When It Comes to Carpet Cleaning, Should You Rent, Hire, or Buy?
Costs vary greatly between renting or buying a carpet cleaner, or hiring a cleaning service. Here are the pros and cons of each option.
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Whether you have just a few area rugs or a whole house full of carpeted rooms to clean, you’re facing the same question: Should you rent a carpet cleaner, buy one, or hire someone to do the job?
The answer depends on your budget and how much work you want to do—and in some cases, exactly how much carpet you have to clean.
Renting a Carpet Cleaner
Rug Doctor is a big name in carpet cleaner rentals, and Home Depot offers its machines for about $40 per day. That price applies to both Kansas City and New York City. Add in our bottle of Resolve carpet cleaning solution ($18.95) and you can clean your carpets for less than $60.
Total: $58.95 per cleaning
Hiring a Carpet-Cleaning Service
Hiring a service is where cost can differ greatly depending on where you live. We got price quotes from Stanley Steemer, a company that comes to your home with its own equipment to clean your carpets (and it can also clean other parts of your home, like upholstery, hardwood, and bathroom tile). It charges by the room for wall-to-wall carpet (with a set price for carpeted rooms up to 300 square feet each), but it has a separate pricing system for area rugs, which may require more specialized care. The minimum charge to hire its service varies from place to place: In Kansas City, the minimum is $125; in New York City, it’s $500.
That means you wouldn’t hire this service to clean a single carpet in your home—but because we’re looking at 1,140 square feet of carpet, including some area rugs, the quote for each location clears the minimum.
Total for Kansas City: $403 per cleaning
Total for New York City: $701 per cleaning
Buying a Carpet Cleaner
Although buying a carpet cleaner will cost you more up front than renting one, it will almost certainly be cheaper than hiring a service, especially since you’ll be able to use the appliance as often as you need. Our top-rated carpet cleaner, the Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus, costs about $240, and the Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced—also a strong performer and our fifth-highest-rated model—costs just $140. Both come with CR’s Recommended seal. Below are the totals you’ll spend for the initial cleaning session, including the cost of one bottle of cleaning solution. Of course, the per-cleaning price will drop each time you use the carpet cleaner.
Total for the Bissell ProHeat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus: $258.95 for the initial cleaning
Total for the Hoover PowerDash Pet Advanced: $158.95 for the initial cleaning
Best Carpet Cleaners
If you decide to buy a carpet cleaner, the good news is that there are excellent models at a range of prices. They come with a variety of extra tools to help clean specific things like furniture upholstery, pet messes, and hard-to-reach spaces.
The models below are some of the top performers in our lab tests, but you can see more options in our carpet cleaner ratings—and consult our buying guide for more information about how to choose the right carpet cleaner for your home.
BEST TIME TO BUY:
