Some links on our site may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.
Updated September 2026: Every price, BTU rating, cooking area, and warranty term below is re-verified against each maker’s own current product page. Propane cost-per-hour uses the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s most recent published national average alongside current 20-pound exchange-tank pricing, since backyard grillers rarely buy propane the way the EIA measures it.
The direct answer: the cheapest grill here, Char-Broil’s $299 Performance Series 4-Burner, has more cooking area than the $499 Weber Spirit E-325. Price and capacity don’t move together in this lineup, and neither does price and BTU output. Three brands, four grills, one $299-to-$1,949 spread — the Ledger below scores what that money actually buys, not what the box promises.
Char-Broil Doesn’t Sell a “Performance 475” Anymore
“Performance 475” is a name that circulates widely in grill comparisons and forum threads — a 4-burner, 40,000-BTU model with a side burner. Char-Broil’s current site doesn’t carry that name or that spec sheet. The Performance Series 4-Burner lineup sold today runs a different number: 32,000 BTU on the base cart model (463351125, $299), climbing to 40,000 BTU only on the pricier FlavorMax cabinet variants with a side burner ($399). The 475 name is gone; the closest current match is a different machine at a different price.
That kind of renaming is common enough in this category that it’s worth checking before you shop, not after: a model number or nickname that shows up in an old review can simply stop being sold. Char-Broil’s own site is the record here, and as of this update it lists the base cart grill at $299 with 435 square inches of primary cooking area (565 total with the warming rack) and a 1-year overall warranty.
The Ledger: Five Weighted Axes for Four Grills
Cooking area and running cost matter more than sticker price alone, so they carry real weight below — but warranty depth gets the most, because a grill’s cookbox is the part that actually determines how long you own it.
| Axis (weight) | Weber Spirit E-325 | Char-Broil Performance 4-Burner | Weber Genesis E-335 | Napoleon Prestige 500 RSIB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warranty depth (25) — years and parts actually covered, per each maker’s own warranty page | 18/25 — 10 yrs cookbox/burners (paint only 2 yrs), 5 yrs grates, 2 yrs everything else | 8/25 — 1 yr overall and on grates, 2 yrs lid, 5 yrs burners only | 22/25 — 12 yrs cookbox/lid, 10 yrs burners/grates/flavorizer bars, 5 yrs remaining parts | 21/25 — “Lifetime” on hood, lid, grids and tube burners, but sear plates, infrared burners and “all other parts” drop to 15 yrs and electronics to 3 yrs, with corrosion and discoloration excluded outright |
| Cooking area per dollar (25) — total sq in ÷ price | 13/25 — 450 sq in / $499 = 0.90 sq in per $1 | 25/25 — 565 sq in / $299 = 1.89 sq in per $1, the best in the field | 10/25 — 513 sq in (primary; Weber’s own page lists no separate total) / $1,249 = 0.41 sq in per $1 | 7/25 — 900 sq in / $1,949 = 0.46 sq in per $1 |
| BTU per dollar (20) — rated heat output ÷ price | 15/20 — 31,000 BTU / $499 = 62 BTU per $1 | 20/20 — 32,000 BTU / $299 = 107 BTU per $1, cheapest heat in the lineup | 10/20 — 64,000 BTU (all burners) / $1,249 = 51 BTU per $1 | 8/20 — 82,000 BTU / $1,949 = 42 BTU per $1 |
| Propane running cost (15) — cost per hour at full burn, exchange-tank pricing | 13/15 — about $1.92/hr on the main burners | 13/15 — about $1.98/hr | 8/15 — about $2.41/hr on mains alone, $3.95/hr with the sear and side burners lit | 5/15 — about $5.07/hr with the infrared side and rear burners running |
| Claim discipline (15) — does the published spec sheet match what a buyer can verify | 13/15 — specs match Weber’s own current listing exactly | 6/15 — the “475” name and its 40,000-BTU spec no longer match any current SKU | 13/15 — specs match, though the site doesn’t publish a total cooking-area figure the way competitors do | 12/15 — specs match, but “Lifetime Limited Warranty” as a headline undersells how much of the grill actually drops to 15 or 3 years |
| Total | 72 | 72 | 63 | 53 |
Weber Spirit and Char-Broil’s Performance 4-Burner tie at 72. Disagree with a weight? The inputs are all above — cut warranty to 15 and hand the difference to cooking area, and Char-Broil pulls ahead outright. Raise warranty to 30 and Weber’s Genesis closes most of the gap. Re-run it with your own priorities.
Cooking Area Doesn’t Track Price the Way You’d Expect
Here’s the arithmetic in one place, main-burner BTU only (sear and side burners excluded, since they’re not always lit), against each maker’s own currently published spec.
| Grill | Price | Total Cooking Area | Area per Dollar | Main Burners, BTU | BTU per Dollar, Mains Only |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Char-Broil Performance 4-Burner | $299 | 565 sq in | 1.89 sq in | 32,000 | 107 BTU |
| Weber Spirit E-325 | $499 | 450 sq in | 0.90 sq in | 31,000 | 62 BTU |
| Weber Genesis E-335 | $1,249 | 513 sq in* | 0.41 sq in | 39,000 | 31 BTU |
| Napoleon Prestige 500 RSIB | $1,949 | 900 sq in | 0.46 sq in | 82,000† | 42 BTU |
*Weber’s own product page for the E-335 lists only a primary cooking area, not a combined total with the warming rack the way Char-Broil and Napoleon do. A similarly named “E-335s” variant sold by some retailers lists 787 square inches — that’s a different SKU with a larger sear zone and prep table, not the plain E-335 priced here. Compare model numbers, not just names. †Napoleon doesn’t break out a mains-only figure the way Weber and Char-Broil do; 82,000 BTU is the grill’s full rated output including the infrared side and rear burners, so its per-dollar figure isn’t strictly apples-to-apples with the other three’s mains-only numbers — if anything, that makes its BTU-per-dollar look better here than a mains-only figure would.
The $1,650 that separates the cheapest grill from the most expensive buys 50,000 more BTU of rated heat and 335 more square inches of cooking area between the extremes — but not proportionally, and not on the axis most buyers assume. Napoleon’s price climbs mostly on burner count, infrared technology, and stainless construction, not on cooking area or heat-per-dollar. If capacity and running cost are what you’re buying, the Char-Broil and the Weber Spirit are doing more with less money than the two grills above them.
What “Lifetime” Actually Covers on the Napoleon
Napoleon markets the Prestige 500 RSIB with a “Lifetime Limited Warranty,” and on paper it’s the strongest single word in this comparison. Read the warranty document itself and the picture is more layered. Lifetime coverage applies to the hood, stainless lid, porcelain-enamel lid, aluminum castings, stainless cooking grids, and stainless tube burners. Sear plates, the infrared rotisserie burner, and the infrared side/rear burners drop to 15 years, as does the catch-all “all other parts.” Electrical components get 3 years — the same ceiling Weber puts on its own electronics. And the warranty explicitly excludes “scratches, dents, corrosion, deterioration of painted and plated finishes, discoloration caused by heat” and UV exposure. None of that makes “Lifetime” false. It does mean the headline word covers roughly half the grill, and the other half runs on ordinary consumer-appliance terms.
Weber doesn’t use the word “lifetime” at all, and its own numbers turn out to be close: 12 years on the Genesis cookbox and lid, 10 years on burner tubes, grates, and Flavorizer bars, 5 years on whatever’s left, 3 years on electronics. Framed as a headline claim, Napoleon wins. Framed as a components table, the two are within a few years of each other almost everywhere that matters.
The Tank You’re Actually Buying Propane From
The propane math above assumes exchange-tank pricing, not the EIA’s residential bulk-delivery rate most propane cost calculators quote. That distinction matters: most backyard grillers refill by swapping a 20-pound tank at a hardware store or gas station for $17 to $25, and exchange programs commonly fill those tanks to about 15 pounds, not the full 20 — a detail printed in the fine print of the exchange terms, not on the cage the tanks sit in. Fifteen pounds of propane is roughly 3.5 gallons; at $20 a swap, that works out to about $5.65 a gallon, more than double the EIA’s most recent published national residential average of $2.67 (week ending March 30, 2026, the agency’s last release before its seasonal pause). Buying a refill tank instead of swapping, where available, is usually the cheaper way to get a full 20 pounds. The hourly costs in the Ledger use the $5.65 exchange-tank rate, since it’s what most of this comparison’s readers are actually paying at the register.
Skip Each of These If
Skip the Weber Spirit if cooking area matters more to you than the Weber badge — the Char-Broil beats it on space and BTU-per-dollar at $200 less. Skip the Char-Broil if you want a grill you’re not thinking about replacing burner-by-burner in year two; a 1-year overall warranty and 1-year grates are the shortest terms here by a wide margin. Skip the Weber Genesis if raw capacity per dollar is the deciding factor — its 513 square inches cost more per square inch than any grill in this comparison except the Napoleon. Skip the Napoleon if $1,949 is simply more than this decision is worth to you, or if “Lifetime Limited Warranty” was doing more work in your head than it does on the actual coverage sheet.
The Tie-Breaker: Char-Broil, Unless the Cookbox Matters More Than the Price
Weber Spirit and Char-Broil tied the Ledger at 72, and a tie this close comes down to what you value that the tally can’t fully weigh. If this is Nate’s money: the Char-Broil. More cooking area, cheaper heat, and a $200 saving that buys most of a season’s worth of propane on top. The 1-year warranty is real and it’s the honest tradeoff for that price — but a grill used a few dozen times a year and covered, kept dry, and not abused tends to outlive a 1-year clock anyway. Where that calculus flips: if you grill often enough that burner and grate longevity actually gets tested, Weber’s 10-year burner-tube coverage on the Spirit, or Genesis if the budget stretches, is worth the premium. And if 900 square inches of cooking space for a crowd is the actual requirement, no amount of Ledger math changes that only the Napoleon delivers it.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
Cooking on this much grill needs a real thermometer, not a guess — see our meat thermometer comparison. Prefer a flat-top over grates? We ran the same kind of cost math on flat-top griddles. More in our Beach & Backyard category.
