Best Pontoon Boat Battery

There are pontoon boats being sold today with twin 300-horsepower outboard engines, massive entertainment systems, fish finders, trolling motors and power poles. What do they have in common with pontoon boats being sold with 30-horsepower outboard engines? Not much beyond the general boat design. So how can anyone on the Internet give you a credible list of "best batteries for your pontoon boat?"

The truthful answer is they cannot tell you what the best battery is for your pontoon boat, unless they know what kind of of boat you have, what kind of engine is on it, what kind of accessories you have, what space is available for the battery and how you use your pontoon boat. That won't stop many sites from offering you lists of what they claim are "the best pontoon boat batteries," but those lists are often based on what the top-selling batteries are on affiliate partner websites and nothing else. Click on the link and buy from that site and they get a commission, whether it's the right battery for your pontoon boat or not. Don't fall into that trap. Instead, read on and we'll explain your options

OPTIMA offers four different BLUETOP AGM marine batteries and two different ORANGETOP lithium marine batteries, with each serving a difference purpose. Since we don't know what kind of pontoon boat you have or how you use it, we'll give you some general guidelines that will help you select the best battery for your pontoon boat.

The  OPTIMA 34M BLUETOP battery is our smallest, least expensive pontoon boat battery and it offers 1000 Marine Cranking Amps (MCA). The first thing you should do when selecting a pontoon boat battery is find out what the marine cranking amp requirements are for the engine (or engines) on your pontoon boat. A battery with 1000 MCA will have no trouble starting most boat engines, but that shouldn't be your only consideration. Some engine manufacturers require the use of AGM batteries. Is that the case for your engine? Do you run a large stereo on your pontoon boat or fishing equipment, like sonar or power poles? If so, you'd want a battery designed for both starting and deep-cycle use. the OPTIMA 34M BLUETOP is only designed for starting, so if you just use your pontoon boat for cruising around the lake or river, it should work just fine.

If you need a pontoon boat battery that can start your engine and run significant electrical accessories, then you'd want an OPTIMA battery with a light gray case, which we offer in three sizes (smallest to largest) D34M, D27M and  D31M. The  D34M BLUETOP is only rated at 870 MCAs, but it has more reserve capacity (55Ah) than the 34M, which offers 50Ah and is not designed for deep-cycle use. That battery may work fine for smaller outboards (less than 100 horsepower) that have some deep-cycle usage, but if you have a larger engine or more electrical demands on your pontoon boat, you should look at one of our larger batteries.

Our next largest battery after the D34M BLUETOP is the D27M BLUETOP, which is a 66Ah battery that offers 1000MCAs. Remember, as you look at these larger batteries, make sure your battery storage area is large enough to hold physically larger batteries. 

The largest, most powerful AGM pontoon boat battery OPTIMA offers is the D31M BLUETOP, rated at 75Ah and 1125MCAs. From a weight perspective, the D31M weighs in at just under 60 pounds, which is a lot more than our lightest 34M BLUETOP, that weighs just 38.4 pounds, but it does offer more cranking power and more reserve capacity to run your accessories.

What About Lithium?

OPTIMA also offers two different lithium marine batteries, the Q31M-DC150, which is only designed & warrantied for deep-cycle use, but 150Ah in a Group 31-sized case that weighs in at just 38.4 pounds and the Q31M-DP120, which offers 1200A of cranking power for 10 seconds (that's a lot), 120Ah and weighs in at 43.2 pounds in a Group 31-sized case. The Q31M-DP120 is a dual purpose battery, so it can be used for both starting or deep-cycle use.

So which battery is right for your pontoon boat? Start by measuring the space you have available. From there, if weight isn't a concern, we recommend going with the largest battery you can fit in your space available. The reason is because the shallower you discharge any lead-acid battery, the more cycles you'll get out of it. That means you could use a D34M BLUETOP on a given pontoon boat and may discharge it down to 40% capacity on a regular basis. If you used a D31M BLUETOP on that same pontoon boat, you may only discharge it down to 80% capacity on a regular basis and you'll get far longer life out of that battery.
If weight is a concern or price is no object, an ORANGETOP may be on your radar. Both of those batteries come at a significantly higher price tag than any of our BLUETOP offerings, but they do offer significantly more power with less weight and a significantly longer lifespan than our BLUETOP batteries. If you plan on holding onto your boat for a while or you have significant electrical demands, like overnight camping or just keeping everyone jamming on the sandbar, then an ORANGETOP may be your best option.

If that's beyond your needs or budget and you go with a BLUETOP, you can still expect it will last up to three times as long as a traditional flooded lead-acid battery. You can ensure maximum battery performance and lifespan, by keeping your pontoon boat battery fully charged whenever possible with a  quality battery maintenance device. For the OPTIMA 34M BLUETOP, that means about 12.6-12.8 volts. For all the other OPTIMA BLUETOP pontoon boat batteries, that means about 13.0-13.2 volts. For the ORANGETOPs, you'll see fully charged voltage levels at 14.0 volts. Plug it in as soon as you come off the water and leave it plugged in until you head out again, just in case you left an accessory on, that might otherwise discharge your battery.