10 Home Depot Tools Under $100 That Are Worth The Investment

Let's face it: DIYers are not safe from impulse buying a fancy tool, especially if it looks like a savvy find under $50. Sometimes, our impulses are right. A small sticker machine or an ice cream maker might very well be worth a few bucks of fun, as is the case with many cheap, fun home gadgets. But sometimes, it's better to look at a new tool purchase as an investment, especially when you're spending a lot more than $50. That said, the best investments aren't always the most expensive. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to spend a lot of money to save money. It's usually the other way around.

Finding good tools for a fair price isn't easy, but thanks to our research and some great deals from Home Depot, we've done just that. Expect to find some products on this list that aren't exactly tools, but are certainly a good investment for your toolset. Things like compact and modular packout products, convenient battery packs for your cordless power tools, and dedicated shop vacuums to clean after yourself without clogging the home vacuum cleaner. And then, there are the tools. Most of those are power tool kits that include a battery and everything else you need to get to work, though some deals on bare tools were too good to ignore, so you'll find a mix of both.

Buying a battery instead of power tools is certainly making an investment for the future. Of course, you should only buy batteries if you have a tool to use them with. If you do, the brand of battery you need will change based on the tools you have. Thankfully, Home Depot will sell you batteries for pretty much every major power tool brand, and many of those are available in convenient and affordable packs of two. That's the case with Ryobi's ONE+ 18V/4Ah, Milwaukee's M12 12V/1.5Ah, and others. Those batteries (especially the battery packs) go on sale often, so keep an eye on them.

If you're looking for a larger battery and want to keep the price under $100, you might be better off getting a single battery, even if it's not as good an investment as buying a pack of two. After all, if you don't need another battery, that money's as good as wasted. There's no need for us to link all the many brands of power tool batteries sold by Home Depot. You can find all the store's power tool batteries under $100 on this page instead. Whichever you go with, make sure you're not making these common mistakes that are ruining your power tool batteries, or your investment will go to waste.

Everyone needs a toolbox, but what do you do when that box inevitably gets stuffed so full that it becomes hard to carry with you? No one wants a perfectly functional, working toolbox to become an ugly piece of furniture that never gets moved. That's the problem Ridgid's Rolling Tool Box is here to solve, and it will cost you $99.98. At its simplest, this is a large box on wheels with an organizer and a surface ideal for stacking other containers. It's easy to transport while being quite large (31" height, 18.8" depth, 25.5" width) and not too messy, thanks to the organizer insert. This is a solid alternative to Milwaukee's packout rolling toolbox, and it's quite a bit cheaper

What makes the All Terrain Rolling Tool Box a little special is that it's part of Ridgid's Pro Gear System. It's a Pro Gear System Gen 2, but it's Gen 1 compatible. This means you can add toolboxes of any size, small organizers, and even a cooler to the rolling cart and wheel them all out together. Just keep in mind that a stackable gear system doesn't magically make the boxes and their content lighter, and that the cart has a maximum weight capacity of 176 lb. Like most Ridgid Pro Gear products, this toolbox can be wall-mounted with the dedicated Pro Gear Mount. Sadly, the box doesn't come with those mounts. At the time of writing, it doesn't seem like Home Depot sells them separately, either.

At $99.00, Ryobi's ONE+ HP 18V Brushless Cordless Compact 1/4" Hex Impact Driver is an incredible offer, and it's not even on a discount. It doesn't come in an all-in-one kit with things like a battery and a charger, but if you already have driver bits and other ONE+ gear, that won't be an issue. And for the price, you get a positively tiny and lightweight power driver measuring 5.3" in length and only 1.8 lb. in weight. This makes it ideal for cramped spaces or overhead work, though pairing it with a large battery might compromise its compactness a bit.

Ryobi's brushless compact impact driver has a variable speed that goes up to 3,000 RPM, and it achieves 1,900 in-lbs of torque, enough for most impact driver users. Keep in mind that this is an impact driver, not a drill, so torque is what we care about the most. This tool doesn't have a lot of reviews on Home Depot's website, and it's one of the store's exclusives. Still, all those reviews are positive, with the lowest one being a 4-star review that has nothing but good things to say about it. Maybe the reason this tool is so inexpensive is that it's not well-known.

If you have a dedicated workshop, you probably already have a powerful vacuum cleaner. As long as it has a HEPA filter and doesn't run on expensive replaceable bags, you're already set. But if you do a lot of DIY work, maybe enough to have a room half dedicated to longer projects, you might still be using a regular vacuum cleaner. That's fine for occasional use, but if you find yourself changing bags and filters more often because of it, you might want to upgrade to a shop vacuum, if nothing else, because it will repay itself soon enough. The 12-Gallon 5.0 Peak HP NXT Shop Vacuum Wet/Dry Vac is a good option if you have a tight budget, priced at an affordable $99.98.

Shop vacs usually have larger canisters than home vacuums, and they often come with a HEPA filter to supplement the lack of a bag. Why? Because fine dust particles would penetrate a larger, non-HEPA filter and go back into the room they came from. Not only is that not the best way to clean a room, but it's also dangerous. Any activity where you should wear a face mask for safety, including basic woodworking, needs a good cleaning afterwards, or all the particulate you so carefully protected against will continue to haunt the room. A shop vac without a good filter doesn't effectively clean the room. Ridgid might not be one of the biggest shop vac brands around, but the company's smaller vacuum is a good, affordable option for small rooms. Just make sure to grab the (non-included) compatible HEPA filter.

Let's start by making this clear. This 3/8" drill/driver by Ryobi is not as powerful as some of the alternatives. And for $89.94, the ONE+ 18V Cordless 3/8" Drill/Driver Kit could stand to deliver more than 600 RPM of speed and a torque of 135 in-lbs. However, if those specs work for your projects, this kit has the advantage of including not only the tool, a charger, and the smallest battery compatible with it (18V/1.5Ah), but it also comes with a frankly excessive 95-piece drill and drive kit full of compatible bits. The bits are a standard drill/driver size, so they're compatible with most other tools of this kind.

Even if the limitations of Ryobi's small drill/driver become too much for you, or if it's simply too weak for some jobs, the included battery can be used with other ONE+ tools. The drive kit is even more adaptable, and can be used with drills and impact drivers of different sizes, like Ryobi's own 1/4" and 1/2" tools. Meanwhile, the 3/8" drill/driver is suitable for smaller but by no means small jobs like drilling into wood, laminate, metal, and other surfaces that don't offer too much resistance. It does its job as an electrical driver as well, driving screws directly into wood and drywall as well as their purpose-made threaded inserts. While we recommended the brushless version as a perfect lightweight cordless drill for small jobs, this one should work just fine if you're on a budget.

You might already have a place to store your tools, whether it's a fancy toolbox or a sturdy drawer. But what about all the tiny driver bits without a home, all the nails and screws and other small materials? If you need a storage solution tailored to those smaller trinkets, you should consider Milwaukee's Packout Tilt Bin Organizer. This is one of Milwaukee's best packout storage options, according to user reviews on Home Depot and Milwaukee's own website. This product is part of the Packout Modular Storage System, which arguably makes it a better investment than a standalone organizer, since it can be part of a growing, modular library of toolboxes.

For $99.00, the Packout Tilt Bin Organizer includes 10 transparent bins, two large and eight small, all removable from the organizer and designed for quick access. When they are fully pulled towards the end of their socket, they tilt towards the user to increase accessibility. A recess in each bin allows users to slide in a small paper label (labels included in the price), while metal locking bars make accidental opening impossible during transport. Being part of the Packout system, this organizer can be safely stacked with toolboxes in the Milwaukee family. The box's body (not the individual bins) supports up to 40 lbs. The Tilt Bin Organizer comes with a limited lifetime warranty.

At just $99.00, the 18V Cordless Oscillating Multi-Tool Kit includes a tool, the charger, and an 18V/2Ah battery. It might just be the cheapest cordless multi-tool from a reputable brand, and that's ignoring the included charger and battery. You can get close to this price with some deals from DeWalt and a convenient oscillating tool package from Milwaukee, both from Home Depot, but when not on sale, the tool alone is more expensive than Ryobi's whole package. We have already compared the differences between Ryobi and DeWalt oscillating tools, and judged the former to be the best value and certainly the better budget option.

As usual, if you've already invested in a brand's battery system, you might find it more convenient to remain dedicated to that brand. After all, the battery that comes with this ONE+ oscillating multi-tool is one of the smallest in the whole 18V Ryobi line, the 2Ah. If not, here's everything else you should know about Ryobi's tool. It has a maximum speed of 20,000 OPM, which Ryobi claims is to "take on the most demanding applications," and an adjustable speed dial, which makes it adaptable to every appropriate material. It includes a few accessories like a plunge cut blade, a flush cut blade, and a sanding pad with accompanying sandpaper. Ryobi offers a three-year warranty with the tool, a rarity at this price range.

The Ryobi 18V High Pressure Compressor is the most portable option in the company's lineup of air compressors that can refill car tires. It might also be one of the absolutely cheapest ways to do so on the go, at $89.97, especially if you want a detachable, rechargeable battery. Speaking of the battery, seemingly the only major issue you might run into while using this tool is having to refill more tires than this little machine is capable of in one go. That's because the included 18V/2Ah battery is quite small. Many users suggest using a ONE+ 4Ah battery instead, which isn't that much more expensive and leaves plenty of charge left even after refilling four tires. You can even get a Ryobi 4Ah battery as a giveaway with another tool.

Another issue some users have found with this machine is that it can show a slight inaccuracy when measuring air pressure. Not every unit seems to do that, and even the users who encounter this problem rarely consider it a dealbreaker, but if you need a precise tool, you should know this can be a problem. Thankfully, for this and more issues, Ryobi offers a three-year warranty. Another limitation — not exactly an issue, this time — is that this is a dedicated high-pressure inflator. This means it can only be used with car tires, bicycle tires, sports balls, and little else. Air mattresses, for example, would need an air pump. 

A drywall tool is pretty much just a large rotary multi-tool that is designed to cut through drywall. So, why would you get a tool like this over a (seemingly) more versatile multi-tool? First, drywall cut-out tools are designed to deal with extremely dusty surfaces and to cut through a lot of them, so they're usually not going to be affected by dust. Second, the rotating blade of those tools is pretty long and the precise length is adjustable, while the same isn't always true for the drywall cutter attachment of an oscillating multi-tool. Plus, most of those tools have a flat resting surface below the blade that makes delivering clean, straight cuts a lot easier.

The Ridgid 18V Drywall Cut-Out Tool, in particular, is quite versatile, too, as it can cut through plywood, (light) cement boards, and laminate, as well as drywall. It can use 1/8" and 1/4" bits interchangeably, making it much more adaptable and letting you reuse drill bits you might already have. That said, at least for drywall, you might want to stick with purpose-made guidepoint cutting bits. Ridgid's tool doesn't come with a charger and a battery, but a complete drywall-cutting tool kit is available for a little over $100, and it occasionally goes on sale for much less. Ridgid's drywall tool has a speed of 28,000 RPMs, about the same as similar models from other brands, and is priced at $79.00.

At $79.00, this might be the cheapest cordless reciprocating saw from a major tool brand with plenty of positive reviews. According to Ryobi, this saw has a variable speed that tops out at 3,400 strokes per minute and a stroke length of one inch. Overall, the Ryobi ONE+ 18-Volt Cordless Reciprocating Saw is more or less on par with other similar tools from the same brand, while being the cheapest. You could spend about the same and get an (almost certainly) more powerful corded tool, or spend more and get the brushless version of this tool, but if you're anything like the users who reviewed it, this reciprocating saw will serve you just fine.

This version of the tool doesn't come with a battery or a charger. If you already have other tools in the ONE+ line, this might not be an issue. If you don't, you might want to get the 12-amp corded version or take advantage of the cost-saving kit that includes an 18V/4Ah battery and a charger. The kit is occasionally found at a significant discount, but it's always cheaper to get a complete package than it is to buy the individual components at full price. This tool features a dedicated lever for easy blade release, to make changing blades less of a hassle. Ryobi blades aren't too expensive if bought in bulk, though of course, you can get them from any compatible brand.

We chose those tools based on price, performance as reported by the users and the manufacturer, and the relationship between the two. We also considered cost compared to alternatives, striving to always select the most cost-effective solution. Finally, we considered the value of each selected product as an investment as much as a tool in itself. The capabilities offered by each of those entries won't easily be outgrown by users. We also considered how useful each tool would be to the average user, avoiding tools that would be too niche for a wide audience.