We Tested 12 Stand Mixers—Four Stood Out Above the Rest

A vast majority of baking recipes call for a stand mixer. And we've long recommended bowl-lift models from KitchenAid: They're wicked powerful, often have a flat-bottomed bowl suitable for double-boiling or using on the stovetop, and can tackle nearly any recipe.

However, stand mixers are expensive—and take up a lot of countertop real estate. You want to be sure you’re getting the right one for money, needs, and space. So, we decided to (finally!) test 12 popular stand mixers to find the unequivocally best ones. 

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Stand Mixer

KitchenAid 7 Quart Bowl Lift Stand Mixer

$600 at Amazon $600 at Williams-Sonoma $600 at Sur La Table

This bowl-lift model shares many of the same qualities as our previous, now-discontinued top pick: Namely, it’s super stable and ultra-powerful. Its attachments nearly reach the sides of the bowl, allowing it to tackle large and small amounts of ingredients alike. It also has a 7-quart capacity and a bevy of durable stainless steel attachments (three paddles, one whisk, one dough hook, a pouring shield, and a bowl scraper).

The Best Stand Mixer for Casual Bakers

KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

$450 at Amazon $380 at Williams-Sonoma $450 at Target

The KitchenAid Artisan series mixer is a 325-watt tilt-head stand mixer that's smaller, lighter, and less powerful than our top pick. However, it's compact enough to store in a pantry or on the countertop without dominating the entire area. And it still had plenty of strength to cream butter, whip egg whites and heavy cream, and make pizza dough without struggling.

The Best Stand Mixer for Professional Bakers

Wolf Gourmet WGSM100S High-Performance Stand Mixer

$800 at Amazon $800 at Williams-Sonoma $800 at Sur La Table

If you bake professionally or in large batches frequently, the Wolf Gourmet is a great option. This stand mixer is one of the heaviest and largest machines we tested, and its bowl securely locks into its base. The 500-watt motor easily creamed butter, whipped heavy cream, and kneaded dough. And the generous 7-quart bowl was large enough to handle double the amounts we tested.

The Best Stand Mixer for Bread Bakers

Ankarsrum Stand Mixer

$750 at Amazon $700 at Walmart View on Ankarsrum.com

With an extra-large capacity, this super-stable stand mixer kneaded dough exceptionally well (it also was surprisingly fast at aerating whipped cream). While it's expensive and has a learning curve, for serious bread bakers, it may be well worth it.

The Tests

• Whipped Cream Test: We whipped one cup of heavy cream (sans gums or stabilizers) to see how easily the stand mixers could handle small amounts of ingredients.  
• Pound Cake Test: We picked pound cake because the majority of its leavening is mechanical, created by whipping and creaming air into butter, with no or minimal assistance from chemical leaveners like baking powder or baking soda. We started out with a combination of room-temperature butter and cream cheese, beating with the paddle attachment, to see how that fared. We then sprinkled in sugar, looking at how fluffy the mixture got. Then, we slowly drizzled in a beaten egg to see if we could maintain the emulsified mixture. Finally, we baked the pound cake and noted any differences in the rise and crumb. 
• Pizza Dough Test: We made Neapolitan pizza dough to see how well the mixer kneaded stiff and sticky dough with its dough hook. We checked to see how much the dough “climbed” up the hook, how often we had to stop to adjust the dough in the bowl, and how the dough felt and looked after the 10-minute kneading time. 
• Usability and Cleanup Tests: Throughout testing, we evaluated how easy each stand mixer was to operate and how simple it was to add and remove its attachments and bowl. After every test, we cleaned the attachment and bowl by hand.

What We Learned

How Do Stand Mixers Work?

Stand mixers have a bowl attached to the base. Typically, they have one attachment that rotates in what’s called planetary action—meaning it moves in a circular motion while the bowl stays put. It’s sort of like how the Earth rotates around the sun. This rotating, circulating attachment ensures ingredients are evenly distributed and mixed (ideally).

Larger Attachments Were Generally Better

To be an effective stand mixer, the attachments should fit the bowl's shape, keeping close to the bottom and sides of the bowl so that ingredients can smear, fluff, or stretch properly. The poorest-performing mixers had attachments set too far away. Whipped cream in the Instant 7.4-quart Stand Mixer had liquid at the sides and bottom, requiring us to stop the mixer to scrape and incorporate the cream. Pizza dough crept up the dough hook of the Smeg 50’s Retro Stand Mixer enough we had to stop the kneading multiple times to pull it off the top of the hook. And Breville’s The Bakery Chef Stand Mixer’s paddle attachment didn’t come close enough to the sides to adequately cream the butter or incorporate the sugar. 

Our winners had attachments that perfectly fit their bowls, letting the machine do its job with minimal help from the user. 

A Stand Mixer Shouldn't Be Tough to Use

Our winning stand mixers all had intuitive buttons, knobs, switches, and levers we could immediately figure out. The KitchenAid 7-Quart and the Artisan stand mixers featured control switches on the side you used to increase or decrease the speed of the mixer. Easy. The Wolf Gourmet had a large control knob dial that smoothly turned it on. It was equipped with 10 clearly printed settings and a “pulse” mode—a nice addition when you don’t want a continuously spinning paddle, like when adding dry ingredients or mix-ins like chocolate chips.

We'll admit that our final winner, the Ankarsrum, had more of a learning curve, You don't add ingredients in the typical way, which you can read about here, but once we got the hang of it, it was fine. What wasn't fine was mixers that featured touchscreens. With this interface, increasing or decreasing the speed became annoying, as you had to press the plus or minus buttons repeatedly.

We Preferred Bowls with Handles

Though it seems like a small detail, having a handle on the bowl made a difference. Pouring batter or scraping out the dough was significantly easier when you could hold the bowl with one hand and tilt it. Mixers that had bowls with large, comfortable handles were also easier to lift off and place back on the stand mixer.

The KitchenAid Classic, in particular, jammed in the base when we kneaded pizza dough, and it was exceedingly difficult to remove the handleless bowl afterward.

Your Stand Mixer Shouldn’t Go for a Walk

Walking is great unless you’re a stand mixer. In this case, you want it to stand still when it’s working. Some mixers are prone to “walking” across the countertop as they knead dough or rapidly cream butter. Most stand mixers are heavy for a reason, as their weight helps keep the mixer stationary. For example, our favorite stand mixers from KitchenAid and Wolf weighed 31 and 25.8 pounds. 

Some lighter mixers have suction cup feet to keep them steady. However, we found these annoying to use and move. 

What Size Stand Mixer Should You Get?

It depends on two things: how much money you want to spend and how much you plan on using the stand mixer. If you are an avid baker and are feeling flush, we'd recommend going bigger and pricier, since the larger bowl and stand mixer offer more capacity and power. If you're a "bake cupcakes twice a year" kinda baker, a smaller, more affordable stand mixer (like the 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer with a tilt-head) is likely sufficient.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Stand Mixer

The best stand mixers can mix, cream, and knead ingredients thoroughly without issue. Attachments should properly fit in the bowl, with minimal clearance on both the bottom and sides, ensuring the stand mixer can handle large and small amounts of ingredients easily. 

Look for a stand mixer that is also simple to operate. The mixer should have intuitive speed adjustment and adding and removing its bowl and attachments should be straightforward. Heavier stand mixers are more stable and less prone to walking and powerful motors ensure the mixer can knead doughs of all hydrations and stickiness without strain.

Our Favorite Stand Mixers

The Best Stand Mixer

KitchenAid 7 Quart Bowl Lift Stand Mixer

$600 at Amazon $600 at Williams-Sonoma $600 at Sur La Table

What we liked: This bowl-lift, 7-quart stand mixer delivered with power and ease of use. It whipped heavy cream, mixed batter, and kneaded pizza dough deftly. We liked the numerous paddles it came with—including a silicone-lined one meant for scraping—and that all of the attachments were stainless steel, so there’s no chance of them chipping. Its pouring shield had silicone bumpers that kept it in place on the bowl’s rim, its bowl had a large handle, and its extra-long cord featured a silicone piece for wrapping it up tidily. We also appreciate the mixer’s redesigned hub: Instead of a cap that flips upward, the hub comes off entirely. We’ve had issues with flipped-up hubs detaching completely (and never fitting properly again), so we prefer this newer version. Additionally, this mixer has a brushed stainless steel bowl that resists smudges and fingerprints and is fairly quiet when operating.

What we didn’t like: It can take some finagling to properly seat the bowl on the stand mixer’s pronged arms. The mixer has a raised bump at the base that can lead to unmixed ingredients accumulating around it. Of course, it's also heavy.

Key Specs

• Weight: 31 pounds
• Dimensions: 14.63 x 11.31 x 16.5 inches
• Stated bowl capacity: 7 quarts
• Wattage: 500 watts
• Cord length: 42 inches 
• Attachments: 3 beaters, whisk, dough hook, pouring shield, bowl scraper
• Care instructions: Bowl is dishwasher-safe; paddles, dough hook, shield, and scraper are top-rack dishwasher-safe; whisk is handwash-only 
• Materials: Stainless steel bowl, metal, plastic

The Best Stand Mixer for Casual Bakers

KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Quart Tilt-Head Stand Mixer

$450 at Amazon $380 at Williams-Sonoma $450 at Target

What we liked: For folks who don’t bake as often but still want a top-of-the-line stand mixer, the KitchenAid Artisan series is a great option. With a 325-watt motor, it’s less powerful than its 7-quart sibling, but still does a great job creaming butter, whipping heavy cream, and making cake batter. The smaller size means it doesn’t take as much space on the countertop, but the 5-quart bowl is still big enough for most baking projects.

Because the Artisan series has less power and a tilt-head, it does struggle with stiffer bread and pizza dough. However, it got the job done, producing a smooth dough without heating up or becoming too loud. The Artisan series is solidly constructed and doesn’t move much when in use, as long as you knead dough at a lower speed. It also has a variety of attachments you can purchase for it, making it an exceptionally versatile kitchen appliance.

What we didn’t like: The motor is a little less powerful than other stand mixers, so it does struggle a bit with stiffer doughs.

Key Specs

• Weight: 19.4 pounds
• Dimensions: 13.5 x 13.75 x 8.75 inches  
• Stated bowl capacity: 5 quarts
• Wattage: 325 watts
• Cord length: 38 inches 
• Attachments: Paddle, dough hook, whisk, plus splash/pouring guard
• Care instructions: Paddle, dough hook, shield, and bowl are dishwasher-safe; whisk is handwash-only 
• Materials: Stainless steel bowl, metal, plastic 

The Best Stand Mixer for Professional Bakers

Wolf Gourmet WGSM100S High-Performance Stand Mixer

$800 at Amazon $800 at Williams-Sonoma $800 at Sur La Table

What we liked: If you’re a professional or frequently bake in large batches, the Wolf Gourmet High-Performance Stand Mixer might be the machine for you. It has a 7-quart bowl that twists and moves up and down as you lock it into place, which helps keep the machine ultra-stable—even during sticky, tough tasks. 

The large bowl also mixes up smaller batches just fine. It made airy whipped cream, creamed butter, and easily kneaded the pizza dough without struggling. It had some nice features as well, like a pulse option and adjustable speed settings.

What we didn’t like: There’s no way to get around it: this is a huge machine.  It takes up a lot of real estate on your countertop, and might not fit under some cabinets (measure first). It weighs a lot, so moving or storing it is difficult. It’s also expensive—nearly twice as much as our top pick from KitchenAid.

Key Specs

• Weight: 25.8 pounds
• Dimensions: 17.5 x 16.75 x 10.5 inches
• Stated bowl capacity: 7 quarts
• Wattage: 500 watts
• Cord length: 38 inches 
• Attachments: Paddle, dough hook, whisk, plus splash/pouring guard shield
• Care instructions: Bowl is handwash-only; attachments and shield are dishwasher-safe (top rack only)
• Materials: Brushed stainless steel, die-cast construction

The Best Stand Mixer for Bread Bakers

Ankarsrum Stand Mixer

$750 at Amazon $700 at Walmart View on Ankarsrum.com

What we liked: Unlike many stand mixers, which use planetary rotation (e.g. the mixing arm spins while the bowl remains stationary), the Ankarsrum spins the bowl—we know, mind blown. As we noted in our review, this setup allows it to have a large bowl capacity and means it can mix at higher speeds. It also features a unique kneading paddle, quite unlike the dough hook you might be used to. In our testing, we found it quickly and efficiently kneaded dough. The whisk attachment also excelled at aerating whipped cream, doing so in a mere 35 seconds. 

What we didn't like: There's no getting around it: the Ankarsrum isn't exactly intuitive if you're used to a planetary stand mixer. It requires adding ingredients in a certain order (liquids and soft things, like butter, go before dry ingredients) and finagling the head, which can be adjusted to swing closer to the center of the bowl or the edge.

Key Specs

• Weight: 28 pounds
• Dimensions: 13.1 x 18.5 x 18 inches
• Stated bowl capacity: 7 quarts
• Wattage: 600 watts
• Cord length: 78 inches 
• Attachments: Dough roller, scraper, kneading hook, two single-wire beaters, two multi-wire beaters, plastic bowl, lid, metal bowl
• Care instructions: Attachments and bowls are dishwasher-safe; to clean the exterior of the machine, wipe down with a damp rag before drying
• Materials: Plastic, stainless steel
  

The Competition

• KitchenAid Pro 600 Series Stand Mixer: This was our favorite stand mixer (and the one we used in the Serious Eats test kitchen for many years), but it’s been discontinued.
• Breville’s Bakery Chef Stand Mixer: This stand mixer has a lot of great features, including a built-in timer and a light that shines into the bowl when the mixer's on. It also came with extras like a glass mixing bowl and a scraper blade. But when we tested the metal bowl for whipped cream, we found the whisk attachment didn’t mix quite as close to the bowl edge or bottom as our top picks, leaving a liquidy section. The smaller metal bowl also had a lower capacity and its thin, metal handle wasn’t comfortable to hold.
• Smeg 50’s Retro Stand Mixer: This retro-, futuristic-looking stand mixer looks like it came off of the set of Bewitched or The Jetsons. And the slick-coated attachments were super easy to clean. But, unfortunately, the paddle attachment mixed too far away from the sides and bottom of the bowl, leaving a film of greasy butter that needed to be manually scraped and incorporated frequently while making pound cake. The mixer does come with a scraper blade, which might solve this issue, but kneading the pizza dough was also problematic. The dough kept creeping up the hook.
• Instant 7.4-Quart Stand Mixer Pro: This budget-friendly stand mixer, from the folks that brought you the Instant Pot, seemed like a great idea. It weighed less than other mixers but had suction cup feet to help compensate and prevent the mixer from moving. However, we don’t love these feet: they make it harder to lift and move the mixer. It also had performance and usability issues (we didn’t like the touchscreen interface). 
• KitchenAid Classic Series Tilt Head Stand Mixer: This entry-level KitchenAid mixer had a low-powered 275-watt motor, but still did a respectable job creaming, whipping, and kneading. However, there was some noticeable strain on the motor when making pizza dough and the smaller bowl and lack of a handle on it made it less user-friendly.
• Cuisinart 5.5 Quart Stand Mixer: This reasonably-priced stand mixer was easy to use and clean. It did a great job with whipped cream and cake batter, but it struggled to knead pizza dough. The motor became extremely warm and made an alarming sound.
• Frigidaire 4.5 L Retro Stand Mixer: This stand mixer looks cool and was reasonably priced. But it performed poorly in all of our tests, with the motor running too hot and struggling with dough. The lightweight mixer also moved around the countertop when on.
• GE Profile Smart Stand Mixer: While this stand mixer boasted app and voice control and built-in scales, we found most of its "smart" features weren't actually that helpful (if they worked at all). While it functioned alright as a stand mixer—mixing up hardy pizza dough and whipping cream easily—we don't think the price justifies the disappointing showing from the smart features. You can read more about what we thought about it here.

FAQs

What is a stand mixer? 

A stand mixer has a bowl attached to a stand or base, and a motor that powers attachments that mix, whip, or knead ingredients inside the bowl. Stand mixers come in a variety of colors, styles, and shapes. They are used to make the dough and batter for baking projects like cookies, cakes, brownies, and bread, automating the otherwise tedious repetitive task of stirring, whisking, or kneading. Although they share some similarities with hand mixers, stand mixers are significantly more powerful and versatile.

What’s the best KitchenAid stand mixer? 

The 7-Quart bowl-lift model is the best KitchenAid stand mixer. It has a robust 500-watt motor that easily kneads stiff bread and pizza dough but also does a great job at smaller tasks.

Are any stand mixers as good as KitchenAid? 

We love KitchenAid stand mixers, but also think the Wolf Gourmet stand mixer is a great option, especially if you’re a professional baker who wants a large-capacity stand mixer. It features a 7-quart bowl and has a more variable speed dial.

What’s the best tilt-head stand mixer? 

In our testing, we found the KitchenAid Artisan series was the best tilt-head stand mixer. It creamed butter efficiently and kneaded pizza dough with minimal strain. It was also easy and intuitive to use.

How do you use a stand mixer dough hook?

The dough hook is meant to replicate kneading, so it works best with dough that has been mixed. To use a dough hook, add your bread ingredients to the bowl of the sand mixer, and stir to combine (you may use a wooden spoon or the whisk attachment, depending on the texture of the dough). Once the dough is a cohesive mass, attach the dough hook attachment to the mixer, lock the bowl into place, and press the start button. You may need to periodically stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.

How long does a stand mixer last?

KitchenAid stand mixers, because they have gears and more manual parts, can last up to 20 years (if not longer, when properly used and maintained). Plus, they can be repaired or refurbished quite easily. We've written a bit about how they work in this article, including what to do if your KitchenAid starts leaking oil (it does happen!).

Why We’re the Experts

• Irvin Lin is a freelance writer who’s been contributing to the site for a couple of years. He’s written numerous reviews for the site, including charcuterie boards and instant-read thermometers. 
• He runs a blog called Eat the Love, where he’s developed, photographed, and written recipes since 2010.
• Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm is the senior commerce editor at Serious Eats. She’s been at the site since 2021 and previously worked for America’s Test Kitchen and Food52. 
• For this review, we tested 12 stand mixers, evaluating their performance, usability, and more. 
• We recently tested a 7-quart KitchenAid model that, the brand told us, took the place of our longtime favorite, now-discontinued stand mixer. It impressed us so much that we added it as our overall top pick.