I’ve tested a few carpet cleaners in my time, but I have to admit I learned new things putting these eight models through a series of punishing tests. My main takeaway is this: if you have light-coloured carpet, don’t eat curry over it. If you do, and the worst happens, clean it up as quickly as you can, because every second counts.
I also learned that no carpet cleaner in this group comes with a magic wand you can wave over a mess to make it disappear. I doubt there’s a machine on earth that can make a single pass over a dollop of tikka masala paste and leave no trace of it behind.
Don’t let this put you off, though. All the machines I’ve tested here put up a good fight against a variety of stains. Just be warned that even with the very best carpet cleaner, you’ll need to add time, elbow grease and persistence if you want a carpet that looks as good as it did before the mess hit the floor.
At a glance
Why you should trust me
While I’ve spent more time in the past few years testing vacuum cleaners (even my kids call me “the Hoover reviewer”, not least because they know how much it annoys me when they use a trademark as a generic term), I’ve also worked with a good number of carpet cleaners. I’ve reviewed enough of them to be known to my neighbours as someone who might have a carpet cleaner on test that they can borrow, particularly when their carpets have been subjected to a teenager’s house party, a toddler with a stomach bug or an incontinent pet.
Beyond cleaning, I’ve been testing all sorts of products for more than 30 years, from laptops and printers to smartphones and video doorbells.
How I tested
Before handing me the task of testing carpet cleaners, the Guardian asked a professional for five of the hardest substances to remove from carpet. They came back with curry, coffee, red wine, soot and urine. No way was I going to drop any of that on to my own carpets, so I bought two rugs to test on: a relatively short-pile Seattle washable rug from the Range and a longer-pile Marvel shaggy washable rug from Dunelm.
I started with the four full-size cleaners spreading measured quantities of the five substances across the two rugs. I was asked to test them with dried-in stains, so I left them overnight. Don’t do this at home; you’ll end up with a foul-smelling house and stains that are very hard to remove.
I passed the full-size cleaners over each of the stains multiple times in an attempt to get the mess out. Urine wasn’t that visible, but the curry was particularly bad, leaving the espresso, spoonful of soot and measure of Waitrose’s cheapest red somewhere in between.
Where the upright cleaning action struggled, I went on to test their built-in spot-removing tools, in an attempt to get deeper into the stains. I also tested all the full-size cleaners on a larger section of my own carpet, to get a feel for their general cleaning abilities.
To test the four spot cleaners, I used the same problematic substances, but I cleaned these up as soon as they were spilt, as these devices are designed to be ready to whip into action as soon as a mess is made.
Any test products not returned to the manufacturers will be deep-cleaned and donated to the British Heart Foundation.
The best carpet cleaners in 2026
Best overall carpet cleaner:
Vax Platinum SmartWash XL Advanced
Vax
Platinum SmartWash XL Advanced
from £379.99
What we love
Capable all-in-one carpet and spot washer with self-cleaning
What we don’t love
Several passes and still needed on some spills
The Vax Platinum SmartWash XL Advanced is a great all-rounder. It’s a large upright cleaner that can cover a lot of carpet, with handy spot-washing attachments for tackling upholstery, stairs, accidents and stains.
Why we love it
In its upright mode, the SmartWash provided a satisfying clean, lifting dirt easily out of all the carpets I tested it on. Its automatic mode deposits a mix of water and detergent from its upper tank as you push it forwards, while two brush bars in the floor head work the cleaning agents into the carpet fibres. Pulling it back over the stain draws the water back up into a separate waste tank.
It also proved to be one of the best spot cleaners, largely thanks to its SpinScrub hand tool. This has a spray, a brush and a funnel, but unlike most cleaners, the brush mechanically rotates as you scrub, providing an extra level of agitation to get deep into the fibres, which was particularly effective on the deeper pile.
I was impressed with how it tackled the coffee, red wine and urine stains in its upright mode by repeatedly washing the area, then pulling the dirty water back up again. Some obvious curry and soot marks still remained on both carpet types after I finished, but switching to the spot-washing attachment lifted out even more of these stubborn stains.
When you’ve finished cleaning, there’s a solid plastic tray to stand it on, so it won’t drip water on to the floor. This also helps perform a self-clean and collects trapped dirt and hair from the rollers.
Vax operates a take-back scheme, recycling an old carpet cleaner for you when you buy a new one from it – just be aware that you’ll need to return your old model at your own expense. Spare parts are available for repairs, and this model comes with an extremely generous six-year guarantee when registered online.
It’s a shame that … it needed several passes to remove the toughest stains.
Type: upright
Weight: 10.1kg
Hose length: 2.5m
Cable length: 9m
Clean water capacity: 3.8l
Wastewater capacity: 2.7l
Tools included: 2-in-1 Antimicrobial tool, SpinScrub hand tool
Cleaning solution included: 250ml pretreatment solution, 500ml Platinum antibacterial solution
Warranty: 6 years
Vax
Platinum SmartWash XL Advanced
from £379.99
What we love
Capable all-in-one carpet and spot washer with self-cleaning
What we don’t love
Several passes and still needed on some spills
Best budget carpet cleaner:
Numatic Henry Wash
Henry
Numatic Henry Wash
from £219.99
What we love
Affordable, with good results on carpet and hard floors
What we don’t love
Requires scrubbing on carpet, so not ideal for whole rooms
Don’t expect any bells and whistles with this blue, liquid-friendly version of the Henry vacuum cleaner. It doesn’t have all the brushes and other paraphernalia that come with some of the more expensive models, but it has a trick up its sleeve – it’s the only one that’s designed to handle significant spills on hard floors.
Why we love it
The tools and instructions for carpet cleaning are basic. It comes with a pair of nozzles you can switch between – a wide one for carpet and a narrow one for upholstery and stairs. Both can spray water and detergent from the generous 6l clean water tank, and suck it back up into the vast 9l base, but the carpet-cleaning attachments have no built-in brushes to aid agitation. Instead, the instructions suggest you scrub with your own brush (not supplied) between applications of liquid and suction.
I did this in my testing, and the results were decent – manually scrubbing marks worked a treat on the more solid stains left by soot and curry. It definitely takes more elbow grease than the cleaners that have their own mechanical scrubbing tools, but the end result wasn’t compromised by separating the scrubbing from the tool. I wouldn’t want to do that across the whole of a room-sized carpet, though. The liquids didn’t get the same amount of sluicing that I saw with rivals that integrate their own scrubbing tools, so it wasn’t as effective against wine, coffee and urine.
The hard floor tool is half squeegee, half brush. It can deposit water on the floor, scrub it about, then suck it back up again. It worked well in my tests.
Numatic vacuum cleaners are about as repairable as cleaners get, with simple construction and spare parts widely available.
It’s a shame that … its carpet-cleaning attachments don’t have built-in brushes.
Type: cylinder
Weight: 10.1kg
Hose length: 2.5m
Cable length: 10m
Clean water capacity: 6l
Wastewater capacity: 9l
Tools included: carpet cleaner, upholstery tool, hard floor cleaner
Cleaning solution included: no
Warranty: up to 3 years when registered, depending on retailer
Henry
Numatic Henry Wash
from £219.99
What we love
Affordable, with good results on carpet and hard floors
What we don’t love
Requires scrubbing on carpet, so not ideal for whole rooms
Best overall spot washer:
Rug Doctor portable spot cleaner
Rug Doctor
Portable spot cleaner
from £152
What we love
Motorised brush makes cleaning easier
What we don’t love
Bulkier and trickier to store than rival spot cleaners
Rug Doctor might be best known for its industrial-looking upright cleaners, but this larger-than-average spot cleaner fits into the range well. It’s bigger and more powerful than the other spot cleaners here, and comes with wheels and a retractable handle, so it’s still easy to haul around.
Why we love it
While this uses a standard two-tank system for clean and dirty water, it has a key advantage over the other standalone spot washers – a motorised brush on the hand tool. While I didn’t feel that its back-and-forth motion was as effective as the rotary movement you get from the hand tool of the Vax Platinum SmartWash XL Advanced, it still adds an extra dimension to your own scrubbing action.
In my tests on recently dropped messes, it did a decent job of picking up dirt and clearing stains, performing particularly well on urine, wine and coffee. It benefits from its ability to get detergent and water to the heart of the problem quickly, agitate the fibres and lift dirty liquid away. It also proved effective on soot but struggled to completely remove the problematic curry stain.
Rug Doctor has a good range of pre-treatment sprays you can experiment with, and I used its Heavy Stain Pre-Treatment. You can also fill the clean water tank with warm water, which adds another gear to the cleaning engine.
The brand also has a very extensive spare parts department, so local repairers stand a good chance of being able to keep machines going. It also has a take-back scheme for your old cleaner if you’re buying a replacement.
It’s a shame that … it wasn’t particularly easy to clean out damp carpet fluff from the handheld funnel.
Type: spot
Weight: 7.6kg
Hose length: 1.5m
Cable length: 4.6m
Clean water capacity: 1.9l
Wastewater capacity: 1.9l
Tools included: motorised brush
Cleaning solution included: 236ml spot cleaner
Warranty: 2 years
Rug Doctor
Portable spot cleaner
from £152
What we love
Motorised brush makes cleaning easier
What we don’t love
Bulkier and trickier to store than rival spot cleaners
Best budget spot washer:
Russell Hobbs Hot & Cold spot cleaner
Russell Hobbs
Hot & Cold spot cleaner
from £83.99
What we love
Affordable; compact; heats water
What we don’t love
Lack of motorised brush requires more elbow grease on stains
Most of the other spot washers I’ve reviewed here can take warm or cold water, but if you opt for warm, they come with warnings about maximum temperatures. That’s fine, but when you’re speedily filling the tank having just dropped a glass of Rioja on a white carpet, you probably don’t want to be worrying about whether the water is too hot. Russell Hobbs has taken this worry out of the equation with a cleaner that optionally warms water to the right temperature for the device within a minute of switching it on.
Why we love it
It’s a simple but effective system. Wait 45 seconds before using the device, and the warmed water provides a bit of extra cleaning power without the worry of damaging your device.
The machine didn’t come with any carpet cleaning solution, and the manual doesn’t encourage adding anything other than water to it, though you can use low-foaming pre-treatments on stains first, as long as they adhere to the guidelines in the manual. I particularly liked that the water is squirted from the hand tool in the centre of the brush attachment, so it gets right to the heart of the cleaning problem as you’re scrubbing.
It performed well in testing and proved particularly effective on curry stains. Some of the coffee and wine stains reappeared as the carpet dried, but these thinner stains diminished with subsequent cleans.
It’s a shame that … there’s no motorised tool to help scrub.
Type: spot
Weight: 4.2kg
Hose length: 1.9m
Cable length: 5m
Clean water capacity: 1.5l
Wastewater capacity: 0.8l
Tools included: stain brush, wastewater tool
Cleaning solution included: no
Warranty: up to 3 years when registered, depending on retailer
Russell Hobbs
Hot & Cold spot cleaner
from £83.99
What we love
Affordable; compact; heats water
What we don’t love
Lack of motorised brush requires more elbow grease on stains
The best of the rest
Shark CarpetXpert HairPro Pet Deep carpet cleaner with built-in StainStriker EX300UK
Shark
CarpetXpert HairPro Pet Deep carpet cleaner with built-in StainStriker EX300UK
from £349
What we love
Versatile; very capable on pet problems; easy to clean
What we don’t love
Can’t clean carpet as deeply as Vax and Rug Doctor
Best for: pet messes
The Shark CarpetXpert has tools for every eventuality. It’s not the cheapest carpet cleaner here, but if you want an all-in-one that will spruce up every carpet in the house and manage every kind of spot clean you can think of, it’s a great option. It’s worth noting, though, that Shark doesn’t recommend using this on wool carpets.
I found this model particularly effective on the liquid messes (urine, wine and coffee) on short-pile carpet, with the follow-up spot-wash tool also working well against the soot. The curry left a visible stain behind, even after the spot wash.
For pet owners, two of its five hand tools come with reversible plates, and two can switch between brushes and fins. The fins are good for pet hair and stop the brushes from getting clogged. Two tools have their own mini collection tanks, with filters to separate liquids from solids, to keep the main machine clear of particularly nasty messes. The whole device is particularly easy to clean, with lots of removable parts.
It didn’t make the final cut because … its main brush roller struggled to cope with the longer-pile carpet.
Type: upright; weight: 8.8kg; hose length: 2.01m; cable length: 6.71m; clean water capacity: 2.1l; wastewater capacity: 0.85l; tools included: Tough Stain tool, Wide Tough Stain tool, Crevice tool, Pet Extractor, Pet Stain Trapping tool; cleaning solution included: 355ml Shark CarpetXpert Deep Clean Pro Formula, 473ml Shark StainStriker OXY Multiplier Formula; warranty: up to 5 years when registered, depending on retailer
Shark
CarpetXpert HairPro Pet Deep carpet cleaner with built-in StainStriker EX300UK
from £349
What we love
Versatile; very capable on pet problems; easy to clean
What we don’t love
Can’t clean carpet as deeply as Vax and Rug Doctor
Rug Doctor Deep carpet cleaner
Rug Doctor
Deep carpet cleaner
from £299.99
What we love
Effective carpet cleaner with thorough washing options
What we don’t love
Only works when pulled backwards; spot washer doesn’t spin
Best for: lots of very dirty carpet
The thing that makes the Rug Doctor Deep Carpet Cleaner particularly effective is its ability to drop lots and lots of soapy water on the floor, scrub it into the pile, then pick the dirty stuff back up again.
On its wettest setting, it literally drenched the carpet in my tests, getting through the clean water tank in minutes. The large volume of liquid deposited, along with the significant agitation, made this particularly good at removing the wine, coffee and urine stains.
It proved equally effective on long- and short-pile carpet. The curry, in particular, needed significant attention from the spot washing attachment. It also picked up a lot of dirt, doing the best job of all the upright cleaners, though I still had to resort to its handheld tool to finish off the toughest stains.
It didn’t make the final cut because … its design only works as you pull it towards you, so you can’t easily go back and forth over problem areas, and the brush on the spot-washing tool doesn’t spin or oscillate, so it takes more effort.
Type: upright; weight: 14.6kg; hose length: 2.4m; cable length: 8.5m; clean water capacity: 3.8l; wastewater capacity: 4.2l; tools included: upholstery tool kit; cleaning solution included: 266ml Rug Doctor detergent; warranty: 2 years
Rug Doctor
Deep carpet cleaner
from £299.99
What we love
Effective carpet cleaner with thorough washing options
What we don’t love
Only works when pulled backwards; spot washer doesn’t spin
Shark EveryMess Portable 3-in-1 Stain Eliminator wet vac & dry vac VX110UK
Shark
EveryMess Portable 3-in-1 Stain Eliminator wet vac & dry vac VX110UK
from £199.99
What we love
Effective on difficult stains
What we don’t love
No option to douse carpet with soapy water
Best for: spot-cleaning versatility
The Shark EveryMess Portable is an anomaly in this group because it doesn’t use water. Instead, it comes with a chemical spray, which you use to douse the dirty area. You then use the vacuum suction of the machine to pick up both the cleaning solution and, hopefully, the dirt. Shark advises against using the EveryMess on wool carpets, however.
Because it doesn’t rely on water, it can also be used as a dry vacuum or even a mixture of both – drop a bottle of beer, for example, and you could pick up both beer and broken glass. You can also insert your own bag (any size from 8l to 50l) if you want to collect mess straight into something you can easily throw away, though sharp objects may cut through it.
The supplied spray-on detergent did a surprisingly good job of lifting out the wine, urine, coffee and soot stains. It wasn’t quite so good on curry, and tough stains may leave you wishing the device could just add a little water to the mix.
It didn’t make the final cut because … it’s effective on stains, but not everyone prefers cleaning with a chemical spray instead of water.
Type: spot; weight: 4.9kg; hose length: 1.5m; cable length: 6m; clean water capacity: N/A; wastewater capacity: 1.9l; tools included: Tough Stain tool, Crevice tool, Squeegee tool; cleaning solution included: 500ml Shark StainForce Dual-Formula spray; warranty: up to 3 years, depending on retailer
Shark
EveryMess Portable 3-in-1 Stain Eliminator wet vac & dry vac VX110UK
from £199.99
What we love
Effective on difficult stains
What we don’t love
No option to douse carpet with soapy water
Kärcher
Spray Extraction cleaner SE 2 Spot Care spot cleaner
from £90
What we love
Compact, easy to store and quick to deploy
What we don’t love
Lacklustre scrubbing tool
Best for: compact storage
With a similar price and purpose to the Russell Hobbs Hot & Cold spot cleaner, the Kärcher Spray Extraction cleaner SE 2 was a strong contender for the best budget spot cleaner. In some ways it’s superior to the Russell Hobbs, with a more compact design that neatly stores its attachments on board, so there are no loose parts to lose track of. It falls behind slightly, however, because it doesn’t heat the clean water and can only be used with Kärcher detergent.
The softer brush on the scrubbing tool didn’t do it any favours when I was trying to work detergent into any of the stains. While it still coped reasonably well if deployed immediately after a spillage of wine, coffee or urine, it struggled to clear up tougher stains such as curry.
It didn’t make the final cut because … the brush is small and soft, not really ideal for the hard scrubbing I needed to remove the trickiest stains.
Type: spot; weight: 4.3kg; hose length: 1.8m; cable length: 4.5m; clean water capacity: 1.5l; wastewater capacity: 0.8l; tools included: stain removal brush, upholstery nozzle; cleaning solution included: 100ml Carpet & Upholstery cleaner; warranty: 2 years
Kärcher
Spray Extraction cleaner SE 2 Spot Care spot cleaner
from £90
What we love
Compact, easy to store and quick to deploy
What we don’t love
Lacklustre scrubbing tool
What you need to know
What type of carpet cleaner should I buy?
That depends on how you plan to use it. Upright cleaners are best for washing all the carpets in your home, and can cover large areas with minimal fuss. Most can be pushed around just like a vacuum cleaner. Many uprights can also spot clean stairs and upholstery with the included handheld attachments, and they’re useful if you need to focus on a small problem area.
If you don’t have a lot of carpet, a dedicated spot cleaner can do a similar job. There’s nothing stopping you from using a spot cleaner on a large area of carpet, but it will take more time and require you to get on your hands and knees. Spot washers are smaller, making them more convenient to store and easier to get ready as soon as an accident happens.
What’s the difference between a carpet cleaner and a steam cleaner?
Most carpet cleaners use clean water and detergent to wash the carpet and have a suction function to take the dirty waste into a separate container. Steam cleaners use water heated to high temperatures to help kill germs and are more often designed for use on hard floors. They don’t tend to suck up excess water afterwards, but because the water is applied as steam, they generally leave less moisture behind.
Should I just rent a carpet cleaner?
Renting a carpet cleaner is a great idea. Most people won’t need to wash their carpets every week. You could consider buying a spot washer for tackling small accidents, but rent a full carpet washer when you want to clean the whole house.
Rug Doctor specialises in cleaner hire and rents out professional-grade machines. Stock is conveniently managed through retailers including Tesco and B&Q, meaning cleaners are easy to collect and return. Tool hire services such as HSS also offer carpet cleaners for rent. You may also be able to borrow one from a local Library of Things.
How often should you clean your carpets?
That depends on how quickly they get dirty. If your footfall is relatively low and you don’t have any pets, then a wash every 12-18 months should be fine. If your carpets see a lot of dirt, though, they might benefit from a more regular clean. Washing carpets with mechanical cleaners can cause wear, so you shouldn’t do it more often than you need to.
Does it matter what my carpet is made of?
Yes. If your carpet is made of delicate or natural materials such as wool, you should check the manufacturer’s guidelines. Some explicitly advise against using their products on particular types of carpet.
How do you recycle an old carpet cleaner?
Some manufacturers, including Vax and Rug Doctor, operate a take-back scheme, where you can buy a new device and they’ll take the old one you’re replacing and recycle it. Some retailers, including Currys, Argos and B&Q, offer a similar service.
If you miss the return window or don’t want to replace your old carpet cleaner, you can take the machine to a council-run recycling centre or another electrical recycling point. Manufacturers help fund the collection and recycling of electrical items through the government’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations.
For more:
The best steam cleaners and mops for a sparkling home
The best vacuum cleaners for hard floors, carpet and pet hair
The best cordless vacuum cleaners – tested
Andy Shaw is a consumer and technology journalist with more than 30 years of experience reviewing technology, home and garden gadgets. He just loves testing and comparing things. Cleaning tools are among his favourite things to review, because he can get some housework out of the way while also doing his day job
