Marcato Pasta Machines: Are They Worth the Price?

If you've been looking at pasta machines and noticed the price gap between a Marcato and a generic alternative, you're asking the right question. A cheap pasta machine costs £25 to £40. A Marcato Atlas+ costs considerably more. This article explains what that difference actually buys you, and which Marcato machine makes sense for your kitchen.

What you get with a cheap pasta machine

The £25 to £40 machines you'll find on Amazon or in homeware shops are typically made from chrome-plated steel. Chrome plating is a coating over a base metal, and once that coating wears or chips, the rollers are exposed to moisture and rust. The thickness settings on cheaper machines are often imprecise, meaning the gap between positions varies and your pasta sheets come out uneven. Most have no compatible accessories, so what you buy is all you ever get.

They work. For occasional use, some people are perfectly happy with them. But they're not built for regular use and they're not built to last.

What Marcato does differently

Marcato has been manufacturing pasta machines in Campodarsego, near Padova in northern Italy, since 1930. The rollers on every Marcato machine are made from food-grade anodised aluminium. That's the critical difference: the rollers are the parts that touch your dough, and anodised aluminium won't rust, won't chip, and won't release metal residues into the pasta. Anodising is a surface treatment that hardens the aluminium itself rather than coating it, so there's no plating to chip or wear away.

The manual Atlas+ models have no electronics to fail. The moving parts are the rollers, the thickness dial, and the crank. Maintained properly (kept dry, brushed clean, never washed under water), a Marcato machine gives no mechanical reason to stop working. Marcato backs every machine with a two-year warranty, and the brand's own parts and accessories remain compatible across the range.

Customers who've switched from other machines tend to notice the difference immediately. One Pasta Kitchen customer who'd owned an Imperia machine for over ten years wrote: "This Marcato feels even more solid and smooth than the Imperia. The rollers flatten and work the pasta really well." Another put it more directly: "Don't even look at cheaper alternatives."

Marcato vs cheap pasta machines: the key differences

Which Marcato machine is right for you?

Marcato makes several machines, and they're not all aimed at the same cook. Here's a straightforward guide to which suits what.

Atlas+ range: the right choice for most people

The Atlas+ is Marcato's core manual roller. It produces lasagne sheets, fettuccine, tagliolini and rounded spaghetti as standard, and accepts the full range of 13 cutting attachments for shapes including linguine, pappardelle, bigoli and more. It's available as a standalone manual machine, as the Atlasmotor+ with a built-in motor, or as the Multipast+ bundled with attachments. If you're new to pasta making or want one machine that covers most situations, start here.

Atlas Roller 150: for cooks who already own attachments

The Roller is the Atlas+ without the built-in cutters. It suits cooks who already own Marcato attachments from a previous machine, or who primarily make filled pasta and sheet pasta where cutting attachments aren't needed.

Atlas 180: for wider sheets

The Atlas 180 produces a 180mm sheet rather than the standard 150mm. That extra width is useful for larger lasagne, wider pappardelle, and certain filled pasta shapes. It's the same manual mechanism as the Atlas+, just broader. Not compatible with the standard 150mm cutting attachments.

Regina: for extruded pasta shapes

The Regina works differently from the Atlas range. Rather than rolling a sheet and cutting it, it extrudes dough through dies to produce rigatoni, fusilli, maccheroni, maccheroncini and bucatini. If you want those shapes, the Regina is the only way to make them properly at home. It doesn't replace the Atlas+, it complements it.

Pasta Fresca: mixing and sheeting in one

The Pasta Fresca combines an electric dough mixer with a pasta sheeting machine. It mixes the dough and feeds it through the rollers without manual cranking. The most convenient option if you make pasta regularly and want to reduce the hands-on time. The trade-off is that it's larger and less portable than the manual machines.

What about the Pastadrive motor?

If you already own an Atlas+ or Atlas Roller and want to add a motor later, the Pastadrive attaches via a bayonet fitting and frees both hands during rolling. It's a practical upgrade rather than a separate machine purchase.

Is making fresh pasta actually that much effort?

It's less work than most people expect. A basic egg dough takes around ten minutes to mix and rest, and once you're comfortable with the machine, rolling and cutting a portion of tagliatelle adds another ten to fifteen minutes. The process gets faster with practice, and most people find it becomes routine fairly quickly.

The learning curve is real but short. The first time you use a pasta machine the dough might tear, the thickness might be uneven, or the sheets might stick. By the third or fourth attempt most of those problems are solved. The Atlas+ in particular is forgiving because the roller tension is consistent and the thickness dial is precise, so you're not fighting the machine while you're still learning the dough.

Why bother making pasta at home at all?

Fresh pasta has a different texture to dried: softer, more porous, and better at holding sauce. It's not strictly better for every dish (a slow-cooked ragù often suits dried pasta more), but for dishes where the pasta itself is the focus, fresh makes a noticeable difference.

Making your own also means you control what goes in. No preservatives, no additives, and full flexibility over flour type, egg ratio, and flavourings. Spinach pasta, squid ink, semolina blends, buckwheat: none of that is possible with a packet. If you're not sure where to start, our fresh pasta dough guide covers the main dough types and when to use each. And for families with children, it's one of the more engaging things you can do in a kitchen together.

So is a Marcato worth the price?

For occasional use, a cheap machine might be enough. But if you plan to make pasta regularly, the material quality, precision, and accessory compatibility make the Marcato a more sensible long-term purchase. The machines are repairable, the parts are available, and the range has remained consistent enough that attachments bought years ago still fit current machines.

As one customer put it: "It's the most popular small pasta machine for a very good reason. It's simple to use and can produce excellent pasta, only limited by the operator's knowledge and technique."

Browse the full Marcato pasta machine range or go straight to the Atlas+ collection. If you want to expand what your machine can make, the full attachments range is also available separately.