To find the best 18 volt cordless drill under $100 we spent 40 hours testing 12 of the most popular drills on the market today. This is a great time to be in the market for a cordless drills because recent advances in battery technology and motor design have made 18 volt drills, cheaper, lighter, smaller, more powerful and more reliable. But with so many options how can you tell which drill is the best for you? We put all the most popular drills on the market today through a gauntlet of tests to fine a winner.
Now to the tests. These tests are designed to push the drills to their limit and they did. So much so that the drill that would have been the best overall broke at the end of testing so scoring was even tricker factoring that in.
The tests:
- How many ½ ” holes each drill could make on one battery charge
- Time to drill a 1” hole
- Time to drill a 2” hole
- Time to sink a lag bolt
- How much torque each drill could produce
- Time to recharge battery
- Weight and size
How the drills were selected
All drills tested cost under $100. I was able to find most of these drills on sale so the current prices might be higher depending on the season. Drills tend to go on sale between Thanksgiving and Christmas and around Father’s Day.
What’s Included
All of these drills come as a package consisting of a drill, one or two batteries, a charger and some also include a case. The drill itself is the main thing you are buying. The primary differences are the use of brushless motors vs brushed motors. Brushless motors are generally more efficient, more powerful, last longer, shorter in length and more expensive. Only recently have you been able to find a brushless drill for under $100. All the drills except the Milwaukee and Makita included an additional battery. Two batteries are ideal since you can charge one while using the other minimizing down time. The charger is the next major component. Some chargers are faster at charging than others. Finally some drills come with cases while some don’t.
The Winner is the DeWalt DCD777C2
This is a new drill from DeWalt bringing a brushless motor to a much lower price point. This drill is the full package, with two batteries, quick charger and a soft case. DeWalt packs a lot of drill into a small package. For DIYers and lighter duty pro jobs this is going to be the best combo of power weight and size and at this price, a really good value. For starters it’s got a brushless motor so it’s very efficient, it was able drill more ½ holes per battery watt hour than any of the other drills. Watt hours is like how many gallons your fuel tank holds. By dividing the number of ½ holes drilled by the battery watt hours you can measure the drill’s efficiency. The DeWalt was the most efficient drill at 6.1 holes per watt hour. If you were using the Craftsman at 2.7 holes per watt hour you would need a battery twice as big to do the same amount of work. Since the DeWalt is more efficient you can use smaller and lighter batteries. Both the brushless drills in this test were the two most efficient drills showing just how efficient brushless motors are. The DeWalt was able to drill the second most ½ inch holes on one battery. The Makita was able to drill more holes because it comes with one 3.0 Ah battery, double the size of the DeWalt’s 1.5 Ah batteries.
In timed tests the DeWalt was 3rd place in both the 1” hole test at 2.7 seconds and 2nd place in the 2” hole test at 45 seconds. It was the 4th fastest sinking a lag bolt at 7.2 seconds. In the torque test it was 3rd behind the Makita and Milwaukee at 510 in/lbs. At 3.3 Lbs the DeWalt was one of the lighter drills and at 7.5 inches it is also one of the shorter drills. The drill feels great ergonomically and very well built. As a bonus it has a brushless motor which should last longer than the brushed motor drills. It also come with a soft case. It was the only one of the top 3 drills to come with 2 batteries. This drill is the top choice because it performed near the top in every test.
The top 3 drills were all very good and I would call them all winners. Each one is going to be the best drill for different tasks. Choosing the top one was not easy but I had to pick one overall winner and that drill is, the DeWalt DCD777C2.
Second Place Milwaukee M18 2606-21L
This is a good general purpose contractors drill. If I was going to guess which drill would survive falling off a roof onto a driveway this would be the one. It’s got rubber all over the body and even the battery. Its got a metal chuck and metal gear housing. The build quality drill looks and feels like it is a step above all the others. The Milwaukee is one of the most compact drills at only 7.3 inches in length and 8.8 inches in height. This drill has the highest torque at a very strong 714 in/lbs. Torque was so high in fact that it the broke adapter bit that I was using for the torque test. Despite the high torque, the Milwaukee didn’t win any of the timed tests. It was the 2nd fastest at the 1” hole test at 2.5 seconds and tied for sixth place on the 2” hole test at 67 seconds. It came in 2nd in the lag bolt test at 6.4 seconds. It had the second fastest charge time at 31 min, just behind the Makita at 24 min. The battery has a handy gauge to tell you how much power you have left. To keep the cost under $100 their is only one included battery. But they did throw in this light which works really well as well as a soft case. All in all this is a very nice drill.
Third Place Makita XPH102
In third place is the Makita XPH102. This drill that had a shot at being the best overall drill but at the very end of the testing it broke. I’m going to run though the results then go into what went wrong. The Makita had the highest number of ½ holes drilled thanks to its huge 54 watt hour battery and being the most efficient of the brushed drills in holes per Watt Hour. It had the fastest battery charging time at just 24 min. It had the only charger with a fan which is probably one of the reasons it could charge faster without damaging the battery. It had the 2nd highest torque in the test and was the fastest in driving the lag bolt. It was the fastest drilling the 1” and 2” holes. This is a very powerful drill! The drill also feels really solid and well built. At $100 this is the cheapest 18 volt Makita drill available. This is also the only hammer drill in the test. If drilling into cement is on your to do list this is the best drill for you. It comes with a nice hard case. So if that was the end of the test the Makita would have come in first place.
Unfortunately at the end of the torque testing I could hear that something snapped in the drill. The motor still worked but the chuck did not turn. I opened the drill up and found that this little metal piece broke. I have mixed feelings on this, on the one hand the torque test is a very strenuous test but on the other hand none of the other 20+ drills I have tested have broken. And I wasn’t doing anything I would consider outside of normal use like throwing it off a cliff. While this is a pretty new drill, all the reviews I have read on this drill are positive and no one mentioned any issues like the one I had. While most people will probably never encounter this issue it did happen to me so I subtracted a point from it in my scoring and despite this it still did pretty well, getting 3rd place. For some people this still may be the best drill option
4th place Porter-Cable PCC608LB
The Porter-Cable PCC608LB is a new drill from Porter-Cable and the least expensive of the 2 brushless drills in this test. (Side by side with DeWalt) The Porter-Cable is similar in a lot of ways to the brushless DeWalt but $20 cheaper and with performance slightly below the DeWalt’s in several categories including length and height, ½ holes drilled, torque, 1” hole and 2” hole drilling speed. The Porter-Cable also is not quite up to the look and feel of any of the top 3 drills, the plastic feels cheaper. The Porter-Cable does cost less than the DeWalt. So while a good value I personally would pay the extra money and get the DeWalt.
All 4 of those drills had solid overall performance. In the rest of the drills performance falls off significantly in one or more areas.
5th place Bosch DDB181-02
The Bosch DDB181-02 was the most compact and lightest drill in the test. But if that’s what you are looking for get a 12 volt drill which will be even smaller and lighter and just as powerful. The winner of 12 volt drill test was also a Bosch and that drill was only 2 tenths of a second slower at the 1” hole test than this 18 volt Bosch. But the 12 volt Bosch was a pound lighter and shorter in length and height. Check out the 12 volt drill test here. The Bosch had great ergonomics and felt like a solid drill. But it was lacking in performance across the board. The 1” hole test at 7.2 seconds was towards the bottom of the pack.
In 6th place is the Ridgid. The Ridgid had average performance across the board. The one area is was not so hot in is sinking the lag bolt at a longish 8.7 seconds. The feel of the Ridgid was above average. But my favorite feature is the really cool looking battery gauge.
In 7th place is the DeWalt 771. This is the brushed DeWalt. This drill is the older cousin of the DeWalt 777. It’s slightly cheaper but you lose a lot of performance. The number of ½ holes drilled is about half, the 2” hole test took 27 seconds longer, the lag bolt took an extra second. It tied with the Hitachi for being the longest in length at 8.5 inches. So while not a bad drill in its day their are better options now. This shows the advantage of using a brushless motor. Looking at the two DeWalt drills performance side by side you can really see how big an impact the brushless motor has.
In 8th place is the Ryobi. I used this drill when building my deck and I thought it was pretty good. It worked after sitting out in the rain. I dropped it a couple times and it kept chugging. But performance on all the timed tests was pretty slow. For example drilling the 1” hole at 7.1 seconds is towards bottom of the pack. It was also last at drilling the 2” hole at 78 seconds.
In 9th place is the Craftsman. This was the slowest drill on the 1” hole test and in sinking the lag bolt. One redeeming quality is this is a fairly light drill at 3.1 Lbs. The plastic housing of the drill is one of the cheapest looking and feeling. There’s almost no rubber to protect it in a fall.
In 10th place is the Hitachi. This drill had poor performance across the board. Low torque was one of the biggest to stand out at just 22.5 ft/lbs. It was also one of the slowest at the 1” hole test at 7.5 seconds. It tied with the DeWalt 771 for being the longest length drill at 8.5 inches.
One final thought, 3 of the top 4 drill came out in the past year. This shows how rapidly advances in drill technology are improving performance. We should continue to see improvements as brushless motors continue moving down product lines into the sub $100 club.
