The Best Breast Pumps of 2024

• Type of pump: Electric
• Single or double: Double
• Tubing: Yes

Babyation’s rechargeable, futuristic pump conceals everything you need for pumping on the go: four five-ounce bottles, a custom ice pack, breast shields and pads, and tubing.

The tubing is innovative, delivering suction and pulling out milk through twinned tubes. After winding through the tubes, your milk eventually collects in the included bottles.

You’ll see your output tracked on The Pump’s screen, which also displays your pumping time, whether you’re in expression or suction mode, and which of the eight suction intensities and pumping speeds you’ve selected using the pump’s nob or free smartphone app.

The advantage here is discretion. The slim breast shields, liberated from bulky bottles, nest right inside your nursing bra. That means with Babyation’s The Pump, you can kiss goodbye a lot of pumping’s indignities: no shirt removal or pumping bra required. The result is more Zoom-friendly and, frankly, pleasant than most pumps.

The tubes do have some drawbacks you should know about. For those without milk to spare, it may be painful to see that a small amount of liquid gold can stay trapped in the tubes or flanges. Plus, however much milk you make, you’ll need to replace the tubes daily. The Pump comes with 20 pairs to start, but after that, you’ll need to account for the ongoing expense, which works out to about $1.60 per day of use. The other parts can be washed by hand or in the dishwasher and reused.

Unfortunately, The Pump is also finicky. Somewhat embarrassingly, I found I even needed help to turn it on (Pro tip: Press and hold the power button).

To work properly, The Pump must be put on a flat surface, and its connectors have to be placed just so, with less margin for error than other pumps I’ve tried.

Luckily, you won’t be alone in troubleshooting any problems you encounter because Babyation has unusually excellent customer service. Everyone on the customer service team is a lactation consultant and the CEO even answers calls, so you can trust they know what they’re doing. Plus, they offer live video help, a brilliant solution for stumped breast-pumping mamas.

• Type of pump: Electric
• Single or double: Double
• Tubing: Yes

Medela’s Pump in Style Advanced was a popular, rite-of-passage pump that many women received from their insurance, but unlikely to inspire fervent devotion. By contrast, Medela’s new Pump in Style with MaxFlow is a welcome update with many truly appealing features.

Like the old Pump in Style, it features a two-phase system, allowing you to easily toggle between let-down and expression with a single button. There’s also still the dial, which allows users to notch up settings to an individual comfort level.

Where the new version differs is in the flexible breast shields, which are supremely comfortable and oval-shaped, slightly angled for a better fit that helps milk expression. (Ill-fitting shields dramatically affect production.) Shields come in 21mm & 24mm sizes—24 mm and 28 mm used to be standard—with larger and smaller sizes also available for purchase. Notably, the pump also features micro-vibrations for dramatically improved expression.

It’s also extremely compact, easy to take on the go, and it’s a closed system pump, meaning the milk runs zero risk of coming in contact with the tubing.

Also of note: unlike some of the pumps on the market, which require manuals to operate, the Pump in Style with MaxFlow is extremely intuitive to put together, with fewer parts making cleaning less of a chore.

For those who buy the retail version, it comes with some nice goodies, including a sleek bag that the pump can nestle inside, ice packs, an external battery pack, and four bottles. However, many women get this pump through their insurance, and that version doesn’t cover the portable battery, which must be purchased separately. (Some FSA/HSA plans allow for the purchase of additional supplies.)

Unfortunately, the Pump in Style with MaxFlow still doesn’t have a built-in timer, unlike competitive pumps such as Spectra’s. However, it’s so strong, easy, and (dare we say it) enjoyable to use that it’s a mild issue. On the whole, a very impressive pump.

• Type of pump: Manual
• Single or double: Single
• Tubing: No

If I could give a Haakaa manual breast pump to every nursing mother at the hospital, I would. It’s that good—and that indispensable. The silicone bottle attaches to the opposing breast while feeding, collecting the natural let down that occurs and which would otherwise disappear into the nursing pad or bra. It’s an easy way to build up a freezer stash without even thinking about it. Meanwhile, because it’s only a single piece of plastic, it couldn’t be easier to clean and there’s no assembly required. As a more traditional pump, some women report additional success squeezing the Haakaa repetitively, like the Medela Harmony Manual, but I personally didn’t find that method effective (or necessary).

There are some cons: notably, the fact that, if you don’t suction it properly, the Haakaa can pop off mid-session resulting in spilled milk (and, yes, crying over it). Additionally, as babies “wake up” and get older, bigger, and squirmier, the Haakaa requires careful positioning so their little legs don’t kick it off.

Options are available with and without a silicone base. The version without a base, which is the one I used, is extremely precarious and prone to falling over, so buying the version with a suction base is ideal.

• Type of pump: Electric
• Single or double: Double
• Tubing: Yes

Lightweight and portable, with gentle but efficient suction, plus dual control of both vacuum and speed settings independently to mimic how babies actually nurse, the Spectra S1 is a hospital grade breast pump. It’s no wonder that this pump is beloved by exclusively pumping moms, as it hits the marks across the board. It’s quiet, easy to clean and put together, empties breasts fully and quickly, and offers a variety of flange sizes (20 mm, 24 mm, 28 mm, and 32 mm).

Little add-ons take this hospital-grade pump to the next level: a nightlight, for middle-of-the-night pumps without waking your baby. A built-in timer, to easily see how long the session has lasted. It's extremely lightweight—only three pounds—and the rechargeable battery and carrying handle make for convenient portability.

The Spectra S1 also has a “massage” mode to help stimulate let-down, with 12 levels of suction in all. It also has a memory feature, remembering your previous settings, and automatically moves to the expression phase after two minutes. There’s even a bottle stand on the back of the pump—something that took me ages to discover but was very exciting once I finally did.

Because the pump comes with few parts, it’s both easy to clean and speedy to put together, which comes in handy when you need to pump but aren’t in the mood to fiddle with myriad small plastic pieces. It also feels durable and high quality, although the odd shape makes it slightly difficult to store, since, alas, there’s no carrying case provided.

At $200, it’s a middle-of-the-road price: neither eye-popping like the Willow or Elvie, nor a steal like the BellaBaby or Lansinoh. Its bounty of features, efficiency, and comfort make it an undeniable MVP.

• Type of pump: Manual
• Single or double: Single
• Tubing: No

While the Medela Harmony isn’t designed to be used as a primary pump, as an occasional manual pump it does the job quite nicely.

It’s a lightweight, portable pump used by hand on one breast at a time, perfect for short or infrequent durations away from the primary pump at home, or for quick pumping when needing to take the edge off.

Its handle swivels for two phases of expression, allowing for initial let-down stimulation in one phase and then the expression of milk in the other.

• Type of pump: Electric
• Single or double: Double
• Tubing: No

When I saw that the Willow didn’t rank higher on the list, I was surprised because I have an enormous amount of affection for this pump. I found myself reaching for it over and over, even at the expense of higher-ranking pumps such as the Spectra S1.

The Willow 3.0’s portability and ability to pump absolutely anywhere, in any position, was a huge plus for me, outweighing the fact that it was occasionally difficult to get every last drop of milk out of the container—a negative for an under producer like me.

Although there was a very steep learning curve, once I had a few tries under my belt, it was a snap to put together and take apart. And I thought the pumping app was the best out of any on the market, bar none, easily showing you exactly how much you’ve pumped.

Each Willow comes with non-reusable, freezer-safe 4-ounce plastic bags that you pump directly into. However, if you want to create less waste, or regularly pump more than 4 ounces in one sitting, you can spring for the 4-ounce reusable containers as an extra purchase. (They cost $49.99 and come in three insert sizes: 21 mm, 24 mm, and 27 mm.)

• Type of pump: Electric
• Single or double: Double
• Tubing: Yes

The big draw of this pump is the design, which allows you to lean back as you pump, rather than having to hunch forward to collect milk. Because being relaxed theoretically helps milk flow more easily, the Philips Avent Double Electric is designed for maximum comfort and flow. Another design plus: it features soft petal cushions, which are supposed to help mimic the suckling of your baby and stimulate let-down.

Other highlights include smaller-than-usual 19.5 mm flange sizes available for purchase (in place of the 25 mm and 27 mm included), which is a plus for those with smaller nipples.

While the extremely firm suck may be a plus for some, I personally disliked how intense it was, and also felt that the pump, in general, was uncomfortable, despite being sized properly for me.

While it does have three modes, as well as a stimulation mode, I found it annoying that it can’t be used unless it’s plugged in.

For women who pump more than 4 ounces at a time, 9 ounce Philips Avent bottles are available for purchase.

• Type of pump: Electric
• Single or double: Double
• Tubing: Yes

Of all the pumps we tried, we liked the double electric BellaBaby the least. Not coincidentally, it ranked lowest in our testing. The manual is full of grammatical errors and very small photos, and is just generally difficult to understand. It took me a while squinting at it and re-reading to figure out how to use it.

Once I figured out what went where, it's actually a fairly straightforward pump because it doesn't have many modes. Case in point: the on/off button is the same button that you use to go from stimulation to expression mode.

Personally, I found this pump very uncomfortable—despite the fact that the soft flanges were billed as "comfort" flanges—and it's also extremely loud. It did, however, get lots of milk out and fairly quickly. This no doubt explains why many women love this pump, but it wasn't for me.

On the plus side, there is a timer attached so you can see how much time it's been since you began pumping and it’s also very small—roughly the size of a deck of playing cards—which means it’s highly portable.