Welcome to Vacuum Wars’ definitive guide to the best Bissell carpet cleaners of 2024! These selections are based on our own in-depth independent and non-sponsored evaluations, focusing on cleaning performance and essential features like water management, maneuverability, and versatility. We also consider customer satisfaction scores to ensure you choose a rug cleaner that offers high value for your investment.
Our recommendations are updated regularly to reflect the latest evaluation results and industry insights so you can easily find the ideal and best-rated carpet cleaner for your home.
Products that have been discontinued, or are frequently out of stock are removed from the rankings.
It combines steam and traditional cleaning to effectively tackle tough stains and offers a dual brush roller system for enhanced scrubbing. The device is user-friendly, featuring a straightforward steam pre-treatment mode and a quick dry option to expedite drying times.See full review
- Innovative steam function
- Effective stain removal
- Dual brush system
- Heavier than predecessors
- Higher water usage
The dual tank system maintains the separation of clean and dirty water, optimizing the cleaning process. With multiple cleaning modes, including a quick-drying Express Clean and a comprehensive Deep Clean, this machine is adept at handling a variety of cleaning tasks. Additionally, the inclusion of a hose and multiple attachments extends its utility to upholstery and stairs, making it a versatile tool for thorough home cleaning.
- CleanShot technology for targeting stains
- Dual tank system for efficient cleaning
- Deep Clean and Express Clean modes
- Quick drying in about 30 minutes
- Includes hose and multiple attachments
- Excellent at removing deep-seated dirt
- Heavier build
The ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet is designed for ease of use, with a lightweight build and handling akin to a vacuum cleaner. It performed well in most of our cleaning tests, including dry and wet stains. Although it lacks some of the Pet Pro's features like the CleanShot for tough stains and a two-in-one pet tool, the Pet version's straightforward design and lower cost make it the more practical choice for most users.
- Great cleaning performance
- Affordable compared to Pro
- Lightweight and user-friendly
- Effective on various stains
- No targeted stain feature
- No removable brush plate
- Shorter hose and cord
It offers a superior water capacity of 1.7 gallons and demonstrates efficient water usage, ensuring extended cleaning without frequent refills. The Bissell Big Green also excels in suction performance, especially at the floor head where it's most needed, outperforming its competitors in both forward push and backward pull operations. With a long hose and versatile attachments, it proves to be an excellent choice for those seeking a professional-grade carpet cleaner. See full review
- High water capacity (1.7 gallons)
- Efficient water usage
- Exceptional unsealed suction power
- Versatile forward and backward use
- Longest hose offered by Bissell
- Includes tough stain tool
- Effective on wet and dry stains
- Heavy
This carpet cleaner is straightforward in operation, relying on a simple trigger mechanism for water solution application, and proved effective in handling light to moderate stains efficiently. It’s a solid choice for anyone needing a budget-friendly solution for maintaining their carpets, especially given its lightweight design and surprising effectiveness.
- Lightweight, easy to maneuver
- Impressive suction for its class
- Effective on light and moderate stains
- Simple trigger operation
- Affordable price point
- Compact size for easy storage
- Smaller water tank
- Lacks some premium features
- No handheld hose attachment
Bissell Carpet Cleaner Buyer’s Guide
We’ve bought nearly every Bissell carpet cleaner on the market and put them through a bunch of tests to compare their performance, as well as their specs and features.
In this buyer’s guide, we’ll go over all the similarities and differences and make our personal recommendations as to what we think the best Bissell carpet cleaner models are in three different categories.
The Bissell Carpet Cleaners we Tested
In total we’ll be comparing six Bissell carpet cleaners: the Bissell Big Green Professional, Proheat 2x Revolution Pet, Proheat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus, Revolution HydroSteam Pet, TurboClean DualPro Pet, and TurboClean PowerBrush Pet.
How they Work
All the carpet cleaners here are of the upright variety, and they operate in the same basic way: you fill their clean water tank with warm water and the included solution.
You hold down a trigger to dispense the water-solution mix, and you more or less vacuum back and forth. The brushes agitate the stained carpet, and the machine sucks up the dirty water into the dirty water tank.
Important Considerations
From most expensive to least expensive, the Big Green Professional and Revolution Hydrosteam are the most expensive, the Proheat 2x models are mid-range priced and the TurboClean models are the cheaper options with the TurboClean PowerBrush Pet being the most inexpensive.
| Price | Water Tank | Weight | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Green Professional | $$$$$$$$ | 1.75 gal | 42 lbs. |
| Revolution HydroSteam Pet | $$$$$$$$ | 1.0 gal | 22 lbs. |
| Proheat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus | $$$$$$ | 1.0 gal | 18 lbs. |
| Proheat 2x Revolution Pet | $$$$$ | 1.0 gal | 17.5 lbs. |
| TurboClean DualPro Pet | $$$ | 1.25 gal | 17 lbs. |
| TurboClean PowerBrush Pet | $$ | 0.62 | 12 lbs. |
One of the big differences is water tank capacity. You can see that the Bissell Big Green is the clear winner at 1.75 gallons. That’s almost triple the size of the TurboClean PowerBrush Pet model which has a 0.62 gallon tank.
The Revolution models all have a one gallon tank, and the TurboClean DualPro Pet has a slightly larger 1.25 gallon tank.
When to Buy the Bissell Big Green Professional
While we did not include build quality or parts availability in our spreadsheet scoring algorithm, if we did, the Bissell Big Green would be the winner. For pros, it is the best Bissell carpet cleaner.
Basically, if you’re planning on cleaning large areas all the time, you can stop reading right now and buy the Bissell Big Green.
All the others are great for a few rooms or individual stains, but if you need a workhorse for large areas, the Bissell Big Green is the only choice. We also think it’s better than its main competitors.
Also see our review of the Bissell Big Green Professional.
Weight is also important. Here, you can see the cheapest one, the Bissell TurboClean PowerBrush Pet, with the smallest water tank is unsurprisingly the lightest.
The big story from our stain clean-up tests was that there wasn’t much difference from the cheapest to the most expensive that we could see. We think we could say the Bissell Hydrosteam was better than the others, but other than that, it was pretty close.
One of the more important differences, in our opinion, is if they have the ability to be used with a hose and attachments, where you spray the solution on the stains and scrub manually with handheld attachments.
This is great for stairs, upholstery, or tough spots on carpets. All except the cheapest one have this ability, though there are differences in the length of their hoses as well as the number and types of attachments they come with.
| Hose Length | Attachments | Brushes | Brush Width | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Green Professional | 9 ft. | 1 | 1 | 10.5” |
| Revolution HydroSteam Pet | 8’ ft. | 2 | 2 | 11” |
| Proheat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus | 8’ ft. | 2 | 2 | 11” |
| Proheat 2x Revolution Pet | 8’ ft. | 2 | 2 | 11” |
| TurboClean DualPro Pet | 7’ ft. | 1 | 1 | 11” |
| TurboClean PowerBrush Pet | n/a | 0 | 1 | 7.5” |
Some have two brushes on the floorhead, like the HydroSteam and 2X Revolutions, while some have only one brush. However, the brush on the Big Green, for example, is much bigger and more powerful than the other single brush styles.
They also have different brush widths, or cleaning path widths. In this case every carpet cleaner had a 10.5 or 11 inch brush width with the exception of the TurboClean Powerbrush Pet which had a much smaller 7.5 inch brush.
The benefit? You can cover more area per pass with the wider ones, which really helps with overall efficiency.
Features
Steam
Probably the biggest feature difference is with the Bissell HydroSteam, which is the first and only Bissell carpet cleaner to use steam. When it’s in steam mode and you hold down the trigger, it will produce steam at the floorhead, which theoretically makes it better at stain removal and sanitizing.
CleanShot
Another unique feature is the so-called “CleanShot,” which is only available on the Bissell 2X Revolution Pet Pro Plus. It has a sprayer on the side of the head, which can be activated by a foot pedal.
CleanShot applies the water-solution mix directly to the stain, kind of like a pretreatment. This feature is only available on that version of the 2X Revolution (the purple one) and not on the others, which look very similar other than the color.
Heater
Some of these carpet cleaners have an internal heater, but this doesn’t mean they make cold water hot. It really just means they keep warm water warm. We think this feature is more of a marketing strategy than actually useful, but maybe we’re wrong.
The models with the internal heater are the Revolution Hydrosteam Pet, Proheat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus and Proheat 2x Revolution Pet.
Cleaning Modes
Some of them have different cleaning modes, usually accessed by flipping a switch or pushing a button. They have different names like Max, Deep Clean and Express Clean.
But, what the different modes really boil down to is that you have the option of having less water dispensed when you hold the trigger down, meaning it will take less time to dry.
One feature we liked when comparing and reviewing Tineco Carpet Cleaners was heated drying. None of these Bissell models have it, but we expect we might see it in a future model.
The Revolution models have three modes, the TurboClean DualPro Pet has two and the Big Green Professional and TurboClean PowerBrush Pet just have a single mode.
Performance
The first thing we did is measure each carpet cleaner’s suction, both at the base and at the head, in what we call the usable suction test.
We mostly found that they had similar sealed suction numbers, though the cheaper ones did have less than the more expensive ones.
But in the usable suction test, there was something interesting: namely, the cheaper ones really punched above their weight. In fact, the TurboClean PowerBrush Pet had the second-highest suction in this particular test.
| Bissell Carpet Cleaner | Sealed Suction | Usable Suction |
|---|---|---|
| Big Green Professional | 67” | 12.09 kpa |
| Revolution Hydrosteam Pet | 67” | 4.24 kpa |
| Proheat 2x Revolution Pet Pro Plus | 67” | 5.2 kpa |
| Proheat 2x Revolution Pet | 67” | 4.5 kpa |
| TurboClean DualPro Pet | 57” | 8.4 kpa |
| TurboClean PowerBrush Pet | 46” | 11.04 kpa |
Stain Tests
We did some initial tests with dried-on dirt stains and found that with light stains like these, they all nearly perfectly cleaned the carpet in two passes or less.
However, we feel the more expensive Bissell carpet cleaners did this more efficiently than the cheaper ones, but we didn’t score this test. It was mostly for show.
For the stain torture tests, we wanted to develop a new system that we could use in the future. So, we prepared the dried-on stains, where we used 5 oz of a dirt and water mixture, as well as 1.5 oz of coyote urine, which we allowed to dry for 24 hours.
Tip: Pre-Treat Tough Stains
We would highly recommend buying a good stain pretreatment from Bissell if you’re planning to use any of these carpet cleaner models for individual stains. It really is a night-and-day difference.
Professional carpet cleaners always use pretreatment on tough stains like the ones in our torture tests.
For the wet stains, we used 1.5 oz of red wine and 1.5 oz of a glow-in-the-dark material, which is virtually impossible to remove from carpet but looks cool.
We used the same solution mixture for each product and did 4 back-and-forth passes for each stain. We did not pretreat the stains, and we only used room temperature water, not heated water.
As a result, the remaining stains were more significant than if we had used pretreatment or warm water, but this made it easier for us to observe relative differences.
Results
After drying, we took pictures with the same camera and lighting settings for each stain and visually compared them with one another.
However, we’d like to have an AI imaging program or something similar compare these images and provide accurate grades. If anyone knows of a service or program we can use for that, please let us know.
The big story from our stain clean-up tests was that there wasn’t much difference from the cheapest to the most expensive that we could see. We think we could say the Bissell HydroSteam was better than the others, but other than that, it was pretty close.
Recommendations
Best Bissell Carpet Cleaner: Bissell Revolution HydroSteam Pet
For the best overall in the points algorithm, the winner for best Bissell carpet cleaner overall was the new Bissell Revolution HydroSteam. It has the most features, cleans the best, and is much less heavy than the Big Green.
Best Value: Bissell 2x Revolution
For the best value, though, the clear winner was the Bissell 2X Revolution series. Ever since the HydroSteam came out, the prices on these dropped.
Bissell has three versions of the 2X Revolution these days, with the main difference being that the Pet Pro Plus has the “CleanShot” feature. While the clean shot is nice, it’s not necessary, especially if you can get the orange or blue one at a significant discount.
These 2X Revolutions have consistently ranked as a Best Carpet Cleaner in this price range.
Best Budget Carpet Cleaner: Bissell TurboClean PowerBrush Pet
Our budget pick is the Bissell TurboClean PowerBrush Pet. It did very well in our stain evaluation. It’s also super lightweight and affordable compared to many others. However, it has minor potential limitations, specifically the smaller water tank, a lack of extra features, and no hose attachment.
