Our top picks at a glance Best under £100 overall: Tower Vortx 5L T17021 — £55 typical retail. The genuine bargain of the category — outperforms units twice the price on the basics. [Buy on Amazon UK →] Best under £80: Russell Hobbs SatisFry 4L 26500 — £70-ish on Amazon UK. Solid build, clean controls, no unnecessary features. [Buy on Amazon UK →] Best under £100 with smart features: Cosori Pro II 4.7L — Stretches the budget to £89 in normal weeks but goes under £80 on Amazon Spring/Black Friday sales. Worth the wait. [Buy on Amazon UK →]

There is a persistent myth that you have to spend £150+ to get a competent air fryer. We’re here to put it firmly to bed. Three of the six sub-£100 air fryers we tested over the past four months are genuinely excellent appliances. One is so good we’d recommend it over units costing twice as much.

This is a UK-specific 2026 guide, with prices verified weekly across Amazon UK, Argos, Currys, John Lewis, and Lakeland throughout the test period. If you want to know which air fryer is best at any price (including the higher-end Ninjas and Sages), our [best air fryers UK 2026] main guide covers the full field. This piece is for budget-conscious buyers — and it doesn’t apologise for it.

Who tested this and how

All six budget air fryers were tested by Ben in a UK kitchen on a 13A socket. Each was used as the primary air fryer for at least three weeks, with overlap periods where two units were tested side-by-side. Testing time: approximately 110 hours of active use across 18 weeks. Two of the six were returned to the retailer within the testing window because they failed our basics — those are still reviewed below, with the failure modes explained.

Same standardised tests as our main air fryer guide: 500g fresh chip test (Maris Piper, no oil, 200°C, target colour matched against a reference card), six-thigh chicken test (bone-in, skin-on, 200°C, internal temperature checked with a Thermapen ONE), frozen breaded fish test (Birds Eye fillets cooked to packet time), cleaning timed test, and energy use per cook with a Salter EM5650 plug-in monitor. Build quality assessed using a five-point rubric covering materials, basket pull-out smoothness, control panel quality, and durability of any non-stick coatings. Pricing recorded weekly throughout.

How much do you actually need to spend on an air fryer?

Honest answer: £55 to £95, for most people. Below £55 you start running into genuinely poor build quality — flimsy baskets, plastic handles that get hot, controls that fail within months, non-stick coatings that flake within weeks. Above £100 you’re paying for either dual-zone capability, premium build, or ‘smart’ features (apps, voice control) that most owners never use after the first fortnight.

If you want one of the absolute basics done well — chips, chicken, frozen food, reheating leftovers — then £55-£70 is the genuine sweet spot, and our top pick proves it. The diminishing-returns curve on air fryer pricing is steeper than almost any other kitchen appliance: a £55 unit gets you 80% of the experience, £100 gets you 90%, and the last 10% costs another £150.

At a glance: the sub-£100 air fryers we tested

[INSERT COMPARISON TABLE HERE — 6 rows, 7 columns. Sort by score; tied scores broken by price.]

1. Tower Vortx 5L T17021 — Best under £100 overall (£55)

The genuine surprise of the entire 2026 air fryer test, including our main UK guide. At a typical retail price of £55 — a quarter of the price of premium dual-zone units — the Tower Vortx 5L turned in chips that were fractionally less consistent across the basket, chicken thighs that hit temperature within a minute of the Ninja AF400, and frozen fish that came out indistinguishable in a blind taste-test. It outperformed every other unit in this round-up on cooking quality and tied for best on cleaning ease.

Build quality is the obvious compromise. The basket handle gets warm rather than staying cool, the digital display is small, and the non-stick coating shows light scratch marks after three weeks of daily use. None of these are deal-breakers for £55 — they’re the honest trade-offs that justify the price. The 1,500W heating element warms quickly, and the 5L bowl-shape (rather than square) basket actually helps with airflow on a single layer of chips.

If you’re cooking for one or two and don’t need dual-zone, the Tower Vortx is the air fryer we’d recommend buying first — over the Ninja, the Sage, the Cosori, and everything else. Spend the saved £200 on a probe thermometer (£40), a decent chef’s knife (£60), and a non-stick frying pan (£40). All three will improve your cooking more than a flashier air fryer would.

2. Russell Hobbs SatisFry 4L 26500 — Best under £80 (£70)

A perfectly good budget air fryer that does the basics without complaint. The 4L capacity is on the small side for families, but for couples and singletons it’s right-sized. Build quality is the step up from the cheapest models — basket handle stays cool, controls feel solid, and the included mesh divider lets you cook two foods in the same basket. Performance is fine rather than exceptional: chips browned evenly enough but took two minutes longer than the Cosori at the same temperature.

The SatisFry is the air fryer we’d recommend to a parent buying for a student moving out — robust, brand you’ve heard of, and replacement parts are easy to source through Russell Hobbs’s UK customer service. Six-month build quality has been solid; the non-stick coating shows fewer scuffs than the Tower at the same point in testing. It’s not the air fryer to buy if you cook for four or want premium performance, but as a competent £70 starter unit, it does the job and looks the part.

3. Cosori Pro II 4.7L — Best under £100 with smart features (£89)

Sliding into the third spot at full retail, this is the unit we’d buy if we wanted a few extra preset options without paying premium prices. The 4.7L capacity is the sweet spot for couples and small families; dimensions of 30cm tall fit under standard 60cm UK wall units; the 1,700W element heats up quickly and produces the most even browning of any unit in this round-up.

The 11 presets are a meaningful step up from the Tower’s basics — the dehydrate function actually works for jerky and dried fruit, the reheat preset is well-calibrated, and the chicken/fish/root-veg presets save time on the dial-spinning. The digital display is large and readable. Noise sits at 60dB — the quietest of any unit in this round-up.

At full £89 retail, the Cosori is in a tighter value contest with the Tower; the £34 premium gets you the better presets, slightly quieter operation, and a more readable display. On Amazon Black Friday or Spring Sale (regularly £75-£79), it’s the better buy. We’ve covered it in more depth in our small-kitchen guide.

4. Pro Breeze 4.2L Digital Air Fryer (£65)

Pro Breeze is one of those Amazon UK-native brands that lives or dies on review velocity, but the 4.2L unit we tested is genuinely capable for the price. The square basket helps with airflow on a single layer of chips, and the eight presets cover most weeknight needs. Performance on chips and chicken is broadly comparable to the Tower Vortx; cleaning is straightforward and the basket release is decent.

Two flaws keep it out of the top picks. First, it’s loud — 67dB on full, the loudest of any unit in this round-up. In an open-plan flat that’s borderline conversation-blocking. Second, durability is the question mark — three months in, the basket coating was already showing flaking near the handle hinge. We’d buy expecting two to three years rather than five, which makes the Tower Vortx (£10 cheaper, better-built) the smarter spend at this price.

5. Salter EK2548 3.2L (£45)

The cheapest air fryer in our test that we’d consider recommending — but only with caveats. At £45 typical retail (sometimes £35 on sale), the EK2548 is genuinely the smallest commitment available. Capacity is small (3.2L is enough for one person), build quality is plasticky, controls are mechanical knobs without a digital display, and the non-stick coating is the thinnest we tested.

If your budget is hard-capped at £45 — student halls, first-flat budget, secondary unit for a holiday cottage — this is the air fryer to buy. It cooks chips and chicken adequately, the small size cycles fast, and at £45 you can replace it after two years without feeling robbed. We wouldn’t recommend it as a primary air fryer for a household — the Tower Vortx is £10 more and a meaningfully better tool — but for the genuinely cash-strapped, it’s better than the £35 ‘no-name’ alternatives that flood Amazon.

6. Lakeland Touchscreen Air Fryer 5.7L (£99) — Disappointing

On paper the Lakeland 5.7L ticks all the boxes — large basket, touchscreen, ten presets, two-year guarantee. In practice the touchscreen was unresponsive when wet, the basket sticks on release more than any other unit we tested, and chips came out unevenly browned (front of basket noticeably crispier than the back). At £99 there’s better value elsewhere — the Cosori Pro II beats it for £10 less; the Tower Vortx beats it for £44 less.

The two-year Lakeland guarantee and Lakeland’s customer service are genuine pluses, and if you’re already a Lakeland loyalist there are worse choices. But if you’re spending £99 fresh, the Cosori or a discounted Ninja AF300UK are better picks. Returned to retailer at the seven-week mark — the only sub-£100 unit in our test that earned a ‘do not buy at full price’ verdict.

Our testing methodology

Every air fryer in this guide was tested against the same standardised set of cooks, in the same kitchen, on the same 13A socket, with the same scales (Salter, calibrated) and probe thermometer (Thermapen ONE) for verification. Tests run in our sub-£100 round-up are identical to those in our main UK 2026 round-up — scores are directly comparable across articles, so you can see where the £55 Tower lands against the £249 Ninja AF400UK without re-testing.

Standardised tests: 500g of fresh-cut Maris Piper chips at 200°C with no added oil, target colour matched to a Pantone reference card; six bone-in skin-on chicken thighs at 200°C, internal temperature measured at the centre of the largest thigh; six Birds Eye breaded fish fillets cooked to packet time and judged for crispness; timed cleaning of basket and crisper plate after the chicken test. Energy use was tracked with a Salter EM5650 plug-in monitor; noise measured at 30cm with a calibrated decibel meter; footprint measured to the millimetre. Each test repeated three times across the testing window and averaged. None of the units were supplied free by manufacturers — every unit was bought at retail.

FAQ

What’s the cheapest air fryer worth buying in the UK?

The Tower Vortx 5L T17021 at typical £55 retail is the cheapest air fryer we’d recommend without caveats. Below £55, build quality drops sharply — basket coatings flake faster, controls fail sooner, and basket handles get hot enough to be a real burn risk. The Salter EK2548 at £45 is the floor of what we’d consider recommendable, and only for specific use cases.

Are budget air fryers as good as Ninja or Sage?

On the basics — chips, chicken, frozen food — yes, surprisingly close. In our main UK 2026 testing, the £55 Tower scored within 0.8 points (out of 10) of the £249 Ninja AF400UK on cooking quality. The premium price buys you dual-zone capability, better build (durability over 5+ years), quieter operation, and ‘smart’ features. None of those affect the day-one cooking output meaningfully.

What’s the running cost of a budget air fryer?

Identical to a premium one — running cost depends on wattage and time, not brand. A 1,500W air fryer cooking for 20 minutes uses 0.5kWh, costing about 14p at 27p/kWh whether it’s a £55 Tower or a £249 Ninja. Air fryers across all price points use roughly a third of the energy of a fan oven for the same job, sometimes less.

How long should a budget air fryer last?

In our experience, three to five years for daily use. Premium units (£150+) regularly last seven to ten. The cost-per-year math often comes out similar: a £55 Tower replaced every three years is £18.30/year; a £249 Ninja lasting eight years is £31/year. The premium unit is more expensive per year of use; the budget unit forces you to think about replacement sooner.

Should I wait for Black Friday or Amazon Spring Sale?

Yes if you can. Air fryers are aggressively discounted twice a year — Cosori Pro II regularly drops from £89 to £69-£75 in November and March, and Ninja AF300UK from £199 to £159-£179. Both are better buys at sale price than at RRP. The Tower Vortx rarely discounts (it’s already aggressively priced) so don’t wait specifically for that.

What features should I ignore on budget air fryers?

Voice control, app connectivity, and most pre-loaded recipe libraries — none of them get used after the first fortnight in our experience. Touchscreens are useful but not essential. The features that actually matter: clear digital display, even browning across the basket, easy cleaning, and a basket handle that stays cool. Everything else is marketing.

The final word

The genuine answer to ‘what’s the best air fryer under £100’ is, in our test, also the answer to ‘what’s the best air fryer for most British households’ — the Tower Vortx 5L T17021 at £55. Buy it without overthinking the choice. Use the £200 you didn’t spend on a Ninja to upgrade something that’ll improve your cooking more (probe thermometer, better knife, decent non-stick pan). If you want a few more presets, want a quieter unit, or you’re cooking for a family, the Cosori Pro II at £89 is the alternative; the Russell Hobbs SatisFry at £70 is the right middle-ground.