You're standing in front of three cooktops. From above they look almost the same - a flat rectangle of glass or steel, four or five circles, a row of controls along the front. Between them sits a few thousand dollars and, quite often, a visit from an electrician.
Most people arrive here the same way: mid-renovation with a hole in a benchtop, or standing over a unit that died last week. Either way the question gets framed as a cooking-style one. Do you want a flame you can see, or glass you can wipe?
That's the second question. The first is what your kitchen can already give the appliance - the part that rules options out before taste gets a say, and the part that arrives as a separate quote. Every brochure leads with the cooking. The wiring turns up later, in someone else's invoice.
This guide settles three things: which fuels your kitchen can take, what each is like to live with, and where the money goes.
Start with what your kitchen can already give it
Gas needs a gas connection. Newer Australian homes increasingly don't have one, and adding one is a plumbing job, not a cooktop decision. If there's no gas line, gas is out - that's the whole test.
Induction and ceramic need more electricity than a power point provides. This is the part that surprises people, so here are our own numbers rather than a rule of thumb. Of the induction cooktops we list that state a current draw, the median is 32 amps, and the full range runs 12 to 49 amps - every one of them above the 10 amps a standard Australian power point delivers. On power draw the picture matches: a median 7.4kW, which is about 31 amps at 240V.
Gas is the mirror image. 138 of the 140 gas cooktops we list run on a normal 10-amp plug - because a gas cooktop's electrical draw is the ignition and the controls, and nothing else.
So an induction or ceramic cooktop usually means a dedicated circuit run from your switchboard by a licensed electrician. Worth knowing: what that costs depends on your board and how far it sits from the kitchen, which is why we won't quote a figure. Get it quoted before you shortlist. If your board is full, it's the largest single number in the project, and it has nothing to do with which cooktop you liked.
A dual-fuel cooktop - gas burners and electric zones on one surface - needs both. There are 8 in our catalogue.
The three fuels, and what each is like to live with
Across the 429 cooktops we list: 214 induction (including around 10 with built-in venting), 140 gas, 67 ceramic, and 8 dual-fuel. That's the same split the cooktop quiz uses, so the numbers here match the screen it puts you on.
Induction puts an alternating magnetic field through the pan base and turns the pan itself into the heating element. Nothing heats the glass first - the glass gets warm only from the hot pan sitting on it. Two things follow. Heat arrives in the pan rather than in a plate that then has to heat the pan, so a boil starts sooner and a change in setting shows up immediately. And less of the heat ends up in the room, which matters more in an Australian February than the spec sheet suggests.
But consider: only ferrous cookware works. If a fridge magnet sticks firmly to the base of a pan, that pan will work. Most stainless and all cast iron pass; most plain aluminium and copper fail unless they have a bonded steel base. Check your pans before you commit, not after.
Gas gives you a flame you can read at a glance and a burner that works with every pan you own, including a round-bottomed wok. That last point isn't marketing: 126 of the models we list have a dedicated wok burner, and 121 of them are gas, running a median 15 MJ/h across the 101 that state an output. If wok cooking is central to how you eat, this is the honest reason to choose gas.
Ceramic is a radiant electric element under flat glass. It's the cheapest of the three to buy and the slowest to respond - the element has to heat up, then heat the glass, then heat the pan, and it runs that sequence backwards when you turn it down. But consider: the surface stays hot after switch-off, which is why 52 of the 67 ceramic models we list carry a residual-heat indicator. It's also the easiest swap into a cut-out that already holds an electric cooktop.
One daily difference the showroom skips: induction is touch-controlled (178 of 214 models), gas is knob-controlled (97 of 140). Touch glass wipes clean in one pass and needs a dry finger to work. Knobs come off for cleaning and work with wet hands. Neither is better. You'll use one of them several times a day for a decade.
Where the money goes
Median prices across the models we list that carry one - with the coverage stated, because it varies a lot by type:
- Induction: $2,990 (132 of 214 priced)
- Gas: $2,390 (73 of 140 priced)
- Ceramic: $1,745 - across only 18 priced models, so read it as an indication, not a benchmark
- Dual-fuel: $5,695 (6 of 8 priced)
Now the finding that moves more money than the fuel choice does. Width costs more than fuel.
Median price of the models we list at each width, with the number of priced models behind each figure. Ceramic's counts are thin - treat them as directional.
Going from 60cm to 90cm roughly doubles the median price of an induction cooktop and adds around $950 to a gas one. If budget is the binding constraint, width is the lever - a 60cm induction cooktop and a 90cm gas one land in the same money.
Vented induction sits on its own: 10 models, at a median $6,990 across the 8 that carry a price. That premium buys a cooktop and an extractor in one appliance - see the last section.
Size, zones, and the number your fabricator needs
The catalogue clusters hard at two widths: 162 models at 60cm and 125 at 90cm, with 46 at 30cm. Those 30cm units are "domino" modules built to sit side by side, and both fuels are there - 18 gas, 17 induction, 8 ceramic - so a bench with two gas burners beside two induction zones is a real configuration rather than a brochure idea.
Zone counts differ by fuel in a way that reflects how each is built. Induction peaks at four zones (108 of the 214 models we list); gas peaks at five (65 of 140).
Which brings up the spec worth more than the zone count. A flex zone bridges two elements into one long area, so a griddle plate or a fish pan gets even heat down its whole length instead of two hot spots. 128 of the models we list have at least one - every one induction or dual-fuel, none gas or ceramic. That isn't a market choice, it's the mechanism: flexing a zone means switching coils in software, and only induction has coils to switch. Brands name this differently on every spec sheet - bridging, linking, flex - and our catalogue records all three under one field so they stop pretending to be different things.
Pro tip
The nominal width is a rounded marketing figure. The cut-out dimensions are what your benchtop fabricator needs, and they're different from the appliance width on most models. The cut-out gets made before the cooktop is delivered, which is the wrong order to discover a mismatch in. Take the cut-out spec from the model's documentation, not the width from the product name.
Also worth checking early: flush installation, where the cooktop sits level with the benchtop instead of on top of it. 90 of the 214 induction models we list state they can be fitted that way. It's a fabrication decision, made with the benchtop, and it can't be added later.
What you can safely ignore
Zone count past four, on induction. A fifth small zone is worth less than one flex zone.
Wi-Fi. 72 of the 429 cooktops we list have it. A cooktop is an appliance you stand in front of, and there's no task a phone does better than the control already under your hand. If the model you want has it, fine. It isn't a reason to choose one.
Boost, on induction. 217 of the models we list carry a boost function - a baseline, not a differentiator. Treat it as present rather than as something you're paying for.
Branded zone names. Every manufacturer names its flexible-zone system something proprietary, and the spec sheets read as though these are different technologies. They're the same three behaviours: bridging two zones, linking their controls, detecting a pan across both. Find the behaviour you want and check for it directly.
Power-level counts. A cooktop with 17 power levels doesn't cook better than one with 9. You'll use three of them.
Extraction is part of this decision, not a later one
Every cooktop needs extraction above it, and the hood should be at least as wide as the cooktop under it. For gas, extraction carries more weight than it does for any other type, and it's worth being plain about why: combustion happens inside your kitchen. The Climate Council's 2021 report Kicking the Gas Habit: How Gas is Harming our Health attributes up to 12% of the childhood asthma burden in Australia to gas cooktops, and finds that ventilation - an extraction fan, or an open window - reduces that risk without eliminating it. If you choose gas, budget for a hood that vents outside and get into the habit of switching it on.
If your cooktop is going in an island with nothing overhead to hang a hood from, that's the problem vented induction solves: a downdraft extractor built into the middle of the surface, pulling steam down instead of up. Ten models, at the price named above.
Our rangehoods guide covers extraction rates, duct diameter, and the gap between a hood's loudest and quietest setting.
You now hold the two answers this decision turns on: which fuels your kitchen can take, and the width your bench allows. Everything after that - zones, flex, finish, controls - narrows a list rather than deciding one.
Take the cooktop quiz and it'll work through the rest against the 429 models we list, with the reasoning shown on every match.
If you want the wider view first, our cooktops buying guide covers the same specs alongside the full type breakdown.