Carpet and hard-floor cleaners · Which one do I need
Rent a carpet cleaner or buy one: a worksheet for your own numbers
Renting a carpet cleaner each time or buying one: which costs you less? Prices vary by store and season, so this page gives you a short worksheet instead of our numbers.
On this page
What we compared and why
- How many cleans a year. Renting costs the same each time; buying costs once. The number of cleans a year is what tips the balance.
- What each rental really includes. A rental day usually comes with extras you pay for each time: the formula, a hand tool, sometimes a deposit. Count them all.
- Your time per rental. Two trips to the store per clean (pick-up and return) are part of the cost, even if you do not put a money figure on them.
- Storage. A bought machine needs a home between uses. A rental needs none.
Why this page has no money figures
Rental rates, formula costs and machine costs vary by store and change through the year, and a figure we printed today would be out of date for many readers. So this page shows you how to work it out with the numbers in front of you: the rental desk or website near you, and the current listing of a machine you would buy.
The worksheet
Write down four numbers.
| Line | What to write down | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The full cost of one rental session: the machine for the day, plus the formula and any tool you would rent or buy with it | R |
| 2 | The cost of the machine you would buy, on its own | B |
| 3 | The formula you would buy for each later session with your own machine | F |
| 4 | How many times a year you expect to clean | N |
Then:
- Renting for one year costs R × N.
- Owning for one year costs B + F × N.
- Break-even: buying pays off in the first year when B + F × N is less than R × N.
To see how many years it takes when you clean less often, divide B by (R − F). At that number of cleans the two cost the same; from the next clean on, owning has cost less. If you clean twice a year and the answer is 6, the seventh clean, early in the fourth year, is the first one where owning is ahead.
A worked example with round figures
Suppose, purely to show the arithmetic, that one rental session costs 4 units, the machine you would buy costs 12 units, and each session's formula costs 1 unit (units can be any currency). Then B ÷ (R − F) = 12 ÷ (4 − 1) = 4. After four cleans the two are level: owning is 12 + 4 × 1 = 16 units, renting 4 × 4 = 16 units. From the fifth clean on, owning costs less. Clean twice a year and that happens in the third year; clean once a year, in the fifth. Put in your own numbers; the method is the same.
What the arithmetic leaves out
The worksheet compares money only. Four other things often decide it:
- Your time. Every rental means a trip to pick up and a trip to return, usually within a day. If that is an hour each time, multiply by N.
- When the mess happens. A rental helps with a planned clean. It does not help with a spill on a Sunday evening. If unplanned messes are your main reason, the question is often a small spot cleaner rather than a full-size machine.
- Machine size. Ask the rental desk for the machine's tank size and compare it with a home machine's; a smaller tank means more refills per room. See the tank figures in full-size carpet cleaners compared.
- Storage and upkeep. An owned machine needs closet floor space, and its tanks, brush and hose need rinsing after each use. A rental goes back after the job, emptied as the store asks.
A quick rule of thumb
- One whole-house clean a year, no pets, no stairs: run the worksheet; at one clean a year buying takes the most years to pay off, and renting needs no storage.
- Several cleans a year, or pets: owning usually wins, and a machine at home gets used while a stain is fresh.
- Mostly small spills: neither; look at portable spot cleaners first.
Next steps
If the worksheet says buy, start with which floor cleaner you need to confirm a carpet cleaner is the right kind of machine, then compare models in full-size carpet cleaners compared.
What this page does not tell you
We do not quote rental rates or machine costs, because they change and differ by area. We do not say whether a rental machine or a home machine cleans better; that depends on the machine, the carpet and the formula.