Anova Precision Vacuum Sealer Pro Review: The Sous Vide Pick

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Overview

Sous vide cooks need a bag that survives hours in hot water, and that is the job Anova designed this sealer around. Wirecutter, which has been testing vacuum sealers since 2017, has named the Anova Precision Vacuum Sealer Pro its top pick, and America’s Test Kitchen lists it as “Also Great” behind the Nesco VS-12 Deluxe after a nine-week storage trial. It is a 110-watt countertop machine with a double heat seal, six one-touch presets and a slot that holds a full bag roll, sold on Amazon with a two-year warranty.

Against its closest rival, the Nesco VS-12 Deluxe, it gives up some raw suction in Shouldit’s measurements but wins on stamina and size. Anova rates it for more than 100 continuous vacuum seals, while Nesco’s own care guide limits the VS-12 to one cycle every two minutes, and the Anova is a pound lighter on Shouldit’s scale. The weak spots are fragile snacks, which it crushes on the automatic cycle, and a long-term reliability record on Amazon that is patchier than the lab results suggest.

Key Specifications

Anova Precision Vacuum Sealer Pro Seal Strength and Reliability

The test that matters most for a vacuum sealer is whether food is still airtight weeks later, and America’s Test Kitchen ran it for nine weeks, sealing everything from cereal to lasagna with oxygen-detecting tablets alongside. Its verdict on the Anova was that it “reliably kept all sorts of dry and wet foods perfectly sealed over time.” Shouldit’s sous vide test pointed the same way: the bag held through the water bath with no leakage on the first attempt, a perfect score. The Nesco VS-12 needed three attempts to pass that same test.

Raw suction is solid rather than class-leading. Shouldit measured a 68 kPa peak after 36 seconds, and scored the Anova 8.4 out of 10 for suction; its separate review of the Nesco VS-12 recorded 80 kPa in 27 seconds. In practice that gap matters less than it sounds, because every bag gets a double heat seal: two parallel seal lines, so a small flaw in one does not let air back in. For bags that sit in a water bath for hours, that backup line is the feature that counts.

Wet Foods and Delicate Foods

Marinades and juicy cuts are where this sealer earns its reputation. America’s Test Kitchen found the separate wet mode “let us seal foods with liquid especially well.” Anova describes Moist mode as a low-pressure suction setting: it pulls less hard, so juices are less likely to be drawn toward the seal bar before the bag closes. Freezing a marinated chicken breast for an hour first still makes for a cleaner seal, and liquids never belong in the machine itself.

Chips and crackers are the opposite story. In Shouldit’s crunchy-food test the automatic cycle crushed 1.8 oz of a 4.5 oz load, or 40%, and the outlet scored crunchy-food breakage 6.0 out of 10, its lowest score for the machine. Unlike the Nesco, the Anova has no Gentle pressure setting. The workaround is the Pulse Vacuum button: you pull air in short bursts, stop once the bag hugs the food, then press Seal. It works, but it means standing over every bag of pretzels.

Everyday Use and Storage

Shouldit gave the Anova a 9.8 out of 10 for design and 10 out of 10 each for its lid, control panel and build quality. The lid locks with one press of the handle, so one hand holds the bag while the other closes it, and a roll of bags sits inside the machine with a sliding cutter across the top. ATK liked the built-in roll storage but found the zip-style cutter “felt flimsy and sometimes jammed while we cut bags”, and The Gadgeteer’s reviewer found the roll’s adhesive tape hard to peel. Cord storage in the base keeps the counter tidy.

ATK called its footprint “relatively moderate”, and at 14.75 by 7 by 4.3 inches and 5 pounds it slides into a drawer or cabinet more easily than the Nesco. It is not quiet: Shouldit measured 83 dBA during a cycle, about the same as the Nesco. The 100-plus continuous-seal rating is the more useful number for anyone portioning a bulk pack of chicken thighs, since there is no enforced rest between bags.

Durability and Owner Reports

Lab tests run on new units, and here the owner record tells a different story from the test results. Owners are split, and the dividing line is reliability. Some describe units that sealed well at first, became finicky after a few months, needed repeat attempts to pull a full vacuum or finish the seal, and worked only intermittently by the one-year mark.

The ratings on other stores are warmer, with Best Buy buyers averaging 4.5 out of 5 across 254 reviews and Anova’s own site 4.1 out of 5 across 640, so this is a minority of units rather than a design that fails for everyone. The two-year warranty is the practical answer: Anova repairs or replaces a defective unit within two years of purchase, and it asks for the original receipt, so keep it.

How Does It Stack Up Against the Competition?

The Anova undercuts the Nesco and the FoodSaver 2-in-1 but sits well above budget sealers like the MegaWise, and the table shows what each trades for its price.

Is the Anova Precision Vacuum Sealer Pro Worth It?

Buy it if your sealing is mostly meat and marinades headed for a water bath or the freezer, and you like to do it in one long session. The double seal and Moist mode are the reasons ATK and Wirecutter both recommend it, and the 100-seal stamina means a family pack of steaks or a Sunday of meal prep never stalls on a cooldown. The owner reports on Amazon are the reason to register the warranty and keep the receipt: most units hold up, but enough do not that the two-year cover is part of the value.

Look elsewhere if crackers, chips and bread make up a big share of what you seal: the Nesco VS-12 Deluxe adds a Gentle setting and pulled harder in Shouldit’s testing, at the cost of a bigger body and a rest between cycles. If most of your sealing is leftovers in zipper bags, the FoodSaver Handheld+ 2-in-1 pairs a countertop sealer with a cordless handheld and carries a five-year warranty. For a few bags a month, a budget MegaWise does the basics for a fraction of the price.

GuideBest Vacuum Sealers for Food Storage in 2026: Top PicksRead the Guide →

Anova Precision Vacuum Sealer Pro

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Sarah MitchellSenior Editor 𝕏 Ⓟ

Sarah has spent more than a few decades — she's not saying how many — in home design, with a sharp eye for products that deliver real quality without the inflated price tag. Her passion is finding the hidden gem that makes everyday life genuinely better.

How this was made: Researched and written with AI from manufacturer specs, independent tests and published reviews, then checked by automated quality checks. We haven’t tested this product ourselves. How we review →