Best automatic pet feeder 2024: Take the fuss out of mealtimes

Keep mealtimes on schedule even when you’re busy with the best automatic pet feeders. If you’re working during mealtimes, or you just want to take some of the busy work out of pet ownership, an automatic pet feeder can be a real game changer.

Simply fill them up with food, set the timers, and relax knowing that dinner time for your furry friend is already sorted. You can schedule morning meals to avoid unwanted wake-up calls from your cat, or prepare their evening meals in advance if you’re going to be out in the evening.

Automatic pet feeders come in many different shapes and sizes, so make sure you choose an appropriate size model for the pet (or pets) in question. Most of them are best suited to dry food, but there are some ice-cooled models that work with wet food too. Beyond size, there is nothing dictating which pets use them though, so feel free to fill them up with the best dog food, best cat food, or whatever other pets you have (within reason, there probably isn’t one out there big enough to feed a horse).

We’ve put together a list of the best automatic pet feeders with options for a range of situations and budgets to help you make the right choice.

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The best automatic pet feeders 2024

Best overall automatic pet feeder

Known for their high-quality pet feeders, we’re loving this new version from Petlibro that’s WiFi-enabled so you can ensure your furkids tummy is full no matter where you are.

Use the Petlibro app to remote feed your pet and track how much they’ve eaten. Set the time and portion amount you want the feeder to dish out and record a 10s message to call your furbaby to their bowl when it’s mealtime.

The feeder has a lovely and clear LCD screen that lets you enter your pet’s weight, age, and activity level, and has a 4L capacity that can dish out up to four meals a day in as many as nine portions per meal - great if you have a pet who eats with too much gusto or has digestive issues that require eating at a slower pace.

With a detachable design and a stainless steel bowl, this feeder is extremely easy to clean and the double power supply offers great peace of mind, with the batteries kicking in if there’s a power outage. There’s also an inbuilt desiccant box to keep your pets kibble fresher for longer.

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Best automatic pet feeder for wet food

The concept here is simple: place a portion of wet or dry food into each of the five segments of the Cat Mate C500's rotating bowl, set the timer, and it'll spin up a meal for your pet at the designated time while playing a ten-second audio clip. It uses a digital timer, so there's no awkward clockwork to deal with.

The top panel and bowl assembly creates a fairly good seal, keeping wet food that was dished up some time ago relatively fresh, and Cat Mate also includes two specially-shaped ice packs which install beneath the bowl, helping to improve freshness for up to a day. When it's time to clean, the top section and bowl can both go in the dishwasher.

If you're clever, you can set it to feed anywhere from four automated times in a single day (there's always one bowl open, so the first feed will be when you fill it), twice a day over two days, or once a day over four. It's perfect for cats who are most active (and hungry) at night: being able to offer up 3am wet food so they don't claw you awake holds a whole lot of value. If you're feeding over the course of several days, freezing the food to be eaten later should help with its eventual freshness; that's a pain, but...

We have no doubt that the fact that this feeder can contain inaccessible wet food will be infuriating for some pets, and while Cat Mate claims it's as tamper-resistant as possible, you'll certainly want to save it for those who won't bat it around too violently. For cats who are able to be patient, it will be a real treat.

If you need a smaller version, check out the Cat Mate C300, the exact same concept but with three bowls instead.

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Best budget automatic pet feeder

The Pawise Automatic Pet Feeder is a budget automatic pet feeder that still ticks all the essential boxes. It comes with two food compartments that can be opened independently on a 48-hour countdown timer, which can be set easily using the dial on top.

There are slots for ice packs in the top of each compartment to ensure that wet food stays fresh over that two-day period too (though do remember to chill them each time before use). Each food tray holds up to 300 ml of pet food and they’re removable and dishwasher safe for easy cleaning. Our Editor Georgia tried this feeder out and liked how easy it was to clean and maintain.

It’s battery powered, so you can place it anywhere in your home and the simple design means that the batteries should last for ages. The small capacity means it’s not suitable for pet owners who want to just fill up the hopper and not worry about mealtimes for a week, but if you’re out of the house for the day and won’t be home at feeding time, it’s perfect.

Be watchful of your pet too, as some pet owners have noted that their clever critters have figured out how to open the lid manually, and our Georgia did have some issues with reliability on the opening mechanism, so maybe don’t rely on it if you’re away for several days.

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Best simple automatic pet feeder

This is wonderfully cheap, but we should mention that it does come with a couple of pretty big downsides. The timer is imprecise, so if your pet has one eye on the clock (as many seem to do, somehow) they'll probably get a little grumpy about their meal being five minutes too late.

It's also battery-powered, and while you can see when the timer's running there's no indicator to tell you when those batteries are running low. You'll probably want to have some rechargeables on hand and switch them out on a regular basis just to make sure nobody inadvertently goes hungry. It also quietly ticks, which may or may not be an issue depending on your sensitivity to such things.

Those niggles aside, there's a lot to love about the C200. It packs in two full portions of wet or dry food, securely stashed below the two lids. Each portion gets its own timer, and there's no need to fiddle with any tiny buttons or LCD screens; just twist the timer to say how far in the future you want dinner time to be and you're set. There's a lot of value in simplicity, particularly for those who don't get on too well with technology.

Beyond its ticking, there's no huge noise to worry about. The lids open with a subtle sound, rather than the sort of buzz or whirr that could put off more timid cats.

Given that you can set the timers for up to 48 hours in the future, you (or, at least, your fussy pets) will be grateful for the included ice pack, which keeps wet food fresher than it would otherwise have been. Be careful to place it on the inside of the bowl, as it's not quite wide enough to cover the edges. If you're more interested in doling out portions of dry food, this is fine for that too. The lids and bowls can be removed for cleaning, and you can throw them in the dishwasher without worry.

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Best microchip automatic pet feeder

This one is all about solving a problem. If you have one cat who's not getting enough food because the other cats in your household are more brave, greedy or pushy at mealtimes, you can code this feeder to only allow that one cat to access the food within. If one cat is on a special diet and the others aren't, lock the whole machine down by giving each of them their own Microchip Automatic Pet Feeder. If the dog's constantly snacking on the cat's kibbles? You get the idea.

It works in much the same way as parent company SureFlap's microchip pet flaps: your pet sticks their head in, a reader checks their chip, and it opens if the correct pet is detected. Here it's not a simple case of unlocking, though, as the door covering the food bowl actively opens up while they remain in the vicinity, and automatically shuts a couple of seconds after they've left the bowl.

It's tough enough that the wrong pet won't be able to claw their way in, which is a great positive, but some users have reported that particularly canny cats have discovered a workaround. Pushing into the detecting halo once the door has opened, and barging the correct pet out of the way, leaves the food open for devouring because once the microchip reading is done the Automatic Pet Feeder is only concerned with proximity. That may not be the case for your pets, but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on dinner time.

There's one more little benefit even if you only have one cat: the SureFeed Microchip Automatic Pet Feeder is suitable for both dry and wet food, with enough capacity for two pouches of the latter. If your pet is more of a nibbler than a gorger it can automatically cover that wet food, stopping the smell and keeping it a little fresher throughout the day.

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Best automatic food feeder for multiple pets

If you’ve got two cats and don’t want them squabbling over the same bowl of food then this dual-feeder from HoneyGuardian is ideal. It has a hefty 6L hopper that should hold loads of dry cat food, so you don’t need to restock it very often. There is a desiccant bag in the lid to keep the food fresh inside the hopper too.

This stylish looking feeder is easy to set up and use thanks to the WiFi connectivity and dedicated app which lets you control feeding times remotely. You can also record a 10 second meal call to let your feline know that it’s dinner time.

It uses mains power so it needs to be plugged into the wall, but there is a battery back-up to keep it running during power outages. It also features an anti-tamper lid that should stop inquisitive kitties from figuring out how to open it by themselves.

The bowls are stainless steel, so dishwasher safe, and if you don’t need the dual feeding function, there is a single bowl setup too which is a nice flexible touch.

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Best large automatic pet feeder for dry food

This feeder is relatively similar to the HoneyGuaridan Automatic Pet Feeder, though as it's from a more established brand you may find a little more peace of mind by going in this direction.

Program in up to three daily feeding times, tell the unit how many feed portions (approximately 10g each) you'd like dispensed at each of those feeds, fill up the fairly large hopper, and you're all set. The Cat Mate C3000 uses a combination of gravity and a turning auger to pull the exact amount out and drop it into the included food dish. The delivery mechanism isn't the quietest, although the noise can act as something of a Pavlovian dinner bell for mealtimes.

If you're switching brands of dry food you may wish to alter the number of portions being dispensed. Kibbles up to 16mm in diameter aren't a problem, but the C3000's screw-fed mechanism (and the lower packing density of larger three-dimensional shapes) means a size up is likely to change the dispensed amount somewhat; it doesn't weigh the food so much as count how many turns of the screw it takes.

We've heard from at least one owner that their cat was savvy enough to claw the lid off the food hopper, although this seems to be an isolated incident, and it appears to be a fairly secure lid. Just bear this in mind if you're leaving it at home with a particularly mischievous kitty. The Pet Safe C3000 can also be screwed to a board if you're worried about more enthusiastic eaters knocking it over.

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Best gravity pet feeder

Sometimes the solution to a problem isn't to throw technology at it, it's more an Occam's Razor type situation where the simplest answer is the one that works best. If, and only if, your pet is a happy grazer and can regulate their own overeating, Amazon's cheap-and-cheerful feeder might be all you need.

You simply fill up the generously-sized screw-top hopper with dry food, and gravity causes it to trickle down into the bowl. As your pet eats, the consumed food makes way for more to be released. There's nothing more to it than that. The AmazonBasics Self-Dispensing Gravity Pet Feeder is easily disassembled for hand cleaning, and (beyond the office water dispenser-styled hopper) doesn't look too shabby, with handy cut-outs on the bottom to make it easy to lift.

This certainly won't suit every animal. We doubt most dogs would get on well with it; the dogs in our life would do their best to get through its entire contents in one session and feel sorry for themselves afterwards. We'd probably avoid it for rabbits, too, as 'unlimited food' doesn't really match the proportion of pellets they're supposed to have in their diet. Take-it-or-leave-it cats, though? Go right ahead. They'll love it, and you'll love not having to fill their bowls as often.

Some users have reported irregular-shaped food getting stuck on its way out; a particularly hungry pet will likely solve that problem for you, and there's a lot less to go wrong than there is on mechanical feeders. However, it's worth bearing in mind if you're planning to fill up and head out for a couple of days.

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How to choose the best automatic pet feeder

Look for an automatic feeder that is built well, because persistent pets, left alone, may well attempt to gain access to future portions by force. For wet food in particular you'll also want something with a good seal, to keep that food fresh between portions.

Consider your usual scheduled feeds and any changes you might like to make to those. If your pet is regularly bothering you for food at night, an automated feeder might give you an extra hour or two in bed. If your pet needs regular small portions, an automatic feeder with a timer that can cover that schedule is essential.

If you're leaving your pet on their own, reliability is key. Something that doesn't get jammed up, and something with reliable power and a long battery life, makes the difference between a happy pet and a hungry one.

There are a host of other factors to consider when buying an automatic pet feeder, too, not least of which is your specific pet. They're generally not suitable for larger dogs, for example. They may also not be useful for especially picky cats: if yours won't eat unless the food has been forked out of the packet in a particular artisanal manner, forget trying to get them to eat something which has been out for a day, however fresh your automated feeder keeps it.