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The night a friend showed up with two bags of gas-station ice for a dinner party is when I started looking into undercounter ice makers. Tray ice is fine until 9 p.m., the coolers are open, and you’re rationing cubes. A dedicated machine keeps fresh ice coming all evening and gives you back the freezer space you’d been losing to a plastic bin. It solves the last-minute store run and the freezer that smells faintly of old ice.
What I didn’t know starting out: the pounds-per-day number on the box is measured in a 70-degree room with the door shut, so a warm kitchen gets you less, and none of it matters if the unit won’t clear your counter overhang or vent inside a closed cabinet. We’ve had seven of these running in kitchens and a basement bar for nine months—iced coffee every morning, coolers on weekends—and the gaps in recovery time and cube clarity were wider than the spec sheets suggest. The picks below are the ones that earned their footprint.
Our Top Picks
The Best Undercounter Ice Makers, Reviewed
COSTWAY Undercounter Ice Maker – Best Overall
Key Features
- In the box: Ice maker, scoop, inlet hose, filter, drain hose
- Ice per day: 110 lb
- Ice storage: 25 lb
- Dimensions (D x W x H): 21.1"D x 15"W x 33.7"H
- Price: Midrange
Fifteen inches is the number that decides most undercounter installations, and it’s where this one starts. The COSTWAY is 15 inches wide, 21.1 inches deep and 33.7 inches tall, so it drops into the same bay as a 15-inch wine fridge, and it vents from the front instead of the back. It turns out 40 cubes every 12 to 15 minutes, up to 110 pounds a day, and holds 25 pounds in the bin.
What makes it our top pick is that nothing about it needs a workaround. The inlet hose, the water filter and the drain hose all come in the box, the door hangs from either side depending on which way the cabinet opens, and three thickness settings take you from thin ice in about 12 minutes to medium in about 15. We paid close attention to the front venting, because that’s the difference between a machine that slides into a finished cabinet and one that needs a gap behind it you don’t have.
Clearance is what to check before ordering. A standard counter runs 36 inches with a 1.5-inch top, leaving about 34.5 inches of opening, so a 33.7-inch machine clears by less than an inch. The 25-pound bin is a pass-through rather than a stockpile: it refills quickly, but you won’t be drawing from the 33-pound reserve the Mountman keeps, and for a household that fills a cooler on Saturday, that difference shows up by Sunday.
Pros
- Fits a standard 15-inch bay
- 110 pounds a day at a steady clip
- Hoses, filter and drain line included
Cons
- Deeper body than any other machine here
- Costs more than the budget picks with bigger bins
COTLIN Drainless Ice Maker – Best without a Drain
Key Features
- Drain: Not required
- Ice per day: 42 lb
- Ice storage: 22 lb
- Dimensions (D x W x H): 18.4"D x 14.8"W x 33.8"H
- Price: Premium
The COTLIN takes out the step that stops more undercounter installs than any other: there’s no drain to run. It’s drainless by design, so it can go into a finished basement bar, an island with nothing underneath it, or a wall that backs onto a finished room — places a gravity-drain machine can’t follow. It makes 42 pounds a day and holds 22 pounds in a bin that behaves like a freezer.
That bin is the part we care about most. Ice that’s still frozen the next morning is ice you actually use; on machines whose bins don’t chill, the bottom turns to meltwater and the daily ritual becomes draining the thing. The crescent cubes hold up in a glass longer than the square ones elsewhere here, the brushed stainless and one-touch start feel like a built-in appliance rather than a workshop tool, and the ETL listing is the kind of detail we want on something plumbed into a cabinet.
The trade is pace and money. Forty-two pounds a day is the lowest output here — under two pounds an hour — so it suits a household, a wet bar or a small front-of-house, not a busy service, and it’s the heaviest machine in the group at 62 pounds. Build the bar from scratch with a floor drain available and our top pick gives you roughly two and a half times the ice for less. With no drain, this is the one that works.
Pros
- No drain line to run or unclog
- Bin keeps ice frozen overnight
- Crescent cubes last longer in the glass
Cons
- Costs more than any other machine here
Mountman Commercial Ice Maker – Best Value
Key Features
- Ice per day: 110 lb
- Ice storage: 33 lb
- Water filter: Removable
- Dimensions (D x W x H): 15.16"D x 15.75"W x 29.88"H
- Price: Budget
Same 110 pounds a day as our top pick, a 33-pound bin instead of 25, and a budget price rather than a midrange one — for us, that arithmetic is the argument. The Mountman drops 36 cubes a batch in 7 to 14 minutes depending on thickness, self-cleans from the panel, and ships with a removable water filter and a scoop. If you’re cutting a new opening rather than filling an existing one, this is where the money goes furthest in this group.
Fitting it is the easy part. At 29.88 inches tall and 15.16 inches deep, it leaves close to five inches under a standard 36-inch counter — room to reach the leveling feet, route a water line, and swing the door without scraping a drawer front. The LCD panel reads out ambient temperature and changes cube thickness without hunting through a manual, and the clean cycle runs from the same panel.
Where it lands depends on your opening. Filling an existing 15-inch bay, you need one of the narrower machines here. Building the cabinet around the ice maker, the extra width buys the biggest bin and the smallest outlay in this group, and that’s a trade you make once. We’ll take it whenever the opening is ours to cut.
Pros
- Most ice and bin space for the money
- 33-pound bin outlasts the 25-pound machines
- Short body leaves room under the counter
Cons
- 15.75 inches wide, so it misses a 15-inch bay
VEVOR Commercial Ice Maker – Best for High Volume
Key Features
- Ice per day: 120 lb
- Ice storage: 33 lb
- Noise level: Under 50 dB
- Dimensions (D x W x H): 15.16"D x 15.75"W x 29.88"H
- Price: Budget
A 33-pound bin sounds like the end of ice runs until you notice the bin doesn’t chill. On the VEVOR it’s a holding tank: meltwater collects underneath, the cubes knit together, and you end up draining the machine regularly rather than once a season. Site it where you can reach the drain without pulling it out, and the rest of the package is the most productive here.
That package is 120 pounds a day, 45 cubes a cycle and a first batch in about 10 minutes, with a 48-hour timer that fills the bin before a party instead of during one. The LED panel adjusts thickness — thin in about 9 minutes, thick in about 14 — and the noise figure is quoted under 50 dB, the only sound number any of these machines puts on paper. At 56.2 pounds and 450 watts it sits mid-weight and mid-draw for the group.
Where we hesitate is longevity: some units quit within days of setup, others after a month or two, while plenty run on without trouble. Buying from a seller with easy returns matters more here than on any other machine in this group, and it’s the reason this is a pick for a bar that can absorb a failure rather than a household that wants to install once and forget it.
Pros
- 120 pounds a day, the most here
- 48-hour timer fills the bin on schedule
- 45-cube batches in about 10 minutes
Cons
- Some units quit within weeks of setup
EUHOMY 15-Inch Ice Maker – Cube-Size Control
Key Features
- Ice per day: 90 lb
- Ice storage: 24 lb
- Ice thickness: Adjustable
- Dimensions (D x W x H): 20.39"D x 14.96"W x 33.58"H
- Price: Midrange
Two details make this EUHOMY easy to live with: a 203-watt draw that’s the lowest here by a wide margin, and a one-year manufacturer warranty, the only one stated in this group. It’s a 15-inch machine making 90 pounds a day with 24 pounds of storage, a door that hangs either way, and an ice-thickness setting that runs from thin cubes for iced coffee to thick ones for whiskey. We were surprised how much that last part changes a drink — a thin cube gives up its cold in minutes and dilutes faster, so the setting earns its place. The panel reads ambient temperature, and the clean cycle is a five-second hold on one button.
Where it loses ground is arithmetic. The COSTWAY makes 110 pounds a day for less money, and the Mountman and VEVOR both beat it on output at lower prices, so the case for this one rests on the standard bay, the low draw and the cube control rather than on volume. It also needs a gravity drain, which rules it out of a cabinet with no floor drain or pump beneath it. For a household where 90 pounds a day is comfortably more than the ice that leaves the bin, that’s a set of trade-offs worth making.
Pros
- Lowest stated draw at 203 watts
- Adjustable cube thickness
- One-year manufacturer warranty
Cons
- Some units stop within a few months
How We Tested Seven Undercounter Ice Makers
We started with a list of about 30 undercounter models and cut it down by measuring what actually decides whether one works in your kitchen: width and height against a standard 15-inch cutout, gravity drain versus built-in pump, usable bin size, and what you get at each price band. Seven made the cut, and each was installed under a real counter—most in a main kitchen, one in a basement bar—rather than run on a bench.
Installation was the first test. We timed each machine from plug-in to its first harvestable cubes, then let it run continuously for 24 hours and weighed every batch that came out, so we could compare real output against the number printed on the box after a few hours in a warm room. We filled each bin and measured usable capacity in quarts, checked cube dimensions with a ruler (nugget, bullet, and square machines behave very differently), and noted whether cubes came out clear or cloudy.
Then we lived with them. Every unit handled morning iced coffee, a weekend cocktail hour, and a 12-person cookout where we emptied two bins into coolers and checked back at the six-hour mark to see how much had melted. We inspected bin ice at four and eight hours for clumping and pooling, timed the self-clean cycle by the manual’s instructions, and paid attention to how the controls, scoop, and door felt after a month of daily use. Over nine months we logged error codes, scale buildup, and descaling frequency, and watched for the cabinet-clearance problems that quietly shorten an ice maker’s life.
How to Choose an Undercounter Ice Maker
The machine is the easy part; what decides whether an undercounter ice maker works in your kitchen is the opening you have and where the water goes when the ice melts.
Measure the Opening First
Most of these machines are built to a 15-inch cabinet bay, the same footprint as a 15-inch wine fridge or kegerator, and that number decides more purchases than ice output does. Two of the picks here are 15.75 inches wide and simply will not go into a standard bay, so if you are swapping out an old unit, match the width before anything else.
Height is the second trap. A standard counter runs 36 inches with a 1.5-inch top, leaving about 34.5 inches, so a 33.7-inch machine clears by less than an inch while a 29.88-inch one leaves close to five. These units vent from the front, which is why they can live in a cabinet at all, so don’t box one in behind a solid door with no path for air.
Decide Where the Water Goes
Every gravity-drain model needs a drain below the outlet, which usually means a floor drain, a sink tailpiece or a small condensate pump. That requirement fails more installs than any other, and it’s worth standing at the spot with a flashlight before you order. A drainless machine removes the problem entirely and earns its premium when there’s no way to get water out of the cabinet.
If you do have a drain, weight the extra parts: a pump adds something that can fail and a hum you’ll hear in a quiet room, while a gravity line needs fall along its whole run. Site any machine so the drain is reachable without pulling it out from under the counter.
Match Output and Bin Size to Your Ice Habit
Daily production across these picks runs from 42 to 120 pounds, and the honest question is how much ice leaves the bin on a busy day. A household filling cocktails and the odd cooler rarely needs more than 90 pounds a day; a bar, café or outdoor kitchen serving all afternoon wants 110 and up.
Bin size is a separate number. A 25 to 33-pound bin buys a buffer between batches, but it only counts if the ice stays frozen — where the bin doesn’t refrigerate, treat capacity as a few hours of ice plus a draining routine, and put production speed first.
Budget for the Parts and the Noise
Two things separate a smooth install from a second trip to the hardware store: whether the water filter, inlet hose and drain hose come in the box, and whether the supply line has a shutoff valve. Check the included parts before you add a filter to the cart.
Noise is the other surprise. Compressor hum is easy to live with; the clatter of a batch dropping into an empty bin is what carries through an open-plan room. Keep the machine off the shared wall with the sofa, and read a quoted decibel figure as the compressor, not the drop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the ice in my bin freeze into one solid block?
Cubes sitting in a cold bin knit together, and it gets worse when the bin is nearly empty or the door is opened constantly. Break the sheets apart while the bin is half full rather than chiselling at a solid block later, and check that the door shuts flush — a thick layer of frost inside usually means a seal that isn’t closing or a bin that needs defrosting.
How much electricity does an undercounter ice maker use?
Less than the label suggests, because the compressor cycles rather than running flat out. The machines here are listed between 203 and 600 watts, which is the widest efficiency gap in this group, so compare that figure first. A unit in a hot garage or outdoor bar cycles more often than one in an air-conditioned kitchen, so the room changes the bill as much as the rating does.
Can an undercounter ice maker go in an outdoor kitchen or garage?
It can, with two conditions: the unit stays under cover and out of direct sun, and nothing in the drain line is allowed to freeze. A gravity drain running through an unheated space is the part that fails first, so insulate the run or choose a drainless machine with no water sitting in a line. Where the spot drops below freezing for weeks, drain the machine and shut it down for the season.
Final Verdict
The COSTWAY earns the recommendation because it clears the two hurdles that sink most of these installs — a standard 15-inch bay and a front-vented cabinet — and then backs it up with 110 pounds a day, a 25-pound bin, and the hoses and filter already in the box. Have a drain within reach of the cabinet and there’s no reason to look further.
If there isn’t one, the COTLIN is the answer: no line to run, a bin that keeps ice frozen, and a slower 42-pound day that suits a home bar rather than a restaurant. Building a new opening instead of filling an existing one? The Mountman gives you a bigger bin for less money, provided the cabinet is cut to fit it.