I’ve never bought DEWALT-branded batteries as standalone purchases. Every genuine DEWALT battery I own came bundled in a tool-and-battery combo that was simply too good to pass up.
Any additional batteries I’ve needed over the years have been aftermarket or “knockoff” 20V MAX batteries. My first set cost about $80 for four batteries, and they were put to work hard — day in and day out — in construction and heavy-duty mechanical work.
Those batteries ran reliably for around four years before they started to slowly fail by no longer taking a charge. Even then, more than five years later, I still have one original battery that continues to work without issue.
Out of curiosity, I eventually cracked the failed batteries open to see what went wrong. In most cases, only one or two cells had completely failed, so I combined good cells from multiple packs to give one battery a second life. That cobbled-together pack is still going strong today.
Aftermarket batteries come from many different manufacturers, and I’m sure some are better than others. That said, I’ve purchased multiple sets over the years and have not had any major issues.
The batteries listed in this post are, at the time of writing, the ones I would personally buy again. As always, do your own research and choose what makes the most sense for your budget and workload.
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