Best Countertop Water Filters of 2024
Make space for cleaner tap water with these top-rated filters
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If the cost of bottled water (on your wallet and the environment) is too high for you, consider a countertop water filter. For $100 or less, you can score a countertop filter that can remove toxic contaminants from your tap water and give your wallet, recycle bin, and the environment a break from those pollutive plastic bottles.
- Countertop Water Filters: Best Countertop Water Filters How Countertop Filters Work How CR Tests Water Filters
Best Countertop Water Filters
Below, in alphabetical order, are the top three countertop filters from our water filter tests.
Amway eSpring 10-0188
At nearly $1,200, the Amway eSpring is by far the most expensive countertop water filter we tested, and here’s why: Unlike the others, it uses ultraviolet light in addition to carbon purification to purify your water. (Cartridge replacement, at $259 per year, isn’t cheap, either.) But it’s NSF-certified to remove PFOA, PFOS, lead, and other contaminants, including mercury, radon, asbestos, and VOCs. Its UV light is designed to eliminate bacteria and viruses. It aces our tests with very good flavor and odor reduction and excellent flow, and its cartridge won’t clog on you during its filter’s 1,320-gallon life span (an end-of-life indicator will let you know when time’s up). As the largest water filter in our tests, it’ll take up plenty of counter space (it’s bigger than an Amazon Echo). But if clean water is priceless to you, this might be your water filter.
Apex MR 1050
If you need a device that filters a lot of water, the Apex MR 1050 will do the job. This transparent countertop filter dispenses what the company claims is high-pH alkaline mineral water infused with calcium, magnesium, and potassium. (Be aware that while some attest to alkaline water’s health benefits, these claims are unsubstantiated, according to the Mayo Clinic.) In our tests, we find that the Apex reduces bad tastes and odors, flows well, and doesn’t clog. Its cartridges have a 1,500-gallon life span.
Home Master
This highly rated Home Master countertop filter is the lowest-priced water filter in our ratings. However, we estimate it will cost about $112 per year for replacement cartridges, which filter just 500 gallons each—a third of the capacity of some other countertop models we tested. Available in black or white, it improves flavor and reduces bad odors with an excellent flow rate that won’t slow over the filter cartridge’s life span.
How Do Countertop Filters Work?
All the countertop water filters we test use carbon filtration to clean your tap water. These filters are lined with black granular activated carbon (GAC) which, like a magnet to metal, pulls solid and gas toxins from water and air that flows through it. Activated carbon-block technology is good at filtering funky tastes and odors, chlorine, sediments, and sometimes even lead, solvents, and pesticides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Carbon-block filters are not effective at eliminating bacteria, however.
For that, you’ll need a UV countertop filter that destroys bacteria and viruses or a multistage reverse-osmosis water filter that can remove dozens of contaminants, including volatile organic compounds (such as benzene and formaldehyde) and toxic metals (such as lead, arsenic, mercury, and chromium).
Eric Boring, PhD, a chemist in CR’s consumer safety testing program, noted that these substances might be present in drinking water but at levels too low to be detected by smell, taste, or appearance. “However, even at low levels, these substances may increase the likelihood of disease, cancer, diabetes, infertility, and child brain development,” Boring says. “A water filter can help.”
If you’re concerned about a particular contaminant in your tap water, obtain a Consumer Confidence Report from your water supplier, or, if you’re on a well, have your water tested. Then choose a filter that is certified to remove whatever concerning substances those tests reveal. Don’t assume all filters are the same or use the same technology. According to the CDC, for example, filters that remove chemicals don’t often effectively remove germs and vice versa.
How CR Tests Water Filters
We test a water filter’s flow rate by measuring how long it takes to filter one quart of water. We also give each filter a "clogging" score based on how much its flow rate slows down over the cartridge’s stated life. If a manufacturer claims that a filter meets NSF/ANSI standards for removing specific contaminants, such as chlorine, lead, and PFAS, we verify those claims.
We also check claims of flavor and odor reduction by spiking spring water with commonly found compounds that can make the water smell and taste like a sewage treatment plant, damp soil, metal, or a swimming pool. A trained panel of professional tasters evaluates how successful the filters are at removing those flavors and odors.
All countertop filters in our ratings effectively remove bad tastes and odors from tap water. But the top-rated models also deliver filtered water quickly and continue to do so without clogging over the life span of the filter cartridge.
