Luckily for us, most wine coolers on the market these days are at a relatively affordable price point. When you think about the money you invest in your wines it’s only fair and reasonable that they have an appropriate place to be stored and chilled. Your regular refrigerator is not the best place to keep your wine (read more about that here) so you need a wine cooler in your life. If you’d rather have money left over to buy more wine, then you’ll want to hear about our budget friendly recommendations for cheap wine coolers.
Given what they can offer you we think these low budget models are a bargain. To qualify as low budget/cheap/inexpensive they had to be priced below $250 at the time of writing but still had to offer great wine chilling capabilities. The 6 models we found do exactly that.
Obviously, being at the low end of the budget, most of these wine coolers are compact in size and capacity, however 1 of them can still accommodate up to 20 bottles which is still a reasonable size.
Five of the 6 are thermoelectric which means they are not only energy efficient and cheap to run but also quiet and vibration free.
The downside to these models, if there is one, is that they all only offer single zone cooling so it would be wise to only store one type of wine in each. A workaround for this if this is a potential problem for you, is to buy two of them! Have one set at an ideal temperature for red wine and the other set for whites – for a couple of hundred bucks you’ve got perfect conditions for both types of wine and you’ve doubled your capacity! Pretty cool (pun intended!).
So, without further ado, here they are, our top picks for the best inexpensive wine coolers:
PRODUCT | TYPE & BOTTLE CAPACITY | TEMPERATURE RANGE | ZONE TYPE | COOLING SYSTEM | LINKS |
 Magic Chef 14.2″ Wine Cooler | Freestanding (12) | 54-66°F 12-18°C | Single | Thermoelectric | |
 NutriChef 10″ Wine Cooler | Freestanding (12) | 50-64°F 10-18°C | Single | Thermoelectric | |
 Cuisinart 10.5″ Wine Cooler | Freestanding (8) | 39-68°F 4-20°C | Single | Thermoelectric | |
 Koolatron 15.75" Wine Cooler | Freestanding (20) | 45-66°F 7-18°C | Single | Thermoelectric | |
 High Life 9" Wine Cooler | Freestanding (12) | 50-64°F 10-18°C | Single | Thermoelectric | |
 Miqi Fashion 17" Wine Cooler | Freestanding (16) | 41-64°F 5-18°C | Single | Compressor |
If purchasing a wine cooler is still not within your budget, maybe you could consider buying a wine cooler bucket. It’s not the same as a wine cooler obviously and you can’t control the temperature of your wine but, especially if you’re hosting an event and want to keep your wine bottles cold while still being accessible to your guests, a wine cooler bucket could be just the thing.
The Birdrock Home wine cooler bucket looks classy and sophisticated and can hold up to 11 wine or champagne bottles. It would look great at any event, although, for the price, you might be better off buying a wine cooler refrigerator.
For a very affordable price the Prodyne beverage tub could be yours. It only holds 4 bottles though so, for a larger event you might want to get a couple, and, at the price, why not?
But if you really want to light up your party or event, the Teckcool LED Ice bucket can hold up to 4 wine bottles, lights up and changes color, so your guests will always be able to find the wine!
