Portable or upright is the first decision, and it turns on frequency

The eight machines here fall into two classes that do different jobs. The four portables, the Bissell SpotClean Pet Pro 2458, Bissell Little Green HydroSteam Pet 3618, Hoover CleanSlate Pet and Shark StainStriker PX201, are carried to a stain and worked through a hand tool on a hose. The four uprights, the Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet 1548F, Hoover PowerScrub XL Pet FH68002, Shark CarpetXpert EX201 and Bissell Big Green Machine 86T3, are pushed across a room on a cleaning path between 10 and 12 inches wide, with hand tools as a secondary mode.

What sorts you is not how bad the stains are but how often they arrive and how much carpet sits between them. A household dealing with a pet accident or a juice spill a few times a week, on carpet that gets a full clean occasionally, is served by a portable: every portable with a published weight is around 13 lb, and the two Bissell portables ship a 3-inch and a 5-inch Tough Stain Tool respectively, sized for a single mark. A household whose problem is a whole room of carpet showing wear, or spills that have spread across several square feet, needs the wide path and gallon-class tanks of an upright.

Many pet households end up wanting both. The four uprights all list hand tools, and two publish a hose length, so they can do spot work from a parked position. What they cannot do is go up a staircase one-handed. The lightest upright here, the ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet at 17.5 lb, is more than 4 lb heavier than any portable with a published weight, and the Big Green Machine at 42 lb is more than three times a portable’s weight.

The smaller tank sets your rhythm

Spec sheets headline the clean tank, but on a spot cleaner you stop whenever either tank forces you to. Compare both.

Among the portables, the SpotClean Pet Pro publishes 3/4 gal (96 oz) clean and 3/4 gal dirty. The Little Green HydroSteam Pet publishes 64 oz clean and 51 oz dirty. The Hoover CleanSlate Pet publishes 40 oz clean and 23 oz dirty. Shark does not publish tank capacities for the PX201.

Put in the same units, the SpotClean Pet Pro’s clean tank holds half again what the HydroSteam Pet’s does, and its dirty tank holds roughly four times the CleanSlate Pet’s 23 oz. On the Hoover, the dirty tank is well under the clean one, so it is the dirty tank you will be emptying between spots. On the Bissell 2458 the two match, and on the 3618 they are within 13 oz of each other.

Among the uprights, the ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet publishes 1 gal clean and 1 gal dirty. The PowerScrub XL Pet publishes 1 gal clean, 0.8 gal dirty and a separate 16 oz detergent tank that Hoover’s page describes as auto-mixing. The Big Green Machine publishes 1.75 gal clean and no dirty figure. Shark does not publish tank capacities for the EX201 either.

Amps and watts compare within a class, never across it

No manufacturer here publishes a water-lift or sealed-suction figure for these models. The only motor number on the page is current or wattage, and that describes what the whole machine draws, not how hard it pulls water back out of carpet. Treat it as a rough proxy and compare it only between machines of the same type.

Portables that publish a figure: the SpotClean Pet Pro at 5.7 amps and the StainStriker PX201 at 450 watts / 3.3 amps. Bissell publishes no motor figure for the HydroSteam Pet, and Hoover none for the CleanSlate Pet.

Uprights that publish a figure: the Big Green Machine at 12 amps, the PowerScrub XL Pet at 10 amps, the CarpetXpert EX201 at 960 watts / 8 amps, and the ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet at 816 watts with no amp figure on the listing used here.

Reach is hose plus cord, and the two classes split differently

Hose length matters most on an upright because the body stays put while you work a staircase or a car seat. The Big Green Machine publishes 9 ft, the PowerScrub XL Pet 8 ft. Neither the ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet nor the CarpetXpert EX201 publishes a hose length, which for a pet owner planning to use the hand tool on stairs is a real gap. The ProHeat lists an Extension Hose among its tools, but no total length appears.

On portables the hose is short by design, because you carry the whole machine to the mess. The four published figures sit within a foot of each other: 4.8 ft on the HydroSteam Pet, 4.5 ft on the CleanSlate Pet, 4.3 ft on the StainStriker, 4 ft on the SpotClean Pet Pro.

Cord length decides how far from an outlet you work, and it varies more than hose length does. The Big Green Machine publishes 25 ft, the PowerScrub XL Pet 23 ft, the SpotClean Pet Pro and ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet 22 ft each, the CarpetXpert EX201 20 ft, the HydroSteam Pet and CleanSlate Pet 15 ft each, and the StainStriker PX201 12 ft (144 in). The 2458 is the only portable with a cord in the same range as the uprights, which matters if your spills happen in a hallway with no outlet.

Weight means something different in each class

For a portable, weight is a one-handed lift up the stairs with a dog on the other arm. Three of the four publish a figure, and they are near-identical: 13 lb for the HydroSteam Pet, 13.23 lb for the StainStriker, 13.25 lb for the SpotClean Pet Pro. Hoover publishes no weight for the CleanSlate Pet, so it cannot be placed. Do not choose between the three published portables on weight; a quarter of a pound separates them.

For an upright, weight matters at the stairs and the closet, not during cleaning, because it rolls. The spread is wide: 17.5 lb for the ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet, 19.15 lb for the PowerScrub XL Pet, 22.71 lb for the CarpetXpert EX201, and 42 lb for the Big Green Machine. Bissell sells the 86T3 as its Professional-tier Big Green, and its weight is the clearest on-paper sign that it is meant to stay on one floor.

Height matters for storage too. Hoover publishes 43 in for the PowerScrub XL Pet, the retailer listing gives 43.5 in for the ProHeat, and Shark publishes 29.88 in for the EX201. Bissell’s page for the Big Green does not publish dimensions.

Heated water: three machines publish something, one says it does not

Four of the eight pages say something about temperature. Bissell’s HydroSteam Pet describes a built-in flow-through heater with a temperature sensor and three modes, SteamWash, Steam and Wash. The ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet’s listing describes HeatWave Technology maintaining water temperature through the cycle; the word is maintains, not heats from cold. Hoover’s PowerScrub XL Pet lists HeatForce for faster drying. Bissell’s Big Green Machine page states plainly that it does not heat water and recommends warm tap water.

The SpotClean Pet Pro, CleanSlate Pet, StainStriker PX201 and CarpetXpert EX201 pages retrieved here say nothing about heating either way. Absence on the page is not a statement that the feature is missing, so treat those four as unpublished.

Warranty terms, where published

Shark publishes a 5-year limited warranty on the CarpetXpert EX201 and a 3-year limited warranty on the StainStriker PX201. Bissell publishes 5 years on the Big Green Machine 86T3 and 3 years on the ProHeat 2X Revolution Pet. No warranty term appears in the pages retrieved for the SpotClean Pet Pro, HydroSteam Pet, CleanSlate Pet or PowerScrub XL Pet, which is a gap to check on the manufacturer’s site rather than a statement that none exists.