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Buying guide
Verdict
Swept's pick under $300 is the Dreame D20 Plus, for homes with carpet, rugs or a shedding pet where someone clears socks and cords before it runs.
BuyBest under $300 for carpet, rugs and shedding pets
Opens Amazon.com · Prices change often
At a glance
SuitsCarpet and rug homes, shedding pets included, where someone picks up socks and cords before it runs
The catchIt can't see socks, cords or pet waste, and its mop only drags a damp pad
SuitsSmall homes on wood, tile or LVP, where any pet in the house has a short coat
The catchWeak on pet hair in carpet, and its brushes tangle
Skip
Why you see a price band, not a price Prices change daily, so our pages show only the price band a robot sits in and leave the current price to Amazon. That way a page is never wrong by Tuesday.
Among the robots on this page that Vacuum Wars put a gauge on, the one with the weakest suction at the brush cleans carpet best. That tells you what the number on the box is worth. The robot is the Dreame D20 Plus, and it's Swept's pick under $300 for a home with carpet, rugs or a shedding pet. Vacuum Wars works sand down into a medium-pile rug for its carpet test, and this robot brought 93% of it back up. It also lifted 91% of the pet hair flattened into the pile, and not one strand of the long test hair ended up around its brushes. The warranty runs three years, and Tapo's is one. The catch is one every robot at this price shares, and the Dreame has it worst. It can't see a sock, a phone cable or anything your dog leaves behind, so someone clears the floor before it runs.
Price barely moves the answer at this level. These four things do:
If you're not sure which of these describes your home, the robot vacuum Home-Fit Finder walks you through it.
Under $300, the same name often covers a different robot or a different dock. Check the model code before you pay:
BuyBest under $300 for carpet, rugs and shedding pets
Price band: under $300
Dreame prints 13,000 Pa on the box. At the brush, Vacuum Wars measured 0.53 kPa, below that lab's average, and if the story ended there you'd skip it. It doesn't end there. Pickup in a rug comes from the brush working the pile, and this one's dual roller does that better than robots that out-suck it. Its 93% on buried sand is among the best at any price, and its 91% on pressed-in pet hair sits well above that lab's average. That pet-hair figure rests on a single weighed test, but testers who ran it in homes saw the rollers take long pet hair without wrapping. Dreame's "100% detangling" certificate is one of those lines that usually means the side brush and nothing else. Here the lab backed it: none of the long test hair wrapped.
It's easy to live with. The battery drains slowly enough that Vacuum Wars' measured pace projects to about 2,761 sq ft on a charge, more than twice what that lab's average robot manages. The bag holds 5.3 qt (5 L). Dreame says it lasts up to 150 days, and Wirecutter's estimate of two to three months is the one to plan around. Testers have seen long hair wind around its wheels. Given a few months, they also found hair can build up in the passage the dirt takes into the dock. The dock is the bulky part at 17.8 in tall, though it has no water tanks to fill. Dreame's US manual explains how to turn the Wi-Fi off: keep the Dock button held down while tapping Power ten times.
The catch is plain. Of the two dozen objects on Vacuum Wars' obstacle course, it went around exactly none: the cord, the sock, the charger trailing off the nightstand, and the thing you dread. The mop is a damp pad it drags along, so treat it as a bonus; if mopping matters, see our best robot vacuum and mop for hard floors. If your home is small and all hard floor, the Tapo RV30 Max Plus is the better fit. For carpet, rugs or a shedder, in a home where someone picks up first, we'd buy the Dreame. The full case is in our Dreame D20 Plus review.
BuyBest for a small hard-floor home
Price band: under $250
Tapo claims 5,300 Pa, the smallest suction number on this page, and on bare floors it hardly matters. Testers watched it collect nearly all the cereal and kitty litter on hardwood. Tapo's spec says it climbs a 0.87 in (22 mm) threshold. Its self-emptying dock is compact at 13 in tall. A firmware update added Matter, which is rare at this price, so it can join a Matter smart home. TP-Link has kept working on it, too: updates through April 2026 fixed a stall after brush jams and a habit of skipping carpet.
Put a shedding dog on a rug in front of it and things change. On carpet, one lab saw it pick up only 40% of the pet hair and another 67.8%. Its brushes tangle badly enough that freeing them took one lab ten minutes and a pair of scissors. Tapo's own user guide rules out high-pile and fringed carpet, which is honest of it. The mop is a clip-on pad for light spills.
That's the catch: this is a hard-floor robot, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. In a small apartment on wood, tile or LVP, where the only fur in the house, if any, is short, we'd buy it. Our Tapo RV30 Max Plus review has the rest.
Price band: under $400
This robot is good, and it sits above this page's ceiling, so it isn't a pick here. It claims 10,000 Pa, the most modest figure in Roborock's lineup. Even so, Vacuum Wars measured 2.24 kPa at the brush, near the top of everything that lab has tested. Meanwhile, the Roborocks with bigger numbers on their boxes look the other way. It picked up 79% of pressed-in pet hair, about average. Its dock is tiny at 10.2 in tall. The drag mop scored 158 points on Vacuum Wars' dried-stain test, against that review's average of 93, though it leaves the floor wetter than most.
Roborock calls its brush setup a "Dual Anti-Tangle System." In Vacuum Wars' long-hair test on the M5+, 43% of the hair wrapped around it anyway, worse than that lab's average. Just A Dad Approved saw long hairs wrap on the M5+ too, and TechRadar and Tom's Guide, testing the dockless Q7 M5, saw long human hair catch on its roller. Like everything here, it can't see small obstacles, and owners keep finding it stuck on chair legs and round table bases. Roborock's own policy ends security updates for this robot on June 4, 2027. Under $300, the Dreame covers carpet and the Tapo covers hard floors, so you don't need to stretch for it. If your budget does stretch, our Roborock Q7 M5+ review makes the case for the small, tidy home it suits.
SkipThe bagless one: skip it
Price band: under $300
Shark doesn't publish a suction figure for this robot at all. It promises only "Shark's signature suction power." When I see a spec sheet with the key number left blank, I assume the supplier knows something I don't. Its other promise, "detecting and avoiding objects in its path, day or night," turns out to mean walls and sofas. Testers watched it bump furniture, and it has no idea what a cord is. RTINGS tested this exact AV2501S and found its brushes press pet hair into low-pile carpet instead of lifting it. Its "self-cleaning" brushroll still tangles long hair, and more hair winds around the bearings and wheels. The SharkClean app is slow and buggy and can't map a second floor. Both owner threads on this exact model describe the app losing control of the robot within months.
The bagless base does have a true HEPA filter that seals in fine dust well, and the robot itself is quiet. That isn't enough. We'd skip it and buy the Dreame D20 Plus, which does the same vacuum-only job with strong carpet and pet-hair results where the Shark's are weak.
SkipThe cheapest: skip it
Price band: under $200
This is the listing trap in its purest form. Code Q312020 is the 105 Vac on a plain charging dock, so you empty a small bin yourself. The self-emptying version is a separate listing, the Q352020 AutoEmpty bundle. All of them carry the same name in the title.
The plain-dock robot itself has barely been tested. A quick tester run found tidy straight lines on hardwood and a low rug, but weak corners. Its obstacle sensing was "practically nil," and it rolled straight over cables and small toys. It also picked long hair up off the floor and then wound it around its bristle roller, which has no comb. On the Q352020 AutoEmpty bundle, Vacuum Wars measured 29% of pressed-in pet hair picked up and 79% of its long test hair wrapped, both far worse than average, though that bundle dug buried sand out of carpet well. iRobot itself changed hands in January 2026, when its contract manufacturer Picea took full ownership after bankruptcy. The company says the app, warranties and updates continue.
The catch is a thin record that points the wrong way. If you came for the cheapest robot that does the job, we'd skip the Roomba and buy the Tapo RV30 Max Plus for hard floors. With a shedder in the house, the Dreame D20 Plus is the one.
Nothing from the past year changes the pick, but four things are worth knowing:
Worth waiting for? No. Nothing in that list has the evidence to beat the Dreame.
We judged each robot by its exact US model code and set what the maker promises against what labs and owners found on that code. A pick needs at least two independent kinds of evidence on the exact model, and at least one of them can't come from the maker. Nobody measures, model by model, how long a robot lasts or how support treats you when it breaks. The owner stories on that are too few to settle anything, so we gave weight to warranties and dated update promises instead.
Not here. The Dreame claims 13,000 Pa, measured below average at the brush, and still cleaned carpet better than anything on the page. The Roborock claims less than its siblings and measured more. Brush design decides carpet pickup far more than the number on the box.
Yes, and both robots we'd buy include one. Plan on the bag lasting a fraction of what the box says. Makers' "up to" figures run two to three times ahead of what testers and owners see.
No. None of these robots has a camera or object recognition, and our pick scored zero on Vacuum Wars' obstacle course. If your dog still has the odd accident indoors, either someone checks before every run or you spend more.
Every robot here maps with lidar, so you aren't choosing between technologies. It gives you room maps and no-go zones. It doesn't see a sock.
For daily vacuuming, usually yes, with a stick vacuum kept for stairs and deep cleans. Our guide to whether robot vacuums are worth it covers what one replaces and what it won't.
| Robot | Best for | Code to look for | Don't confuse it with | Its catch | Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreame D20 Plus | Carpet, rugs, shedding pets | RLD35GD with base RCDD0301 | D20 Pro Plus (RLD43SD) | Can't see socks, cords or pet waste | View on Amazon (opens in a new tab) |
| Tapo RV30 Max Plus | Small hard-floor homes | RV30 Max Plus, US hardware V1.80 | RV30 Max (charge-only dock), Gen 2 | Weak on pet hair in carpet | View on Amazon (opens in a new tab) |
| Shark AI Ultra AV2501S | Skip | AV2501S, 30-day base | AV2501AE, AV2511AE (60-day base) | Presses pet hair into carpet | Skip |
| iRobot Roomba 105 Vac | Skip | Q312020, plain charging dock | Q352020 AutoEmpty bundle, 105 Combo | No self-empty on this code | Skip |
BuyBest under $300 for carpet, rugs and shedding pets
Under $300, every robot is blind to the sock on the floor, so buy the one that does the most once the sock is gone. That's the Dreame D20 Plus. It has the best carpet and pet-hair results here, it keeps long hair off its roller, and it comes with three years of cover. Pick up the floor, make sure the listing says RLD35GD, and let the 13,000 Pa on the box mean whatever it likes.
Results come from Vacuum Wars' embedded-sand test in medium-pile carpet, its flattened pet-hair test on carpet (two runs, leftover hair weighed) and its long-hair tangle test on hard floor. A result appears only on the exact code that was tested.
| Robot and exact code | Navigation | Self-empty included | VW carpet sand | VW pet hair | VW long-hair wrap | Who tested this exact code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreame D20 Plus, RLD35GD with base RCDD0301 | Lidar, bumper, low front sensor | Yes, bag | 93% | 91% | 0% | Vacuum Wars, Vacuum Chef, Wirecutter, Just A Dad Approved |
| Roborock Q7 M5+, RRA0TCP with dock AED08LRR | Lidar, bumper | Yes, bag | 75% | 79% | 43% | Vacuum Wars, Wirecutter, TechGearLab, Just A Dad Approved |
| Roborock Q7 M5, RRA0TCP with charge-only dock SPCDZ03RR | Lidar, bumper | No | Not tested by VW on this code | Not tested by VW on this code | Not tested by VW on this code | RTINGS, TechRadar, Tom's Guide |
| Tapo RV30 Max Plus, US hardware V1.80 | Lidar, gyroscope | Yes, bag | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | TechGearLab, Tom's Guide, Wirecutter |
| Shark AI Ultra AV2501S, 30-day base | Lidar | Yes, bagless | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | RTINGS, Just A Dad Approved |
| Shark AV2501AE / AV2511AE, 60-day base | Lidar | Yes, bagless | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | TechGearLab (a 60-day version) |
| iRobot Roomba 105 Vac, Q312020 plain dock | Lidar, bumper | No | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | Not tested by VW | Just A Dad Approved (quick test) |
| iRobot Roomba 105 Vac + AutoEmpty, Q352020 | Lidar, bumper | Yes, bag | 82% (this bundle) | 29% (this bundle) | 79% (this bundle) | Vacuum Wars, Wirecutter |
| Dyson 360 Vis Nav, 304619-01 | Camera | No, charging only | 80% | 100% | 0% | Vacuum Wars, RTINGS, Consumer Reports, Wirecutter |
RTINGS reviewed a Roomba 105 but doesn't say which dock its unit had, and its scores are behind a paywall.
Research count for this page: 6 models weighed; 5 maker manuals among them; across this site's research, 497 sources kept in full; 148 Reddit threads read, kept as the reader's summary, not in full.