.

Best Smoothie Maker

In-Depth Blender Reviews

#1: Vitamix G-Series 780 Blender with Smoothies Cookbook

This top of the line blender from Vitamix comes from a manufacturer with a great reputation and is our top pick. Its seven-year warranty makes it stand out, and if you don’t have budget constraints this is undeniably the most recommended blender you can buy. It’s powerful and feature-rich and will make the yummiest smoothies, smooth purees and soups you’re likely to ever run into.

The low-profile counter-top blender comes with an aircraft-grade 4-blade stainless steel design and a whopping 2.2 HP-1,380 watt motor. It has a large 64-ounce low profile pitcher/container made from BPA-free plastic.

The powerful motor and blades can really mash through frozen bananas and other fruit and make great smoothies from green vegetables, like spinach and kale, and it’s great for making hot soups.

The Vitamix G-Series 780 easily fits under most kitchen cabinets to make storage easier.  It has five pre-programmed settings and a pulse feature that you access through a touchscreen LED control panel.

The touch panel is an exclusive feature among Vitamix blenders, is made from hardened glass, and is scratch and crack resistant. The pulse feature lets you layer course chops, and make chunky vegetable soups or hot salsas.

Some of the featured techniques you can use with this blender are:

• Steaming hot soup can be made without a stove by taking advantage of blade friction to bring the soup up to serving temperature.
• Make chilled desserts in seconds, like fruit sorbet, by just adding frozen ingredients.
• The powerful blades can grind nuts quickly to make nut butter and ground coffee from beans.
• Batter and dough mixtures can be made quickly for cakes, crepes, muffins, cookies, waffles and even for bread and pizza dough.
• If you need inspiration and get to you started with your new Vitamix 780, the blender ships with the 130-recipe Tuttle Juices and Smoothies cookbook.

#2: Vitamix Pro Series 750 Blender with 64oz Container and Cookbook

This is also a top of line blender from well-respected manufacturer Vitamix, and unlike our top choice Vitamix 780 model, it doesn’t have a touchscreen panel. It’s been on the market longer and is a more affordable model than its costlier sibling while maintaining a comparable quality level.

With its five pre-programmed settings, a pulse setting, and a relatively quiet 2.2 HP/ 1,440-watt motor, it can blend even the toughest ingredients. The settings are Puree, Soup, Frozen Dessert, Smoothie (of course), and Clean: a self-cleaning feature.

This means the blender will clean itself in 30-60 seconds with some liquid soap and water. The textures and consistencies you’ll get from the Vitamix 750 are matched only by the more expensive model.

It comes with a low–profile 64–ounce pitcher/container made from BPA-free Eastman Tritan copolyester, which will easily fit under all but the smallest of kitchen cabinets. You can also get an optional 32 or 48 oz jar if you want to make smaller portions.

Like all Vitamix blenders, you get a 7–year full use warranty and high-quality American-made construction. The warranty covers parts and labor, and two–way shipping is free. If they can’t repair it, they¡ll send you a new one for free.

The cutting blades are 4-inch tough laser-cut, stainless–steel hammer-mill blades that cut through the toughest ingredients, and it has a radial cooling fan and a thermal protection system. The blender will heat up foods with blade friction.

As with the Vitamix 780, you can take advantage of techniques like the following: Steaming hot soup that can be made without a stove, taking advantage of blade friction to bring the soup up to serving temperature; Chilled desserts can be made in seconds by just adding frozen ingredients;

Powerful blades that can quickly grind nuts and make nut butter and ground coffee from beans; Batter and dough mixtures can be quickly made for cakes, crepes, muffins, cookies, waffles and bread, and pizza dough.

To get you going faster the Vitamix 750 ships with a High-Performance Blending Recipe Book, a low-profile tamper, and DVD.

#3: NutriBullet 12-Piece High-Speed Blender (Budget Pick)

The NutriBullet 12-Piece High-Speed Blender/Mixer System (also known as Magic Bullet) is the best budget blender for all your smoothie needs.

As its name implies, it’s a “bullet” blender and is incredibly easy to use and produces quick fruit and plant-based power meals without going through hoops to make them. It’s the blender you want if you’re on a tight budget, and though it’s a bit limited, you won’t be skimping on features and convenience.

The blender is portable and safe for kids. It’s powerful, patented extractor blade design with “cyclonic action”, helps release essential nutrition by pulverizing skins and seeds, where most nutrition goodness resides (it “cracks through stems, shreds tough skins and busts open seeds”).

Most other blenders don’t do this, wasting the richest, vitamin-rich and essential nutrition parts of fruits and veggies.

The Nutribullet’s high-torque power base and its quiet 600-watt motor immediately liquefy ingredients and the blender includes a power base, three containers/pitchers, two blades: a flat blade and an emulsifying blade. It also comes with two resealable lids.

Of course, given its low price, the Nutribullet has its limitations: It only has one speed, has no pre-set programming and a 1-year warranty.

You do get a pocket nutritionist and manual with recipes to get you started.

#4: Ninja Professional Blender with Nutri Ninja Cups (BL660)

The Ninja Professional is a standout budget smoothie blender. You’ll be getting a high-powered 1,100-watt kitchen appliance, with a big 72-ounce BPA-free, dishwasher safe container/pitcher, and six “Total Crushing” blades that will make short work of ice and frozen fruits.

Two additional 16-ounce, dishwasher-safe “Ninja Cups” are included. They come with lids and you can take them with you when you’re on-the-go.

The blender has three speeds and a pulse function, as well as a single-serve function. It can blast through tough ingredients, including stems and seeds, veggies and whole fruits, producing high-quality, well-textured smoothies. It gives you nearly the performance of a high-end blender at a fraction of the cost.

The blades on the Ninja aren’t on the bottom as with most other blenders. They’re distributed through a shaft going through the center of the jar and have six blades, spaced at different heights.

Along with its powerful motor, this feature helps to decrease the amount of time needed to make a good smoothie and greatly improves the blender’s mixing power.

A recipe inspiration book is included with a good selection of smoothie and savory recipes to get you started with your new blender.

#5: Vitamix 5200 Blender

The Vitamix 5200 is a versatile and robust high-end blender from one of the best-regarded manufacturers in the industry.

It’s a bit more affordable than either our top pick Vitamix 780, or the slightly cheaper 750 models, and it’s not quite as feature-rich as those blenders, but it’s built just as tough. It comes with the same 7-year full-use warranty.

Like the other Vitamix blenders we reviewed here, it’s a low-profile counter-top blender and easily fits under most kitchen cabinets to make storage easier.

It has a 4-blade stainless steel design and a big 2 HP-1,380 watt motor with variable speed settings, so you can finely adjust speeds to get a variety of food textures. It has a family-sized 64-ounce low profile pitcher/container made from BPA-free plastic.

It is powerful, the cold-running motor won’t ever overheat and the blender’s blades mash even frozen fruit to make great smoothies from green vegetables, like spinach and kale. This makes the 5200 the second best blender for frozen fruit smoothies (only behind the G-Series 780).

It can also make hot soups through blade friction, makes chilled desserts, like fruit sorbet, in seconds. Cake, cookies, muffins, crepes, pizza dough… can be prepared, and it can also make nut butter and ground coffee from beans.

Unlike the Vitamix 750 and 780, the 5200 model does not come with pre-programmed preset settings but does have a pulse feature. With the pulse feature, you can layer course chops, and make chunky vegetable soups or hot salsas. This blender is also made of hardened glass, and is scratch and crack resistant.

#6: Breville BBL605XL Hemisphere Control Blender (Best Blender for Smoothies and Ice)

This low to mid-range smoothie blender is full of high-end features, like smooth five variable speed control with pulse control and an illuminated electronic control pad with pre-programmed settings, including ice crushing. It’s beautifully designed, tough and robust and makes smooth, velvety smoothies, cocktails and soups. The Breville Hemisphere Control blender is easy to clean and a snap to use.

The case and pitcher are both made to last a long time, the first having a heavy-duty die-cast metal base and the latter made from a light-weight, BPA-free, shatter-resistant copolyester plastic.

The combination of a high-torque motor and innovative blade design results in low noise and efficient blending performance. The contoured bowl design gets rid of food traps, making for easy hassle-free cleaning. It also has a pull ring for easy lid removal.

The blades are contoured, made from stainless steel and are extra wide and designed to sweep along the base of the pitcher, pushing ingredients up while the blade in the center pushes them down.

This results in a consistent, even whip and no floating of ingredients. The design ensures that there’s no under-processing or lumping. The blender comes with an up/down LCD timer, counting up on speed settings and down on pre-programmed

It’s no wonder this blender has been called the top pick of 2012: this sleek design minimizes food traps and eliminates the need to dig ingredients out from under the blades or mix up ingredients by hand. Five speeds (including snow, mix, blend, liquefy, and puree) are supplemented by pulse, ice crush, and smoothie buttons.

These buttons are pre-programmed with varying speeds—alternating pulsing and blending—to move ingredients through the jug, so you don’t have to move ingredients around manually.

It’s also great for doing some pretty advanced food processing tasks like crushing and chopping ice and frozen fruit to make velvety cocktails, like Margaritas and folding and aerating for creamy smoothies and soups.

#7: Blendtec Designer Series Blender with WildSide Jar

Blendtec is a well known high-end blender maker and the Designer Series blender we review here actually falls into what would otherwise be the mid-range, far below the cost of Blendtec’s $1,4000+ top model.

This powerful, industrial-strength blender takes the Vitamix models we review on this roundup head-on. Its main claim to fame is a blazing fast/sturdy, commercial quality 1,560-watt-3 HP direct-drive motor. And the company stands behind their blenders with a 7-year manufacturer warranty.

This blender comes with a number of useful pre-programmed presets for the batter, ice crush, ice cream, smoothie, soup, and whole juice, and of course, a pulse mode. It has an easy to read (and to clean), illuminated, smooth digital sensor control panel, and a sliding sensor for variable speed control.

The family-sized BPA-free Triton polyester “WildSide” blending jar has cold-forged wingtip blades and is quite different from the traditional four-sided pitcher.

According to Blendtec, the fifth, or WildSide, makes for a superior “blending vortex” than the competition. A secure-fitting vented lid is also included. The blades are designed for heavy use with cold-forged ultra-hard, corrosion-resistant stainless steel.

The vertical wingtips have a single-blade design that guarantees efficiency and lets ingredients fall easily in front of the blades. This means the blending is easier for tough ingredients, resulting in better-textured smoothies.

A metal socket on the base of the blender provides a precision steel-on-steel fit for the motor shaft. This makes for efficient power transfer to the blade and results in high reliability, low vibration, and reduced noise.

Custom-designed sealed carbon-steel ball bearings are used to reduce friction and also contribute to the reliability and low noise. And its computer-controlled self-adjusting speed will even automatically shut down the motor until it cools.

Other important features: Effective airflow to keep the blender housing cool; Sticky rubber foot to help keep the blender from moving and to also help with airflow; Square base to keep the blender from moving or rotating; Wide selection of jar designs that can be optionally bought; Cookbook with 230+ recipes to get you started with your new blender.

#8: Cleanblend 3HP 1800-Watt-Commercial

This high-performance blender costs less than half the price that you’d pay for one that is comparatively powerful. Its 1,800-watt/3 HP motor is as potent as any of the much higher priced alternatives we reviewed and it doesn’t skimp on features.

The Cleanblend model has a large 64-ounce pitcher made from shatterproof Tritan plastic, stainless steel blades, a tamper, and it can make exquisitely textured smoothies from a variety of soft and tough ingredients.

The blender ships with a 5-year warranty, so you know that the company stands behind its sturdy, long-lasting construction. Its blade assembly is enclosed and uses sealed steel ball bearings and is enclosed in a steel housing.

It has a six-blade food-grade stainless steel system and a tamper that allows the blender to churn out ice cream, soup, mixed drinks, hummus, and nut butter. Green smoothies made from tough veggies like spinach and kale can also be concocted.

The powerful motor and blade system results in consistent pureed ingredients, with short preparation times.

It easily crushes ice and frozen fruit and purees berry seeds. It can also mill flour and nut butter can be made in less than one minute. It’s also easy to wash and low-noise, actually quieter than most blenders.

One difference between the Cleanblend and the higher-priced models from Vitamix and Blendtec is that the Cleanblend model does not come with pre-programmed presets and doesn’t offer the range of controls that these come with. It has a similar look and feel as the Vitamix 5200, which also lacks presets, but costs more than twice as much as the Cleanblend.

One of the most frequently mentioned advantages of this blender that we uncovered during our research was the great quality of Cleanblend tech support. They’re helpful, prompt and professional and their warranty service is first-rate.

Blender for Smoothies Buying Guide

Volume or capacity

This determines the number of people you can serve. Sizes range from single or two service jars to big family-sized monsters, as big as 90 ounces. Some blenders come with both a big pitcher and individual serving pitchers included.

The size may also be a factor with regard to having enough room on your kitchen counter, and you should be aware that some blenders come with attachments and complements. This is an important consideration and you should not overlook it.

Clean-up

Some blender jars are dishwasher safe, and others are self-cleaning, which can save you time and hassle. A digital touch-pad control panel (see next section) is more convenient and will make it easier to clean.

Control panel

Here you’ll control your blending speed, with some lower-priced blenders having a limited range of fixed speeds, while higher-end models include a variable control knob or slider. You should make sure a pulse option is included for breaking up hard or frozen ingredients.

Your blender should have a variety of speeds so you’ll have more control over your end results. Preset pre-programmed settings can be a big plus.

Motor Power/Wattage Rating

This is an important consideration, as it goes a long way towards determining the quality of your blends, their smoothness, and how long it will take the machine to produce them.

A top of line blender will have at least a 1,000-watt motor, and you should not settle for less than 800 watts. You should note that other considerations like blade and jar design can sometimes be as important, if not more so than raw wattage.

Toughness and Durability

You should get a tough-built blender even if you don’t plan on using it very often. Often, people wind up using their blenders more than they initially plan because the smoothies they make are delicious and they wind up wanting more.

They’ll even wind up using their blenders for really demanding tasks like making nut butter or making green smoothies with tough ingredients like kale or spinach, which can wear down blades and tax the motor.

You’ll want to get a blender with higher quality components, especially regarding the motor and pitcher. Cheaper models will burn out or break down quickly.

Warranty Length

Most of the high-end models we reviewed have warranties that are longer than five years, some as much as seven, while lower-end blenders have one-year warranties.

If you wind up using your blender a lot, it can break down, and the longer warranty that you get from a more expensive model can make financial sense in the long run.

Benefits of a Smoothie Blender

Why should we make smoothies? What you’re getting when you run ingredients through one of these blenders is extracted food, which is a boon for everyone in any state of health – all the way from an elite athlete to someone that’s stressed, undernourished and weak.

When you extract food you’re predigesting it. Your body can then absorb and make use of all of the nutrition in the food with much less effort and wastage.

Your body needs to do a lot of work when it breaks down healthy foods like salads or veggie side dishes. The food needs to be broken down to get absorbed into the body and very often it’s done inefficiently.

Extracting foods with one of these blenders means they are consumed in a highly absorptive state, so the nutrients go into your body without having to worry about proper chewing, effective digestive enzymes, and stomach acids to break down the food.

Once that’s settled, we’re assuming that the reason you want to buy one of these appliances is that you’re interested in making smoothies with a more focused, “professional” tool than just a plain multipurpose blender.

First, you should know that within this category there are a number of blender types, ranging from low-cost hand-held blenders, or even the traditional counter-top variety, to high-performance devices.

The kind of smoothie blends you’re interested in making go a long way towards determining the appliance you should buy. The ingredients you want to include in your smoothies can be soft fruits, like berries and bananas or include harder/tougher stuff like ice, carrots, beets.

In the first case, you can make do with a bargain model but in the latter not so much. If you want to go beyond smoothies and crave the ability to put together things like soups, hummus or almond butter, you’ll need faster motors, tougher blades and a top-of-the-line blender would definitely be in the cards.