If you don’t have much room on your countertop for another appliance (especially if your toaster or blender is taking up that valuable space), consider a compact microwave. These small microwaves are less than 20 inches wide and 12 inches tall overall. While they all have room for a mug or dinner plate, they’re not designed for reheating full meals in casserole dishes or mixing bowls.

If you know you’re looking for a small microwave, your next concern is probably microwave power. An ideal microwave would heat, reheat, and defrost quickly and evenly, without leaving hot and cold spots. Our conclusion after months of research and investigation? Don’t worry about it.

We bought 26 microwaves ranging in price from under $100 to over $1,000 and spent months researching their performance. After many microwaving trials, we couldn’t tell any real difference between the models. None of them are particularly good at heating food evenly. Instead, it all depends on what you’re heating, how much of it there is, and what container it’s in. Thinner mixtures like soups heat more evenly than mashed potatoes, and foods with a higher water content heat differently than drier foods. You can read about everything we did and what we found out in our R&D article. That’s not all: Since inverter microwaves are marketed as the latest and greatest in microwave science, we wanted to make sure they didn’t perform better. They don’t; you can read more about that in our research article.

So which microwaves should you get? You can’t go wrong with a deal or a used unit. However, more powerful microwaves can heat food faster, and you can also choose a microwave based on features or design. There are a few useful features that aren’t standard on all microwaves: a mute function and a steam sensor. This isn’t a list of the best small microwaves, but we’ve sorted some options by feature and power to help you find a budget-friendly option.