"elv1s: 30 #1 hits" received mostly favorable reviews from music critics. stephen thomas erlewine of allmusic felt that even though the album was very good, that it still lacked a lot of good material and that several factors were working against it, such as the number of hits elvis had and the songs that didn't make it to no. 1. david browne of "entertainment weekly" felt that the album did succeed in its purpose, but not all of the songs on the collection had enough "quality". darryl sterdan of jam! canoe predicted that the album would not do as well as the beatles' "1" because almost all of the songs can be found on other collections and it is missing several definitive songs. robert christgau gave the album his highest rating out of all of elvis' albums that he's reviewed and felt that the album showed that his life was "a continuous whole". parke puterbaugh, on his "rolling stone" review of the album, gave the album five out of five stars and felt that the recordings had improved sound quality.