Etekcity Food Kitchen Scale, Digital Grams and Ounces for Weight Loss, Baking, Cooking, Keto and Meal Prep, LCD Display, Medium…

Across the reviewers we read, the Etekcity is the default 'just buy this' answer when someone asks for a cheap kitchen scale on a weight-loss, meal-prep, or beginner-baking subreddit. The supporting evidence is heavy on volume: 173,000+ Amazon reviews averaging 4.6 stars is one of the largest sample sizes in any kitchen category, and a high-trust nytimes.com review of the broader Etekcity line is positive on accuracy and app integration (note that piece focuses on the smart variant, not this exact SKU). r/AskBaking commenters report it's 'accurate enough that I haven't noticed the difference in any recipes.'

The honest limitation, flagged in a walmart.com verified-purchase review and echoed elsewhere, is whole-gram precision only — it won't read tenths of a gram, which is fine for cooking and most baking but rules it out for coffee or anything where you're weighing 1–3 grams of yeast or salt. Several community threads also note that the very cheapest scales at this tier tend to have a finite lifespan, with users reporting failures within a year or two.

For a first scale, a backup scale, or a gift-to-a-roommate scale, this is the pick with the broadest positive signal in the pool — just don't expect it to outlive a name-brand option.