4 Best Baby Bottle Sterilizers of 2025, Tested and Reviewed

Steam-cleaning baby bottle sterilizers are countertop appliances that use heat to kill germs on baby bottles. The process gets them far cleaner than just hand-washing the bottles or using a normal dishwasher cycle, which mostly washes germs away rather than killing them. That’s enough to get rid of the most potentially harmful types of germs, but microscopic organisms can still linger. By using a bottle sterilizer, you can kill the vast majority of those organisms.

Despite their name, these devices don’t actually sterilize bottles, but sanitize them. Sterilization is a process that reduces microorganisms to undetectable levels. Steam sterilization in an autoclave, for example, requires steam at 250° F for 30 minutes. Sanitization with steam, on the other hand, uses high heat to kill a minimum of 99.9 percent of bacteria (and, as with sterilizing, most fungi and molds).

The following baby bottle sterilizers are the ones that perform best in our tests and are recommended by CR’s experts. You can see more models and details on their performance in our full bottle sterilizer ratings.

We recommend skipping the Grownsy Baby Bottle Sterilizer and Dryer. The manufacturer says it should run an 8-minute cycle, but when we tested it in our lab, the sterilizer stopped heating the water reservoir after a mere 90 seconds, and the interior of the sterilizer reached only 130° F. We bought a second model to test, and the second unit performed as expected based on the product’s claims, providing heat to the water reservoir for 8 minutes and bringing the sterilizer to a maximum temperature of 198° F. But when we purchased a third sterilizer to test, the item heated the water reservoir for less than 3 minutes, reaching a maximum temperature of only 150° F. Compared with other brands whose products work as expected and reached temperatures above 180° F without issue, we believe the Grownsy sterilizer might not provide safe bottles for vulnerable infants.

When we contacted the company, Grownsy told CR that premature machine shutdown is not a malfunction and that in case of premature shutdown, users can restore normal operation by applying toothpaste to the heating plate, adding 60 milliliters of water, and allowing it to boil dry. The company advises repeating this process three times. CR has not confirmed the effectiveness of this process, though, because we believe products should work as intended out of the box.

If you decide to buy the sterilizer and experience any issues, you can contact the company by email at service@grownsy.com. Grownsy says it will help troubleshoot any issues, and it may offer a free replacement if you can’t remedy the problem. The company also said that it has “conducted comprehensive testing on all unsold products to ensure enhanced user experience.”

Our lead test engineer for bottle sterilizers, Bernie Deitrick, scores the bottle sterilizers we test on three metrics: temperature performance, drying performance, and ease of use.

To test each sterilizer, we add the amount of distilled water specified by the manufacturer’s instructions to the sterilizer’s reservoir and run its sterilization cycle with a mixed load of plastic and glass baby bottles. Then, using a thermocouple probe to monitor the temperature inside the sterilizer, we assess temperature performance based on the amount of time the sterilizer maintains a temperature above 180° F. That temperature is capable of heating the interior of the bottles enough to kill most germs, Deitrick says. All the models that exceed 180° F pass the test, but the sterilizers that reach higher temperatures—and especially those that maintain those high temperatures for longer—receive higher scores.

Because all the bottle sterilizers we test have fans, we assess how dry the bottles are at the end of the drying cycle. Bottles and sterilizers that are completely dry by the end of the cycle receive the highest score for that test.

In terms of ease of use, we evaluate how simple the sterilizers are to operate and how easy it was to load and unload bottles and other items in the trays. The best sterilizers are intuitive when it comes to both operating and loading, can easily accommodate a full load of bottles, and keep the bottles firmly in place throughout the cycle.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says sanitizing baby bottles is important for babies up to 2 months old and for babies with weak immune systems (for instance, if they’re premature or suffer from an illness or autoimmune disease, or if they undergo medical treatments that weaken the immune system, like chemotherapy).

Most steam sterilizers are tall, boxy receptacles powered by an electric heating system. But there are a few features that vary from model to model. Here’s what to consider.

Fit: Most products can accommodate several shapes and sizes of baby bottles, but some work best using shorter bottles. For instance, many models have a tray that sits above the bottle tray for nipples and accessories, but the upper tray might not fit under the sterilizer lid if you’re using tall baby bottles, so you might need to run additional items in a separate cycle.

Trays: All models have at least one tray to hold baby bottles in place (upside-down so that they dry thoroughly). Some have an extra tray for the nipples and other small items, such as pacifiers. 

Prongs: Some products have long prongs that keep the bottles in place. Others have very short prongs that make the bottles a little more unwieldy but make the bottle tray more flexible in terms of what you can load in it.

Fans: Some models have a fan that draws air through a filter to help dry the bottles faster—typically within an hour. Others don’t have fans, so you’ll need to air-dry, which can take several hours. (The models we test all have a fan-assisted drying cycle.)

Filters: Some models have HEPA filters, which reduce the possibility of recontamination by the air that is blown over the bottles during the drying cycle.

Products might vary, but generally speaking, start using a bottle sterilizer by doing the following:

• Wash and rinse your bottles thoroughly in the sink or a regular dishwasher cycle to get rid of all food residue. 
• Load them into the sterilizer.
• Add water to the sterilizer’s reservoir, and turn it on. 

The sterilizer heats the water in the reservoir to create the steam that kills germs. Bottle sterilizer cycles are fast, usually taking around 10 minutes or less to sanitize. Some have fans for drying cycles, which can take up to 60 minutes to dry the bottles, though some claim to take considerably less time.

If you want to use a sterilizer, the microwave, or the hot cycle on your dishwasher, these are best paired with bottles that are glass or silicone.

That’s because when plastic is heated to high temperatures, it can leach chemicals and release microplastics. If you do sterilize plastic bottles, rinsing the inside of the bottle with water that has been boiled and cooled after the sterilization step may reduce the level of microplastics, says John Boland, PhD, professor of chemistry at Trinity College Dublin and author of a 2020 research paper (PDF) on the topic.

Read more about how to reduce the risk of potentially harmful chemicals, including BPA and phthalates, in baby bottles.