If you’ve ever winced at the idea of leaving your phone charger behind in a hotel room, IKEA just gave you permission to relax a little. The company’s new Sjöss 20W USB-C wall charger costs just $3.99 in the US, undercutting both Apple and Anker while still hitting the same 20W fast‑charge sweet spot that’s become the default for modern smartphones.​

This is IKEA doing what IKEA does best: quietly attacking a boring but universal pain point with something that’s aggressively cheap, just nice enough, and easy to throw into a blue bag along with your flat‑pack shelves. The Sjöss 20W is the third entry in the Sjöss lineup, following an $7.99 30W brick and a $24.99 65W option, but this is the one that feels designed to become the family’s “we have ten of these lying around” charger.​

On paper, it ticks most of the boxes you actually care about. It’s a single‑port USB‑C adapter rated for up to 20W, supporting Power Delivery (PD), which means it can fast‑charge recent iPhones and most Android phones at the speeds they expect. IKEA’s own technical sheet lists outputs up to 3A at 5V and 20W at 9V, 12V, and even 15V, which is overkill for phones but handy for small gadgets that speak PD. In practice, this is the class of charger that can take an iPhone from nearly empty to roughly half a battery in around half an hour when paired with a decent cable, putting it in the same performance bracket as the more expensive Apple and Anker options it’s undercutting.​

Where IKEA’s brick really swings is price. Apple still sells its 20W USB‑C Power Adapter for about $19 in the US, while Anker’s 20W Nano Pro hovers in the $12 range in the US. IKEA, meanwhile, strolls in at $3.99 and calls it a day. That’s not a small discount; it’s the difference between “I’ll think about it” and “I’ll grab two, just in case.”​

Of course, there’s a catch, and it’s one frequent travelers will notice immediately: size and weight. Apple’s 20W adapter is already relatively compact for a basic cube‑style charger, and Anker’s Nano Pro is almost comically tiny, designed to disappear in a pocket or the corner of a sling bag. IKEA’s Sjöss 20W, by comparison, is physically larger and about 26 grams heavier than Anker’s version, so it’s not the obvious choice if every gram in your carry‑on counts. This is very much a “throw it in the kitchen drawer, leave it by the hallway console, or keep one in every bedroom” kind of charger rather than an ultralight travel flex.​

The aesthetic is also very IKEA. You don’t get the clean white Apple cube or a toothpaste‑colored Anker line‑up; you get one light green color option and that’s it. But in a slightly quirky twist, IKEA includes a small sticker sheet with six colored stickers so you can personalize each charger or at least keep track of which one belongs to which family member. It’s a minor extra, but it fits right into IKEA’s “make everyday stuff a bit more playful” design language and might actually solve a real problem in homes where chargers go missing as quickly as socks.​

Functionally, the Sjöss 20W hits the essentials. It’s a universal‑voltage brick rated for 100–240V at 50/60Hz, so it’ll work fine with plug adapters when you travel abroad, and it operates in the usual 5 to 35 degrees Celsius temperature range. IKEA explicitly calls out PD compatibility on product pages in markets like Finland and Canada, pitching it as suitable for smartphones, portable lamps, and other small electronics that need a fairly quick top‑up but not a full laptop‑class power supply.​

You do not get a USB‑C cable in the box, which is increasingly standard practice in this price range, especially when manufacturers expect you to already be drowning in cables from phones and accessories. It’s worth remembering, though, that the cable still matters; IKEA itself notes that cable length and quality influence charging speed, so pairing a $4 charger with a random, half‑broken cable from the bottom of a drawer is still a recipe for frustration.​

The bigger question lurking behind a 4‑dollar charger is whether you should trust it. Cheap no‑name bricks are everywhere on Amazon and in local markets, often with wildly optimistic wattage claims and questionable safety testing. Brand‑name chargers from Apple or Anker cost more partly because you are paying for R&D, better components, and safety certifications that cover things like over‑current, over‑voltage, and thermal protection. IKEA sits in an interesting middle ground here: it is a global, tightly regulated retail brand with a reputation to protect, and its electronics have to meet safety standards in every market where it sells them. Product documentation lists clear electrical specs, temperature ranges, and use cases, and IKEA has long experience shipping other powered gear, from smart bulbs to wireless chargers. It’s not a reason to blindly trust anything with a low sticker price, but it does make a $4 adapter feel a lot less like a gamble than the random chargers in a gas‑station bin.​

What this really shows is how commoditized 20W charging has become. A few years ago, 18W or 20W USB‑C bricks were sold as “fast chargers” at premium prices, bundled with flagship phones and marketed as a key feature. Now, the same performance sits in a $4 wall wart you can pick up while buying a lamp or a colander. Apple, for its part, hasn’t budged much on pricing for its basic adapter, and it knows a segment of users will happily pay for the logo, the compact design, and the comfort of staying fully inside the ecosystem. Anker, meanwhile, continues to differentiate with size, multi‑port options, and GaN tech, targeting frequent travelers and power users willing to pay more for something ultra‑compact or multi‑device. IKEA is not trying to win those battles; it is going for ubiquity.​

In a typical household, that ubiquity matters more than shaving off 20 grams or an extra cubic centimeter of plastic. One charger lives permanently behind the couch for topping up a tablet; another is parked near the front door for a last‑minute hit of battery before a commute; a third stays in a backpack full‑time. At $3.99, you no longer need a spreadsheet to track who “really” owns which charger or negotiate over who stole the bedroom brick. And if one does disappear into the black hole of an Airbnb nightstand, replacing it doesn’t sting the way losing a $20 charger does.​

There are still reasons to pick Apple or Anker, especially if you care about ultra‑small chargers, folding prongs, or multi‑port blocks that can handle a phone, tablet, and laptop from a single outlet. But for a lot of people, the math is simple: one Apple charger or four IKEA chargers that all hit roughly the same 20W headline number. For anyone building out a home full of USB‑C devices in 2026, that’s a very IKEA kind of calculation – not glamorous, not spec‑obsessed, but deeply practical.