3 Best Soda Makers, Evaluated and Reviewed
Get rid of the mountain of seltzer cans in your recycling bin. We tested the iconic Sodastream and five other soda makers.
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If the recycling sanitation workers have a least favorite house on each block, it just might be mine. My family consumes an unfathomable amount of canned seltzer, with financial and environmental implications I can’t bear to face. (Okay, fine: The brutal truth is that we probably buy two 12-packs of La Croix each week, which is about $54 a month—or $648 a year.)
How Long Does It Take for a Soda Maker to Pay for Itself?
A soda maker can save you money in the long run if you’re willing to put in the work of buying carbon dioxide canisters regularly and you have chilled (and filtered, depending on your personal taste) water when you need it. We calculated this number by dividing the cost of each machine plus one canister by the price of a 12-pack of La Croix ($6.59 at the time I wrote this). In other words, if you purchased x number of packs of La Croix, you could have purchased this machine and a canister instead. The continued cost is, obviously, much cheaper as well: A typical 60-liter CO2 canister costs $32, making each liter of seltzer about 53 cents. Contrast that with La Croix, which at $6.59 for a 12-pack amounts to about $1.55 a liter.
Some of the soda makers we tested were quite loud.
Sneak Peek: A brand name synonymous with “soda maker,” the Sodastream Terra rests on its laurels, at least according to our tests, while a vacuum cleaner company smashes the competition.
