The 2 Best Portable Carpet and Upholstery Cleaners of 2024

If you spill a cup of coffee or a glass of red wine on your white rug or couch, don’t expect miracles from a portable carpet and upholstery cleaner. Despite what you see on TikTok, spot cleaners can only do so much, and you can likely remove many stains with tools you already own.

That said, a decent carpet and upholstery cleaner can make it easier to tackle wet or sticky messes, and it can keep crud contained to a manageable area.

We recommend the Bissell Little Green Portable Carpet Cleaner 1400B for occasional cleanups. If you face frequent messes and are willing to sacrifice some cleaning power for a slightly better-appointed (and more-expensive) machine, the Bissell Little Green Pet Pro Portable Carpet Cleaner 2891 will do the job.

The Bissell Little Green Portable Carpet Cleaner 1400B is a decent (if somewhat limiting) cleaner. It will come in handy if you occasionally clean food stains or wet messes from carpets, furniture, or the interior of a car.

When we used this model’s handheld suction brush along with hot water, cleaning formula, and a lot of elbow grease, the Little Green 1400B cleaned the best in our testing, removing stains like Nutella, peanut butter, yard dirt, and neon-colored Fanta better than its competitors. It lightened difficult stains like red wine, but it failed to remove them entirely (no spot cleaner we’ve tried could).

It comes with one brush tool, which works well for most situations. But its water tanks are somewhat inconvenient, and its hose is a bit stiff to maneuver.

This model comes with a one-year warranty.

Also great

This model didn’t clean quite as well as our top pick, but it has a more user-friendly tank design and comes with more attachments.

In our tests, the Bissell Little Green Pet Pro Portable Carpet Cleaner 2891 didn’t perform quite as well as our top pick. But it requires less cleaning solution (and elbow grease), and it’s more versatile, which may appeal if you face frequent messes.

It cleaned peanut butter and Nutella well, but it lagged slightly behind our top pick when tackling yard dirt and Fanta stains.

It comes with three efficient tools—including a handy crevice spray tool—that target different cleaning needs. Its tanks are twice the size of our pick’s, and they have carrying handles and flat bottoms, so you can set them down.

This model comes with a two-year warranty.