Nobody buys their second cordless tool. They buy another tool for the battery platform they joined with their first — which makes the first drill you buy the most expensive decision in the aisle, and the one the listings are least honest about. We read the top twenty Amazon UK cordless drill results on 16 October 2026, titles and bullets, and then priced the thing no listing prices: what the battery actually costs.
The answer, from the makers' own listings: on DeWalt's 18V platform the drill is £83.00 bare and £201.95 with its two 5Ah batteries and charger — the batteries and charger cost £118.95, more than the drill they power. On Ryobi's ONE+ the drill is £57.50 bare and the official battery-and-charger starter kit is £66.57: the entry ticket again costs more than the tool. The drill is the loss leader; the battery is the business.
The short answer
- Best first platform for a home: Ryobi R18PD3-0 (£57.50) plus the ONE+ 2.5Ah battery and charger starter kit (£66.57) — £124.07 all-in, and the same battery then runs Ryobi's whole garden-and-garage range.
- The trade kit: DeWalt DCD796P2 with 2×5Ah (£201.95) — knowing that £118.95 of it is the batteries.
- Already on a platform? Buy bare and keep the change: DeWalt DCD796N £83.00, Makita DDF484Z £118.74.
- Complete kits under £90: Bosch EasyImpact 18V-40 with two batteries (£82.00) or the Black+Decker BCD700S1K (£38.49).
- The audit: 8 of the top 20 claim "20V" or "21V" — and none of the eight is a named brand. Every Bosch, DeWalt, Makita, Stanley and Black+Decker in the twenty says 18V or 12V.
Prices are the Amazon buy box on 16 October 2026 and will move. No lab, no test rig: every figure comes from the maker, the listing or a named source, read on the date shown.
Prices and specs last checked by Look Into on 16 October 2026 · next check 11 December 2026 · how we picked
The 21-volt tell: what twenty listings actually state
Top twenty Amazon UK results for cordless drills, titles and bullets, 16 October 2026:
- 17 of 20 lead with a voltage, and 8 of 20 claim 20V or 21V. All eight are unbranded imports. All eight named-brand drills in the twenty state 18V or 12V. The bigger numbers describe the same lithium cell chemistry read at a different point — a pack's peak off the charger rather than its nominal under load — and not one listing states which reading it is using. When the same cells can be sold as 18V or "21V" depending on honesty, the voltage on the box is a brand-integrity test, not a power spec: the bigger the number, the smaller the name — the same inversion as our jump starter amp audit.
- Only 3 of 20 state a torque figure (N·m) — the number that actually turns screws.
- 0 of 20 titles disclose a bare tool — yet body-only versions of the named drills exist throughout the category at roughly half the kit price, and finding them takes knowing the maker's own suffix codes (N for DeWalt, Z for Makita, -0 for Ryobi). The kit-versus-bare gap is the real price of the battery, and the listings never present the two side by side.
- Electricity is a non-issue: recharging a 5Ah 18V pack (90Wh) costs about 2.4p at the October cap's 26.32p/kWh.
What the battery really costs, platform by platform
The honest price of a battery platform is the gap between the same maker's bare tool and its kit, or the maker's own entry battery kit — both printed on Amazon, never side by side. As read on 16 October 2026:
| Platform | Bare tool | The batteries' real price | Battery share of the kit |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeWalt 18V XR | DCD796N — £83.00 | £118.95 (DCD796P2 kit at £201.95, minus the bare tool) | 59% |
| Ryobi ONE+ | R18PD3-0 — £57.50 | £66.57 (official 2.5Ah battery + charger starter kit) | 54% of the £124.07 total |
| Makita LXT | DDF484Z — £118.74 | sold separately; the only pick whose title says so plainly ("Batteries and Charger Not Included") | — |
That gap is also why platform choice outranks drill choice: every future battery you buy is priced by the platform you joined today, and the no-name "21V" drills lock you into packs no other maker will ever fit.
How we chose
Desk research, not a hands-on test. We ranked on the platform arithmetic above, honest disclosure in the listing, stated torque where it exists, and whether the brand's batteries will still be sold in ten years. The eight 20V/21V no-name drills were excluded as a group: their voltage figure is unanchored, their packs are orphans, and their savings disappear the first time you need a second battery.
The six picks
1. Ryobi R18PD3-0 + ONE+ starter kit — best first platform for a home
£57.50 + £66.57 on 16 Oct 2026 · 18V ONE+ · £124.07 all-in
Buy the drill bare and the battery kit beside it, and you have joined the platform with the widest home range in the business — the same pack runs Ryobi's trimmers, blowers, inflators and lamps. The two-listing route is also the honest one: you see exactly what the battery costs (54% of the total).
The catch: ONE+ is the home-and-garden platform, not the trade one; heavy daily drilling belongs a shelf up.
2. DeWalt DCD796P2 (2×5Ah) — the trade kit
£201.95 on 16 Oct 2026 · 18V XR brushless · two 5Ah packs + charger
The standard-issue site drill with two big batteries, on the platform half of Britain's vans already run.
The catch: £118.95 of the price is the batteries and charger. If anyone in your life already owns DeWalt 18V packs, you are overpaying by exactly that much — see the bare version below.
3. DeWalt DCD796N — bare, for DeWalt households
£83.00 on 16 Oct 2026 · body only, with case
The same brushless combi drill as the kit above at 41% of the price, for anyone whose batteries already exist.
The catch: it will not make a hole until a battery arrives, and nothing on the search page warns you — the N suffix is the only clue.
4. Makita DDF484Z — the honest listing
£118.74 on 16 Oct 2026 · 18V LXT brushless · body only
The one pick whose title says the quiet part out loud: "Batteries and Charger Not Included". Makita's LXT is the other trade platform worth marrying, and this is its standard brushless driver.
The catch: LXT batteries price like DeWalt's — joining the platform costs what the table above says it costs, whichever brand's blue or yellow you pick.
5. Bosch EasyImpact 18V-40 — complete kit, two batteries, under £90
£82.00 on 16 Oct 2026 · 18V · 2 batteries + case, stated in the title
The best everything-in-the-box deal from a named brand in the twenty: two batteries means one on charge while one drills, which is the convenience the single-battery kits quietly lack.
The catch: Bosch's green DIY range is its own battery family — it does not take the blue professional packs, so check the shade of green before assuming the platform.
6. Black+Decker BCD700S1K — the cheapest named-brand complete kit
£38.49 on 16 Oct 2026 · 18V · hammer function · battery and charger included
For the drawer that gets opened four times a year, this is the whole job — drill, battery, charger, case — from a brand that will still exist when the battery dies, at the price of two no-name "21V" imports' batteries.
The catch: one battery and a slow charger; flat mid-shelf means the shelf waits overnight.
Compare the picks
The live table pulls prices from Amazon's product feed, which can sit off the buy box you pay; the prices in the cards above are the buy box as read on 16 October 2026. Remember two of these are body-only listings — the table's prices do not include a battery for them.
Prices in this table come live from Amazon and can change through the day. Prices quoted in the text were checked by Look Into on 16 October 2026, so the two can differ.
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Who should skip a cordless drill
- If you hang three pictures a year, a £15 corded drill or even a manual driver does it with no battery to die in the drawer — a lithium pack left flat for a year often is the drawer's last word on it.
- If the job is masonry, a combi's hammer action is a courtesy, not an SDS drill. Hiring the right tool for a weekend beats owning the wrong one.
- If a "21V" bargain is the draw: the saving is the cost of joining a battery platform with one member. The first replacement pack erases it.
The same platform question decides every cordless tool that follows the drill — our cordless pressure washers guide is where many second batteries get bought, and the AAs and coin cells of the household are priced in our batteries guide.