What “multicooker with an air fryer” actually means
A true pressure-plus-crisp machine has two lids or one convertible lid: a sealing pressure lid to cook under steam, and a crisping lid with a high-heat convection element to brown and air-fry afterward. That combination is genuinely useful — you can pressure-cook chicken thighs until they fall apart and then crisp the skin in the same pot, no second appliance and no transferring hot food. One machine on this page does exactly that and can still be bought: the Instant Pot Duo Crisp. The Ninja Foodi OS300 did it too, by a different route, and is ranked below for the people who own one — but it is discontinued, as the section further down sets out. Before you buy either, it is worth knowing what the crisping lid actually is: air fryer vs convection oven explains why an air fryer is a small fan oven, and why the oven in your kitchen may already cover it.
The catch depends on the design. A two-lid machine like the Foodi leaves a big crisping lid that has to live somewhere while you pressure-cook. The Duo Crisp's single Ultimate Lid avoids that, but switching jobs means lifting out its protective pressure cooking cover first, and Instant Brands warns it will be hot. The combo is still the right buy if you are genuinely short a counter — just go in knowing how the switch works.
The wattage tells you the crisping is real
Both of these designs draw a lot: the Duo Crisp is rated 1,500 W and the Foodi was rated 1,460 W, the two highest-draw multicookers on this site. That is not a spec-sheet flourish — the air-fry element is a real high-heat convection heater doing real work, and it needs the power. The upside is a proper crisp finish; the downside is that these are the most expensive multicookers here to run per minute. Each card shows the running-cost math at the US average rate so you can weigh it.
Duo Crisp vs Ninja Foodi: the one caveat
On capability the two are close — both pressure-cook and both crisp to a genuine high heat. The deciding factor is no longer a close call: the Ninja Foodi OS300 is discontinued. Its last Amazon listing was a certified-renewed unit and even that no longer has a buyable offer. Neither Ninja pressure cooker Amazon still stocks — the HyperHeat and the PossibleCooker PRO — crisps at all, and the one-lid Foodi SmartLid machines Ninja sells in the OS300's place are listed on Ninja's own site but not stocked on Amazon, so we have no live listing to rank. That leaves the Duo Crisp as the only machine here that pressure-cooks and air-fries and still ships new with a full manufacturer warranty. We have left the Foodi ranked below because plenty of people own one and the comparison is still worth reading — see our full Instant Pot vs Ninja Foodi comparison for the head-to-head.
The third way: crisp in the oven, not under a lid
The Ninja PossibleCooker PROis the odd one out and deliberately so. It has no air-fry lid — instead its 8.5-quart pot is oven-safe to 500°F, so you sear and slow-cook on the counter and then slide the whole pot under the broiler to brown. It is not a pressure cooker and it does not air-fry in the strict sense, but for big-batch cooking where you want a browned finish and do not need speed, it is a genuinely different and honest answer. It is here so you know the option exists, not because it competes head-on with the two combo lids.
Should you buy the combo at all?
Buy a combo if you are short a counter and would otherwise own both a pressure cooker and a separate air fryer. Skip it if you already own an air fryer you like — the combo's entire premium is putting both jobs in one box, and if crisping is already handled, a plain Instant Pot Pro does the pressure half better for less. Read our full Duo Crisp review before you commit.
Before you buy a combo at all
A combo lid is worth real money only if you actually want both jobs, and the two are less interchangeable than the marketing suggests: pressure cooking is sealed and wet, air frying is open and dry, and neither can do the other's work. If you are not yet sure which one your cooking needs, Instant Pot vs air fryer settles that question first — and may save you the combo premium.
How we ranked the combos
We scored these on the same five documented metrics as the rest of the site, with two combo-specific emphases: whether the crisping is a real high-heat element (reflected in the published wattage) and whether the exact SKU ships new with a warranty. We did not test the crisp itself — we do not cook in these machines and say so on every page— so what you get here is the documented specification, the availability reality, and the trade-off math, not a “we fried twenty batches of fries” claim we cannot back up.
How we picked
Machines we claim to have tested: 0
Everyone in this category tells you they tested twenty cookers. We have tested none, and we say so. Here is what we do instead: read the manufacturer's manual and spec page, record the published wattage, capacity, pressure or temperature figure and warranty term, work out what the machine costs to run per hour, show the arithmetic so you can redo it with your own electricity rate, and cite all of it. Where a brand publishes no wattage, we print no running cost rather than borrowing a number from a similar model. Prices come live from Amazon's API and disappear rather than go stale.
The scores above are judgments from that documented research — not test results. One of the five metrics is Documentation: whether the manufacturer will tell you what its cooker draws at all. The full rubric, including what disqualifies a pick, is published in full.
