The best luggage scales for weighing your bag at home

Best overalltravel inspira Luggage Scale 50KG

We’d keep this one in the drawer with the passports. You loop its strap through the bag’s handle, clip it shut and lift, and the screen holds the weight once the bag’s still. You can put the bag down before you read it, which is a relief with a heavy suitcase. The screen is lit, so it’s easy to read in a dim hallway at night.

It weighs up to 50 kg and reads in 50 g steps. That’s plenty for a checked bag. On Qantas’s checked baggage page, Economy allows one piece of up to 23 kg on a domestic flight, and 30 kg or 32 kg internationally, depending on where you’re flying. No single piece can be over 32 kg. It’s small enough to pack, so you can check the bag again before the flight home, once the souvenirs are in.

It runs on a flat coin battery (a CR2032), and one comes in the box. It turns itself off to save the battery, warns you when it’s running low and tells you if a bag is too heavy for it, but you’ll still swap one in every so often. It’s also the cheapest of the three. If coin batteries annoy you, the Sonicefit charges by cable instead.

Best rechargeableSonicefit Rechargeable Digital Luggage Scale

If you’d rather never buy another coin battery, this one charges by USB-C, and the cable’s in the box. If your phone charges by USB-C, the same charger will do for both. It turns itself off after two minutes, and the screen tells you when the battery’s low.

It weighs up to 50 kg, like the travel inspira, and it locks the reading once the bag stops swinging. A metal hook and a strap grip the handle. It can show the weight in kilos, pounds, ounces or grams, so it’ll match whichever unit your airline uses. A luggage name tag comes with it too, for your phone number.

Whichever scale you pick, weigh your carry-on too. Qantas’s carry-on page gives a 7 kg limit on an International Economy flight. On a Jetstar flight booked through Qantas, it’s 7 kg across your two cabin items, and that rule changes for flights from 2 February 2027, so check it before you book.

The catch with a rechargeable scale is that it’s only ready if you’ve charged it, so plug it in when you start packing. It also costs more than the travel inspira.

Best battery-freeStatus Mechanical Luggage Scales

This is the one to pick if you’d rather never think about batteries. It’s mechanical, so you read the weight off a dial, and there’s no battery to go flat while it sits in a drawer between trips. That suits anyone who travels once or twice a year. It has an easy-grip handle for lifting a heavy bag.

It’s also handy if you want to check your carry-on’s size as well as its weight. A 1 metre tape measure pulls out of it, so you can measure your bag against the cabin size limit for your flight. Measure it with the wheels and handles on, because airlines such as Qantas count them. Our guide to light carry-on suitcases covers what fits.

It weighs bags up to 32 kg, less than the other two, but that’s still the heaviest single bag Qantas will take. It’s the dearest of the three, too.