Which litter to use

This is the cheapest mistake on the whole site to avoid. A twenty dollar bag of the wrong litter can jam a machine that cost you fifteen hundred, and the exclusions are in the manual rather than on the shelf.

Litter prices checked 5 September 2026

The types, and where each one fails

Clumping bentonite clay

The default, and the only type with no exclusions anywhere in our register. It clumps hard and fast, which is exactly what a sieve or a rake needs. The trade-offs are weight, dust, and the fact that it is strip-mined clay going to landfill. About $3.33 a kilogram at a national chain.

Tofu

Clumps well, is lighter, flushes in small amounts, and smells better to most people. It is also excluded by CATLINK outright and about 60 per cent more expensive per kilogram. Supported by PETKIT. If you want tofu, check the box first, because the box will not adapt.

Crystal and silica

Absorbs rather than clumps, which makes it wrong for every drum-style box and mandatory for the PetSafe ScoopFree, whose rake is built around it. Excellent odour control, no clump for a sieve to lift. This is a mechanism decision, not a preference.

Wood pellet and recycled paper

Both break down rather than clumping, and both are named exclusions on CATLINK. They are genuinely good litters in the right tray, especially the Australian-made wood pellet systems with a sifting base, but they do not belong in an automatic box.

What each type costs here

Zodiac Clumping Lavender at Petbarn, A$19.99 for a 6kg / 10L bag, is used as the clumping clay basis. It is a mid-market national-chain price, not the cheapest available and not a boutique one.

Grain size is the rule nobody states except PETKIT

PETKIT excludes anything longer than 12mm or wider than 3mm, whatever it is made of. That is the most useful compatibility rule in the category, because it tells you what to measure rather than what to trust. CATLINK gives a similar figure at 13mm. If your box publishes no size rule, assume fine grain is safer than coarse, because coarse grain is what jams sieves.

Before you switch litter

• Check the compatibility register for your exact model, not your brand.
• Change gradually, mixing the new litter in over a week or two. Cats reject abrupt substrate changes and a rejected box is a house-training problem.
• Keep the old litter until the new one has been through a full week of cycles without a jam.
• Never mix crystal into a clumping box or clumping into a crystal one. They defeat each other's mechanism.

Common questions

What litter should I use in an automatic litter box?

Fine-grain clumping bentonite clay, unless your box says otherwise. It is the one type every drum-style automatic sold in Australia supports, it forms the firm clump the sieve needs, and at about A$3.33 a kilogram it is roughly a third the price of tofu. The exceptions are the PetSafe ScoopFree, which requires crystal and works with nothing else, and PETKIT, which also accepts tofu.

Can I use tofu litter in a self-cleaning box?

Only if the manufacturer says so. PETKIT supports it. CATLINK excludes pure tofu and long-strip tofu by name and accepts only bentonite or a bentonite and tofu mix under 13mm. Whisker recommends clay clumping litter for the Litter-Robot 4. Tofu is also about 60 per cent more expensive per kilogram, so it costs more and works in fewer machines.

Why does litter type void a warranty?

Because the wrong litter physically damages the mechanism. Litter that absorbs rather than clumps leaves nothing for a sieve to lift, so waste stays in the bed and residue works into the moving parts. Wood pellets break down into sawdust. Both outcomes are foreseeable, so manufacturers exclude them and decline the resulting claims.

Is low-dust litter worth paying for?

For an automatic box, more than in a manual tray. A drum tumbling clay several times a day puts dust into the air in a way a cat scratching does not, and the box is often in a laundry or bathroom with poor ventilation. If anyone in the house has asthma, this is where the extra few dollars a bag goes furthest.