Bissell PowerLifter PowerBrush Upright carpet cleaner review

The Bissell PowerLifter is an affordable carpet cleaner that does a good job of ridding your carpet of built-up dirt and grime.

Bissell PowerLifter PowerBrush Upright carpet cleaner review
(Image: © Amazon)

Top Ten Reviews Verdict

The Bissell PowerLifter PowerBrush Upright carpet cleaner cannot clean upholstery or stairs, but it does a decent job of cleaning carpets and its pared-down design makes it easy to use.

Pros

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    Priced at less than $100, the Bissell PowerLifter is a budget-friendly option

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    Great for pets

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    Quiet, for a carpet cleaner

Cons

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    Not the best stain removal

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The Bissell PowerLifter is an affordable option which takes the best pet-friendly option in our roundup of the best carpet cleaners that does a good job of ridding your carpet of built-up dirt and grime. This cleaner doesn’t come with a lot of tools and extras, but that's understandable given the low price point. 

But that also means it won’t provide the same versatility as some of the more full-featured products in our comparison. For example, it doesn’t have a hose for cleaning hard-to-reach areas. The Hoover Power Scrub is a machine that features many additional accessories, if you need a full gamut of cleaning tools.

Bissell PowerLifter PowerBrush Upright carpet cleaner: Features

It has a compact design that makes for relatively easy storage and makes it easy to carry from room to room. It is fairly lightweight, adding convenience, though there are newer machines that are even more compact and lightweight.

This carpet cleaner has a single tank with separate compartments for dirty water and clean water and solution. This contributes to its compact design. The tank has a 3-quart capacity, which isn’t bad for a compact machine. You will be able to shampoo roughly 75 square feet of carpet before refilling. This cleaner is great for someone living in an apartment or a small home, but you’ll be going to the sink a lot if you own a large home.

This carpet cleaner performed well overall during testing, but we did run into some problems. We experienced streaking along the sides after each pass, but by overlapping the strokes we got rid of the streaks. This is an inconvenience, but not a significant problem. Its compact size does help with its maneuverability, and it moved smoothly over the carpets we tested.

The more water you suction from the carpet, the quicker the carpet will dry. This machine extracted 22 ounces of water, which is above average among the ones we tested. There were others that do an even better job of extracting water, though. 

Should you buy the Bissell PowerLifter PowerBrush Upright carpet cleaner?

Optimized for pets, this low-cost carpet cleaner is a good option if you've got a pet-friendly household. It's also a low-noise options when compared to most of the carpet cleaners we reviewed.

The cleaning path with the Bissell PowerLifter is 11 inches, which is about average. If you have a lot of ground to cover you may want to look at machines with wider cleaning paths.

This Bissell cleaner only comes with a one-year warranty. You’ll still be able to get some good use out of it before the warranty expires, but a more generous warranty is obviously preferred. Bissell does have a nice customer support system though.

Angie Parkinson

A contracted writer for TTR, Angie has been reviewing vacuum cleaners, countertop appliances and other home goods for more than eight years. Her spare time often goes to planning improvements for her quirky 103-year-old home or hiking in the gorgeous Utah mountains. In her past role, she was a newspaper journalist and she has a bachelor's degree in Technical Writing.