The best cordless drills for home use

Home use means shelves, furniture, the occasional fence post, and maybe a few masonry holes for an awning bracket. You do not need a flagship hammer drill; you need enough torque for 3 inch deck screws, a weight your wrist tolerates overhead, and a battery platform that will still sell tools in five years. Here are eight picks from our 31-model comparison dataset, grouped by budget and job, every spec sourced from the manufacturer or an independent test. No affiliate links: nothing here earns us anything, and prices are street-price bands that move, so treat them as orientation.

Tightest budgets

Hart HPDD02B kit: about $48 with battery and charger

475 in-lbs torque, 1500 RPM, brushed motor, sold as a kit with battery and charger. Sources: HART product pages, Walmart listings

The cheapest defensible entry into a real battery platform. It is brushed, which for a drill that comes out six weekends a year is fine (see when brushed is fine), and the Hart 20V line at Walmart is deep enough to add an impact driver or trimmer later on the same batteries. Bare-tool weight is not published; expect roughly 3 lb with the included compact pack.

Bauer 20V Brushless Hammer Drill, SKU 59368: $49.99 bare

575 in-lbs, 1800 RPM, 3.2 lb bare, brushless, hammer function. Sources: Harbor Freight Bauer page, Tool Craze hands-on

A brushless hammer drill at fifty dollars bare was unheard of a few years ago. Torque is mid-tier honest (575 in-lbs drives deck screws all day) and you get masonry capability for brick and mortar. The catch is the Harbor Freight ecosystem: Bauer 20V is sold bare-cheap but only there, and the battery selection is smaller than Ryobi's or DeWalt's.

Hercules 20V Brushless Drill/Driver, SKU 59420: $69.99 bare

1200 in-lbs, 2000 RPM, 3.26 lb bare, brushless. Sources: Harbor Freight 59420 page, Harbor Freight catalog

Flagship-class torque (1200 in-lbs) for what the big brands charge for a compact. Same Harbor Freight caveat as the Bauer. If your nearest store is one and your drilling is mostly wood and steel, this is the most torque per dollar in the dataset.

The sensible middle

Ryobi PBLDD01B (18V ONE+ HP): about $129 as a kit

750 in-lbs, 2100 RPM, brushless; kit includes a 2.0 Ah battery and charger. Sources: Ryobi product page, Home Depot listings

For most homes this is the pick. 750 in-lbs covers everything short of structural lags, and the ONE+ platform is the widest affordable ecosystem in existence: a hundred-plus tools, decade-old batteries still fitting new tools. Bare-tool weight is not published; with the kit's 2.0 Ah pack it balances around 3 lb.

DeWalt DCD800B (20V MAX XR): $149 bare

900 in-lbs, 2000 RPM, 2.82 lb bare, brushless. Sources: Front Desk Review spec table, SpecLook database

The contractor answer to the home question. Nearly Milwaukee-compact torque at 2.82 lb bare, and the 20V MAX ecosystem is enormous with batteries and tools available everywhere, including used. If you expect this drill to be the seed of a tool collection, DeWalt is the safest platform bet after Ryobi.

Hart HPHD25B (20V Brushless Hammer): about $98 as a kit

650 in-lbs, 2100 RPM, 3.38 lb bare, brushless, hammer function. Sources: HART product pages, Pro Tool Reviews test

Brushless plus hammer function under $100 as a kit, and it has been run through independent testing at Pro Tool Reviews rather than judged on the spec sheet alone. Between this and the HPDD02B above, this is the one if your house throws brick, block, or stucco at you occasionally.

Light duty and small hands

Bosch PS31-2A (12V Max): about $116 as a kit

265 in-lbs, 1300 RPM, brushed motor, two-battery kit. Sources: Jason Wordie home-use test, ModelRec roundup

A 12V tool is what a drill feels like when it stops trying to be a site tool: light, narrow, and controllable inside a cabinet. 265 in-lbs limits you to wood and small anchors, which is most home work. If your drilling is curtain rods and furniture assembly rather than decks, this class costs less and tires you out less.

Milwaukee 3601 (M18 Compact): $99 bare

550 in-lbs, 1700 RPM, 2.3 lb bare, brushless. Sources: Power Tool Insider comparison, ToolGuyd Milwaukee chart

The lightest full-power option in the dataset at 2.3 lb bare, from the M18 system, which is the deepest professional platform if the tool collection ever turns serious. Under 3 lb with a compact pack, with mid-tier torque that still handles decking. The pick for overhead work in an 18V class.

How to choose among these

Sort the whole dataset for your situation

Every pick above comes from our 31-model sourced dataset; here is the rest of it. Filter to your situation and sort by what matters to you, and the table re-ranks. Blank cells mean the spec is not published (we leave them empty rather than guess), and DeWalt UWO ratings stay flagged instead of mixing into the in-lbs ranking.

Use case: All 31 models Home DIY budget: under $100 Light and compact: 3.0 lb or less Drilling: drill/drivers only Driving: heavy fastening Masonry-capable: hammer drills Sort by: Torque, high to low Torque, low to high Weight, light first Price, cheapest first Speed (RPM), high to low Price, highest first

Weights are bare tool, no battery. Price is recent street for the bare tool, or the kit price where the model sells kit-only. Torque figures are manufacturer claims in the unit the manufacturer uses.

Every model above also appears in the live comparison table, alongside 23 more current models, sortable by torque, weight, and price with per-cell sources. New to what torque and UWO mean? Start with specs explained, and the buying guide covers the same ground by situation instead of by model.

Related guides

Also on this site: hammer drill vs regular drill if masonry is on your list, and brushless vs brushed motors for whether the motor label matters at your budget.