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Remove stubborn stains and dirt from your carpet with these miracle-working machines Sludge Centrifuge
This article was updated in April to bring you all the latest prices and deals.
While a vacuum cleaner will get rid of everyday dust and dirt from your home, the best carpet cleaners promise to do so much more.
There are some stains and marks a regular vacuum simply can't handle, and although steam cleaners can refresh your carpets, you'll need a dedicated carpet cleaner to eliminate tough stains and banish persistent smells.
At the Good Housekeeping Institute, we’ve tested a huge range of carpet cleaners to find our top performers. Here's an at-a-glance list of our winners, but discover why we loved them below.
If you’re replacing an existing carpet cleaner, there are plenty of places for you to safely recycle your old one. Find your nearest electrical recycling point, or read our guide on how to donate or dispose of your appliances and tech for extra guidance.
Carpet cleaners use a combination of water, detergent and powerful brush heads to reach deep into fibres, lifting away grime and ground-in dirt. In many cases, they also restore carpet, leaving it looking refreshed and almost like new.
The key to their stain-removal skills is their clean and dirty tanks. The water and detergent mix is stored in the clean tank; then, when you pull the trigger, this solution is sprayed onto the carpet, before being sucked back into the dirty water tank (along with any grime and mud).
Many of the models we tested proved to be versatile bits of kit, also boasting hard floor, upholstery, and even stair-cleaning capabilities.
While they may look similar, carpet cleaners and spot cleaners are designed to tackle different cleaning tasks.
The best spot cleaners are smaller, more portable machines, which target specific, more localised stains and spills around the home. Typically, they have a precision nozzle that focuses their cleaning power on stubborn patches of dirt, so they won’t be as effective at cleaning a whole room’s worth of carpet. That's what carpet cleaners do best.
Yes, to make things even more confusing, you can also clean your carpets with a steam cleaner. As the name suggests, these machines use steam rather than detergent to clean; the high temperatures help fight bacteria and other germs that can be embedded into carpets and soft furnishings.
While they’re less effective at stain removal, they also help to loosen dirt, which can then be vacuumed up.
Shop our round-up of the best steam cleaners here.
Our experts at the GHI recommend you deep clean all your carpets once a year. But if you have allergies or pets, deep clean once every six months.
If a stain appears on your carpet – especially ones such as wine, mustard or curry – treat it immediately.
When testing carpet cleaners at the GHI, we begin by assessing how easy the machine is to assemble and whether the water tanks are accessible for filling.
We then get down to business. We tread mud into the floor and spill common stains such as tea and wine, leaving them to set in before seeing how many passes are needed for the cleaner to banish any signs of spills.
If the carpet cleaner works on hard flooring, we test it there too, and if it has an upholstery attachment, we also put that to work. For any carpet cleaners that vacuum, they are assessed on their ability to pick up dust and crumbs, and how well they reach under furniture.
Finally, we assess whether the floor is sodden, damp or completely dry after use and – obviously – whether our carpets are left looking fresh and stain-free.
Easily gliding over carpets and tackling most common stains with ease, this Shark carpet cleaner was a truly satisfying appliance to test. In fact, our expert found it difficult to find fault, as it effectively lifted black coffee stains and only a faint tea mark was left after the drink had been sitting there for 24 hours. Notoriously tricky red wine stains proved difficult to remove completely, but this model fared better than any others we tested.
If we’re being picky, it was slightly on the heavy side, meaning it could be difficult to carry upstairs. You also have to wait a couple of seconds for it to turn off once you’ve pressed the button. This aside, it’s hard not to be impressed by this first-rate cleaner.
Designed with simplicity in mind, our testers praised this Vax’s sturdy build, pops of colour, and handy clips that keep the cable tidy when in storage. As you push the cleaner forward, motion sense technology automatically releases detergent, before drying as it’s pulled backwards, leaving our carpets looking clean, restored and lifted.
Both tea and general dirt was removed effectively – even after being left for 24 hours. Initially we had to scrub to banish trod-in mud, but when our experts used the accompanying ‘SpinScrub Hand Tool’, the cleaner dealt with it easily. Its immediate stain removal performance was impressive, too – leaving great results and just mildly damp carpets.
Here’s a machine you can use throughout your home. On test, our carpet was left almost sparkling, with just the slightest remnants of mud remaining. Most staining was banished from our hard flooring too. The machine's ‘Deep Clean’ setting left carpet fairly wet though, so we recommend sticking with the quick clean mode unless you need to take care of heavy soiling or plan to head out for a few hours after use.
While this cleaner looks heavy, we didn’t find it too cumbersome to move about or carry up the stairs. It comes with a great selection of attachments too – including a helpful crevice tool that easily reaches into tricky corners – and a bottle of cleaning fluid. These can’t be stored onboard, but a drawstring bag is included.
It took this large carpet cleaner just two minutes to rid our test carpets of mud and tea stains when we tackled them immediately, and its performance after 24 hours wasn’t that different either. We used the same Pro Stain and Odour mixture on both tests, and it left the carpet strong and vibrant, with zero colour fade – our tester’s only complaint was that it was damper than they would have liked.
The upholstery and stair attachments were useful, too, although they required a bit more elbow grease. Our upholstery also took a while to dry but these niggles aside, it’s a reliable buy.
This is similar to the Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet Pro above, but without the pet tools and modes. And like its counterpart, it made quick work of most cleaning tasks. It glides easily over carpet, distributing water and detergent evenly over the floor and lifting the pile well. On our immediate stain removal tests, it shifted mud, tea, and dust with ease, and our carpet emerged damp rather than wet.
When cleaning upholstery, we liked the power behind the three-in-one spot cleaner attachment, which lifted tea stains efficiently. It didn’t leave the surface as dry as we’d have hoped, and the water tank leaked a tad when the cleaner was upright. But it has well-labelled, responsive controls, and comes with a great selection of tools.
Another hit from Vax, this carpet cleaner performed well across all our carpet tests. Using the deep clean mode and alternating between rinse and wash settings, you could visibly see the dirt being lifted from the carpet – something our testers loved.
This model shone when it came to the upholstery tests, too. With its designated tool, cleaning tea stains was a breeze, and its drying abilities were “quite remarkable”.
It wasn’t the quickest on hard floors though, and it's quite heavy. But it's a stand-out buy for refreshing carpets and interiors.
You won’t get fancy extras like an upholstery attachment, automatic detergent mixing or a spot-cleaning attachment with this affordable carpet cleaner, but it certainly keeps flooring fresh. It effortlessly lifted dirt, stains and odours from our carpets, leaving them pristine and only slightly damp. It aced the hard floor cleaning test too, achieving a perfect score and leaving the surface clean and dry.
Our testers also found it simple to use thanks to comprehensive instructions. It’s not the quietest carpet cleaner we’ve ever tested but given you won’t be rolling it out too often, we wouldn’t let that put you off if you’re after a value buy.
If muddy paw prints or footprints are a constant battle in your home, let us introduce you to the Vax Platinum SmartWash. It shone when it came to removing mud stains, whisking them away in just one minute. Its upholstery attachment made eradicating tea stains fuss-free too.
Testers liked how smoothly it moved and it’s one of the lighter Vax cleaners we’ve tried (although it does still weigh over seven kilograms). It can’t be used on hard floors and there was no fill line on the water tank but otherwise, this is a strong cleaning companion.
Using steam to help banish dust and germs, this is another fantastic offering from Bissell. It removed mud effortlessly, without the need for excessive scrubbing, and it was a similar story with tea stains. Even after leaving the stains for 24 hours, the results were largely unchanged. Our testers were impressed with how the cleaner refreshed the carpet pile too. It looked sparkling – just how we like it.
It faltered a little when it came to upholstery cleaning, however. While our surface was mostly stain-free, there was slight discolouration, and it was damper than we’d have liked. But if you stick to flooring (which is its main purpose, after all), then this is a sturdy appliance with a great selection of tools.
For an effortless deep clean, you can’t do much better than this Vax. The size and depth of its brush head allowed it to reach a large area in one swoop, and we were impressed with its cleaning power. Scrubbing wasn’t required for immediate stain removal, but after 24 hours, the tea stain took extra elbow grease. In the end, all traces of dirt were removed from both carpet and upholstery on test.
Its large tank capacity allows for longer use without the need of emptying, but its bulky design means some may struggle taking it up stairs. Overall, though, it was easy to assemble and while our surfaces were left slightly damp after use, the cleaning fluid didn’t affect the colour of our carpets. We found it smelt pleasant too; granted, that’s not an essential requirement, but it’s a definite bonus.
With five rotating brushes in the floorhead and powerful suction, it was no surprise that this carpet cleaner lifted immediate stains without a fuss. Plus, the accompanying cleaning solution didn’t affect the carpet colour, and left the pile refreshed and lifted. Some scrubbing was required to loosen set-in mud but afterwards, the flooring wasn’t overly damp – a common pitfall for many carpet cleaners.
While it was generally easy to use, with clear, durable controls, we would have liked a max capacity line on the water tanks to avoid over filling.
Providing a scrub-free deep clean thanks to its extra-large brush bar, this is a great buy for dealing with mud. Even after the dirt was left for 24 hours, a quick vacuum followed by a few sweeps of the cleaner, left our carpets as good as new. Set-in tea stains, however, proved a trickier job for our testers, who struggled to fully remove them after too much time had past.
Both water tanks were easy to fill, and our testers appreciated the clear markings to show how much water is needed for a quick or deep carpet clean. The only thing missing was some information on the proportion of solution to water but, otherwise, this was a reliable buy across all floor types.
Setting you back up to £300, good carpet cleaners aren’t cheap but investing in one should help keep your carpets refreshed and in good condition for longer.
Top brands include Vax and Bissell and you’ll notice several models from the former on our list. The reason? Well, at the GHI we’ve tested every single carpet cleaner in Vax’s range and the market-leader has a wide range of machines to serve consumers’ differing needs.
If you don’t have space for these sizeable appliances, you can hire professional cleaners to deep clean your carpets, which costs around £200. Alternatively, you can hire a machine from companies such as Rug Doctor for around £25 (with extra for detergent).
Blossom is our Senior Homes Tester. Passionate about finding the best home products and appliances for our readers, she has tested everything from blenders to pizza ovens. Blossom enjoys delving into the intricacies of products and refining testing protocols for hundreds of items. Innovative items like robot vacuum cleaners and wine coolers are among her favourite tests to date, and her most notable accomplishment is toasting 360 slices of bread in a determined bid to find the best toaster. In her free time, Blossom openly admits to being a music geek and indulges her creative side through crocheting, baking, singing and writing.
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