The Kangen water machine is probably one of the most expensive and over-hyped alkaline water machines on the market. It is sold by multi-level marketers who often make simply unbelievable claims about the health effects of the alkaline water it produces. They even have a special name for the water the produces: Kangen water. But is Kangen water worth the $3,980 you’d pay for a Kangen machine?
The Kangen Water Machine What you get for $3,980
The Kangen Machine is a seven plate ionizer. We typically consider seven plate water ionizers to be mid-range machines, and the Kangen Machine does give performance that is similar to many mid-range machines. The problem with that is: Those mid-range alkaline water machines typically cost $2,000 or less.
Do the Kangen Machine’s plates justify it’s cost? The Kangen machine has large plates, which Enagic representatives claim justifies its high price due to the amount of platinum needed to coat those plates. But we can point to other alkaline water machines, such as LIFE Ionizers and Alka Prime, that have more overall plate surface area. Because these machines have a higher plate surface area, it takes more platinum to coat their plates than it does for the Kangen Machine. So Enagic’s claim that the high price of the Kangen machine is justified by the amount of platinum on its plates is demonstrably false.
Do you get a lot of power with those plates? No, in fact the Kangen Machine has less power than many lower priced mid-range machines. It has only 230 watts of power. Compare that to the seven plate LIFE Ionizer M7, which has 450 watts. The M7 costs $1,997, about half of what the Kangen Machine costs, and the M7 easily outperforms it.
How good is the Kangen Machine’s filtration? The inadequate filtration is possibly the worst thing about the Kangen Machine. It has only a single filter, and that filter doesn’t protect you from heavy metals or salt. Nearly all water ionizer manufacturers recognize that one filter isn’t enough to protect you from toxins, so they equip their machines with two or more filters. The best quality machines come with custom filtration that targets the toxins in your water. The Kangen water machine’s filtration is woefully inadequate.
Did you know? Over a thousand cities and towns in the US have been shown to have unsafe levels of lead – a toxic heavy metal – in their water supply. The Kangen machine’s filter does not protect you from lead!
pH and ORP: How the Kangen machine compares to other alkaline water machines
The closest machine we can find to the Kangen Machine’s price is the LIFE Ionizers MXL-13, which at $3,497 costs $483 less than the Kangen Machine. So how do these two machines measure up?
| Life MXL-13 | Kangen Machine |
| pH range 1.7 – 12.2 | pH range 4.5 – 10.3 |
| ORP Up to -1041 | ORP Up to -612 |
As the chart above shows, the LIFE MXL-13 absolutely crushes the Kangen machine. You get much better quality alkaline water, far superior filtration, and it still costs less than the Kangen machine.
How much would you pay for a machine that had performance comparable to the Kangen Machine?
The Alka Prime Seven has seven plates, just like the Kangen Machine. It has close to the same amount of power: 200 watts for the Alka Prime, vs. 230 watts for the Kangen machine. The Alka Prime beats the Kangen machine for filtration quality; it has custom-configured filtration (the best available) vs. Kangen’s single filter. So how do these two machines compare for pH and ORP?
| Alka Prime Seven | Kangen Machine |
| pH range 5.0 – 10.4 | pH range 4.5 – 10.3 |
| ORP Up to -500 | ORP Up to -612 |
| Price $1,697 | Price $3,980 |
As you can see from the chart above, the Kangen Machine and the Alka Prime give very close to the same pH range. The Kangen Machine beats the Alka Prime for ORP level, but the price difference between these two machines? The Alka Prime costs $2,283 less than the Kangen Machine. To top it all off, the Alka Prime machine even comes with a better warranty: Seven years parts and labor vs. the Kangen Machine’s 5 year warranty.
Kangen Machine not recommended by Water Ionizer Machines
We recommend not buying the Kangen Machine for all the reasons given above. It isn’t powerful enough to justify its price. The filtration is inadequate, if you are one of the millions of people with potentially high levels of lead in your water, the Kangen Machine won’t protect you. The other machines in this comparison; LIFE Ionizers and Alka Prime, both come with custom filtration, so both of these machines will protect you if you have lead in your water.
Why is the Kangen Machine so expensive?
The Kangen Machine’s mediocre performance definitely doesn’t justify its $3,980 price tag. So that begs the question: What makes this machine so expensive? The answer is that it is sold through multi-level marketing (MLM). When a Kangen Machine is sold, a whole bunch of marketers get paid. The fact that the Kangen Machine is sold through MLM makes it twice as expensive as it should be. MLM sales work much like a pyramid scheme, they are a rip off. In fact, we suggest you avoid all products sold through MLM, it makes everything twice as expensive as it ought to be.