The 4 Best Kitchen Scales of 2025
Top pick
This compact scale is best for home cooks who want fast, consistent results when baking or cooking.
The affordable Escali Primo Digital Scale is the best scale for most home-baking and cooking needs. In our tests it was one of the quickest and most accurate scales we tried, with one of the longest auto-off times we’ve seen.
The Escali Primo scale has a simple design, with an easy-to-use, two-button interface and a conveniently elevated platform, so you can still read the digital screen when using large bowls. It’s a compact, lightweight scale that won’t take up much space in a drawer or cupboard.
It’s fast and accurate. When we used lab weights on this scale in our 2024 test, it read accurately to the gram in all but two of our measurements — the 500-gram weight (which was one gram off) and the 1-kilogram weight (which was 2 grams off). (For context, only four of the 14 scales we tested in 2024 accurately measured the kilogram weight.) This level of accuracy was consistent across our four current picks.
The Escali Primo scale was also one of the most responsive models we tested: Whether we were adding or removing items, it always read weights in less than a second. Some of the other scales took two or three seconds to settle on a measurement, and a few (especially the super-sensitive pocket scales) even changed their readings over time.
It has a long auto-off function. We timed the Escali Primo’s auto-off function kicking in right at four minutes — the second-longest duration on any scale we tested in 2024. Most of the scales we tested shut off after about two minutes of inactivity, which could be too short for recipes that require a lot of multitasking.
The pour-over coffee process, which takes a few minutes from start to finish, felt relaxed on the Escali Primo scale, since we knew the auto-off function wouldn’t engage halfway through. (Some scales registered the slow pour-over process as inactivity, causing the scale to turn off mid-pour.)
We like the simple design and intuitive interface. The Escali Primo scale has two membrane-covered buttons: one to turn the scale on or off and to tare, and another to switch the unit of measure between grams, ounces, and pounds plus ounces. And it doesn’t beep when operating, unlike one of our previous picks, the Jennings CJ4000 (which annoyingly beeps every time you press a button). On the bottom of the scale, there are four rubber feet, which keep the scale from sliding around.
The Escali Primo scale comes in nine different colors, and it has a sleek, monochromatic look. It requires two AA batteries, which are included.
It has the ideal capacity for home and professional use. The Escali Primo is capable of accurately weighing ingredients between 1 gram and 5 kilograms (or about 11 pounds). Whether during testing or when we used this scale at home, we never found its capacity limiting.
It’s easy to store and clean. Because this scale has a fairly small footprint (8½ by 6 inches), you can easily keep it on a counter or slip it into a cupboard or drawer. It’s also lightweight, so it’s great for professional cooks and bakers who want to include a scale in their toolkits.
And since the Escali Primo scale has fewer contoured surfaces than some of the other models we tested, it was one of the easiest to wipe clean.
It stands the test of time. One Wirecutter staffer has owned the Escali Primo scale since 2014 and told us it has a long battery life. We’ve also used one in our test kitchen for years, with no complaints. Similarly, Sanneh told us, “I’ve had the same Escali scale for at least 10 years, and besides new batteries now and then, nothing has changed.”
According to pastry chef Jürgen David, the Escali Primo scale has been included in the toolkits of pastry students at New York’s International Culinary Center for the past several years. And this scale comes with a limited lifetime warranty.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The screen isn’t backlit, and you can’t disable the auto-off function. Despite these limitations, we didn’t have much difficulty reading the screen, and we found that the preset four-minute auto-off feature provided enough time to weigh ingredients
It costs about twice as much as our budget pick. It may seem hard to justify the extra cost, considering that the Ozeri Pronto is equally accurate and features a similar design and interface. But we think the Escali Primo scale’s substantially longer auto-off time and its limited lifetime warranty — compared with the Ozeri Pronto’s one-year warranty — are significant.
