The short version: the brand question is settled by your house, not by a spec sheet. If your must-keep list includes a well pump, central AC, an electric water heater, or an electric dryer, you need split-phase 240V, and the cheapest honest way in is the Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus Smart Home Backup Power Kit at $3,499.99. If your list is the fridge, Wi-Fi, lights, phones, and a CPAP, you do not need 240V and Jackery is the simplest complete answer, starting with the 3,072Wh HomePower 3000 and its included panels. If your outages run long and your sky is usually bright, EcoFlow’s DELTA Pro Ultra is the biggest platform of the three at 6,144Wh, 7,200W, and up to 5.6kW of solar input.
Everything below is the working, so you can check it against your own house rather than take our word for it.
The four platforms, side by side
| Platform | Capacity / output | Built for | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jackery HomePower 3000 | 3,072Wh · 3,600W · 120V · panels included · not expandable | The essentials, one to two days, no electrical work | Check price → |
| Jackery HomePower 3600 Plus | 3,584Wh · 3,600W · 120V · expandable to 21kWh · transfer-switch ready | Essentials plus a furnace blower, multi-day outages | Check price → |
| Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus kit | Split-phase 120V/240V · $3,499.99 · 5.0 rating (15 reviews) | The cheapest route into 240V whole-home backup | Check price → |
| EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra | 6,144Wh · 7,200W · 5.6kW solar input · 120V/240V · from $4,782 | Longest outages, fastest solar recharge, most headroom | Check price → |
Jackery’s 240V unit sits above that table: the Solar Generator 5000 Plus at 5,040Wh, 7,200W, 120V and 240V, expandable to 60kWh. Prices are as listed at the time of writing. The Anker and EcoFlow kits ship from Outbound Power, where code CHADPENFOLD takes 10% off.
The question that actually decides it
Before you compare a single feature, answer this: do you need 240V?
Most American homes run on split-phase power. Ordinary outlets give 120V, and a handful of big appliances are wired for 240V: a well pump, central air conditioning, an electric water heater, an electric dryer. No 120V-only power station will run any of those, however large its battery. A 21kWh Jackery HomePower 3600 Plus cannot start a well pump. That is not a capacity problem, it is a wiring problem.
So write your must-keep list first, then check it for 240V loads.
- No 240V loads on the list. Jackery is the shortest path. The HomePower 3000 covers the essentials, ships with panels, and needs no electrician.
- 240V loads on the list. Your choices are the Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus kit, the EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra, or the Jackery Solar Generator 5000 Plus, in roughly that order of entry price. Our cheapest 240V home backup guide works through that decision on its own.
▶ Check the Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus kit, $3,499.99 code CHADPENFOLD, 10% off
The case for Jackery
Jackery sells the most complete product of the three. The HomePower 3000 arrives as a bundle with its own solar panels, so there is nothing to spec, no adapter cable to guess at, and no second order. It holds 3,072Wh, delivers 3,600W, uses a LiFePO4 battery, and runs at about 30 decibels with zero exhaust, which means it lives in a hallway closet and works there with the doors shut. For a renter, an apartment, or anyone whose backup plan is one room rather than one house, that completeness is worth more than any spec.
Step up to the HomePower 3600 Plus and you get 3,584Wh with the same 3,600W, expansion to 21kWh, and transfer-switch readiness, which is what turns a box with cords into circuits that come back on by themselves. Our three-unit Jackery comparison covers where each one stops.
The honest weakness: the two units most people buy are 120V only, and the HomePower 3000 is not expandable at all. Buy it, discover a year later that you want two more days of runtime, and the only upgrade path is a second unit. The 5000 Plus fixes both problems with 240V and 60kWh of expansion, but at that point you are shopping in Anker and EcoFlow’s price territory and you should compare all three.
The case for Anker SOLIX
Anker’s argument is one number against one capability. The SOLIX F3800 Plus Smart Home Backup Power Kit is listed at $3,499.99 and delivers split-phase 120V/240V. That is the line between a large camping battery and real home backup, and Anker gets you across it for less than any comparable kit we can find. It carries a 5.0 rating from 15 reviews on the product page.
If your outage problem is a well that stops, a house with no working air conditioning in a heatwave, or a water heater you would like to keep, this is the cheapest device on this page that solves it. That is why it is our pick in the four-brand roundup as well as here.
The honest weakness: Anker publishes less in the listing than the others do. Its capacity and expansion figures live on the product page rather than in the product title, so we send you there for them instead of repeating a number we have not verified. It also arrives as a kit for a house, not a bundle for a room, so a renter with no panel to connect to gets less from it than a homeowner does.
The case for EcoFlow
EcoFlow builds the biggest platform here. The DELTA Pro Ultra runs 6,144Wh of storage, 7,200W of output, 120V/240V, and it accepts up to 5.6kW of solar input. That last figure is the one to notice. Most backup is a countdown, where the battery drains and you wait for the utility. A system that can absorb 5.6kW of panel refills a mostly empty battery in one good day, which turns two days of backup into backup that lasts as long as the sun does.
It comes three ways: the Portable kit at $4,782, the Smart Home kit at $7,769, and the Deluxe kit at $12,879, all at the time of writing, with a 5.0 rating from 32 reviews. Our EcoFlow versus Anker head to head puts the two 240V systems side by side.
The honest weakness: price. The entry kit costs about $1,282 more than the Anker kit, and the Smart Home kit more than twice as much. For a house whose real requirement is “keep the well and the fridge going for two days,” that is capability you are paying for and may not use.
▶ See the EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra Portable kit, $4,782 code CHADPENFOLD, 10% off
Price per usable watt-hour, stated carefully
Cost per watt-hour is the fairest way to compare batteries, and it only works where both numbers are published. Here they are not, so treat this section as a partial answer rather than a league table.
The one clean figure is EcoFlow’s. The DELTA Pro Ultra Portable kit at $4,782 for 6,144Wh works out to about $0.78 per watt-hour, and that price includes solar panels. The Smart Home and Deluxe kits at $7,769 and $12,879 carry more hardware, so dividing them by the same 6,144Wh would compare a system to a battery and flatter the portable kit unfairly.
Anker’s $3,499.99 cannot be turned into a per-watt-hour number from the listing title, because the capacity is on the product page rather than in it. What can be said is the thing that matters: it is the lowest entry price here for split-phase 240V, and the reason it wins that comparison is capability per dollar rather than watt-hours per dollar.
Jackery’s prices move with promotions and bundles, so any figure we printed would be stale within a month. Check the current price on the Jackery deals page, divide by 3,072Wh, 3,584Wh, or 5,040Wh, and remember that the HomePower 3000’s number includes panels while a bare power station’s does not.
Expansion and lock-in
The brand you pick is the ecosystem you are stuck with, so it is worth being clear about what each one lets you grow into.
- Jackery HomePower 3000: not expandable. What you buy is what you have.
- Jackery HomePower 3600 Plus: expandable to 21kWh, which is a week of essentials.
- Jackery Solar Generator 5000 Plus: expandable to 60kWh, the largest headline figure here.
- Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus: designed to expand, with the figures on the product page.
- EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra: starts largest at 6,144Wh and grows from there.
The lock-in is real. Expansion batteries are proprietary within each brand, so an EcoFlow battery will not extend an Anker system and a Jackery pack will not extend either. Pick the ecosystem you would still want at twice the size.
What you can mix, and what you cannot
Panels are the free part. Nearly every solar panel sold terminates in standard MC4 connectors, so a panel from one brand can feed another brand’s power station with the right adapter cable. Shop panels on price per watt rather than on the badge. Rich Solar is the obvious example: it does not make power stations at all, only panels, charge controllers, and cabling for do-it-yourself 12V, RV, cabin, and off-grid builds, and its MEGA 200W panel is listed at $225.99, which is about $1.13 per watt.
Batteries and expansion modules are the locked part, as above. So the sentence to keep in your head is short: the power station is the lock-in, the panels are not.
Which brand for which house
| Your house | Buy |
|---|---|
| Apartment or rental, no yard, no panel access | Jackery HomePower 3000, panels included |
| Suburban house, gas furnace, outages under a day | Jackery HomePower 3000 |
| Cold climate, two-day-plus outages, or a medical device | Jackery HomePower 3600 Plus with expansion |
| Rural house on a well | Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus kit |
| Central AC in a climate where losing it is unsafe | Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus kit or Jackery 5000 Plus |
| Long outages, bright climate, want solar to keep up | EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra |
| Building your own 12V, RV, or cabin system | Rich Solar components, not a power station |
For sizing rather than brand-picking, our home backup buyer’s guide works from the load list up.
Who should ignore all three
A gas generator is still the right buy for some households, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
Buy gas if your outages run for a week with no useful sun, because no battery survives that without recharge and a gas generator runs as long as the fuel does. Buy gas if you need whole-house 240V on a budget of a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand, because that is a gap no battery closes. Buy gas if you already have safe outdoor space, stored fuel, and no objection to the noise.
Do not buy gas if the unit would live in an attached garage, because carbon monoxide from generators kills people in almost every major outage. Do not buy gas if nobody in the house is up to going outside at 2 a.m. in a storm to refill it.
Many households end up with both: the battery for the quiet overnight essentials, the gas generator held back for the rare long one.
▶ Buy our pick, the SOLIX F3800 Plus at $3,499.99 code CHADPENFOLD, 10% off
▶ No 240V loads? Get the HomePower 3000, panels included use code DEAL5
Keep reading: Best solar generators for home backup · EcoFlow vs Anker vs Jackery vs Rich Solar · Jackery HomePower 3000 vs 3600 Plus vs 5000 Plus · EcoFlow DELTA Pro Ultra vs Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus · Cheapest 240V home backup power