Electric Toothbrush Buying Guide - Consumer Reports (2025)

Electric Toothbrush Types

Electric Toothbrush Features That Matter

Two-minute timer
All the electric toothbrushes in our ratings have this feature. It’s a crucial one, because plenty of people tend to brush for less than the 2 minutes per brushing session that the American Dental Association recommends. In many cases, electric toothbrush timers work by vibrating every 30 seconds. If you think of your mouth as divided into four quadrants, these vibrations signal when it’s time to move on to the next quadrant.

Pressure sensor
This feature is another favorite of many dentists because you can cause a lot of problems for yourself when you press too hard with your toothbrush. Excessive pressure can wear down your enamel, the hard outermost layer of your teeth, which can cause your teeth to become more sensitive. Hard brushing can also damage your gums and cause them to recede (which in turn can make you more prone to sensitivity and cavities). A pressure sensor can alert you, via lights, sounds, or a change in the brush’s vibration, if you’re using too much pressure so that you know to lighten up.

App connectivity and other smart features
One factor that tends to drive electric toothbrush prices into the hundreds is the capability to connect the brush with an app that makes your toothbrush “smart.” Among our recommended brushes, only those that offer smartphone connectivity cost more than $200. These offer the ability to track your brushing habits or even get personalized feedback on your brushing technique.

Do smart features really help you get your teeth cleaner? Our cleaning and ease of use scores focus on the toothbrush itself and don’t factor in the use of any apps. But Misha Kollontai, who leads CR’s electric toothbrush testing, says to keep in mind that brushing fundamentals—2 minutes twice a day—are likely going to have much more impact on your oral health than any brush’s smart features. “Don’t base your buying decision on the presence of an app unless you think a specific feature of that app will ensure you brush more often," he says.

If you do want to try out a smart brush, take note of the product’s return policy. Oral-B, for example, offers a 60-day trial period for its brushes, so if you buy a pricy brush and find you’re not getting much extra benefit, you can get your money back.

Use Your Electric Toothbrush Right

Even with an electric toothbrush, you can get a substandard teeth cleaning if you don’t use proper technique. Here’s how to do it right:

• Angle your brush about 45 degrees from the surface of your teeth, and gently hold the brush against each tooth for a few seconds, on the front, back, and biting surface.
• Avoid making brushing motions back and forth as you would with a manual toothbrush—this isn’t necessary and can actually limit the benefit of your electric brush. As Quip states in its instructional videos, “Let the brush do the work.”
• You may want to take a few passes over each area, to make sure you’ve covered every part of your mouth.
• Remember to regularly replace your brush heads. The ADA suggests aiming for every three to four months, or more frequently if the bristles are “visibly matted or frayed.” Two companies whose brushes we’ve rated—Quip and Burst—offer subscriptions that mail you replacement brush heads every three months or so.

How We Test Electric Toothbrushes

CR evaluates the performance of electric toothbrushes using a panel of people in good dental health between the ages of 18 and 65, all users of electric toothbrushes. We score:

Cleaning performance. The biggest contributor to a brush’s Overall Score is how well it cleans. To score this, we have our panel of volunteers skip brushing and using other dental products for at least 12 hours. At the beginning of the test, a trained technician measures plaque levels on each volunteer’s teeth. Then our panelists brush using one of the electric toothbrushes for 2 minutes. We calculate each brush’s cleaning performance score based on the before-and-after difference in plaque levels.

If a toothbrush comes with multiple brushing modes and/or brush heads, we test the cleaning modes most likely to be used in daily life, and we base our score on the cleaning mode and brush head combination that performs best in our test.

Ease of use. Testers evaluate each brush for how easy it is to attach the brush head, how messy it is to use (such as whether it causes any mirror splatter or any foam runs down on a tester’s hand), and how comfortable the device feels to hold and use. We also factor in whether brushes have the most useful extra features: a timer and a pressure sensor.

Battery performance. This test measures how long it takes for devices to charge, how long it takes for them to run out of battery, and how easy the charging process is for users.

Noise. Testers are asked to evaluate the noise level for each device. Most devices are comparable on this front, so it’s a small factor in the Overall Score.

Tips for Toothpaste and Floss

Pick a toothpaste that has fluoride. Fluoride helps fight cavities by replacing some of the minerals your enamel can lose as bacteria consume traces of food left on your teeth. It’s also a good idea to look for toothpaste that bears the ADA’s seal of acceptance, which manufacturers earn by making sure their pastes meet certain efficacy and safety standards. That includes a standard to ensure toothpastes aren’t too abrasive, which can be a problem with pastes made from ingredients like charcoal, for example.

Flossing isn’t optional. Cleaning between your teeth is important because you need to remove bacteria that cause tooth decay from the spots where your toothbrush alone can’t reach. Floss is one great way to do this, but if you struggle with flossing, plenty of other options are available. Floss picks can be easier to manipulate for some people, while tiny interdental brushes can be useful particularly for people with dental implants or larger gaps between teeth. Water flossers may not do quite as good a job as other tools at physically scraping plaque from your teeth, but they are far better than not cleaning between your teeth at all. They can also be useful for people with dexterity challenges or oral hardware like braces. (You can also check out our list of dental flosses made without PFAS.)