Best Carpet Cleaning in Melbourne

How we ranked Melbourne's carpet cleaners

We started with 75 carpet cleaning businesses that turn up on Google Maps for Melbourne searches. To be scored, each one needed at least 50 public reviews and a website of its own that still works, and only 23 got through. That filter earns its keep, because a thin review history tells you very little about how a cleaner copes with a wool carpet, a pet stain or a tight deadline at the end of a lease.

Those 23 average 4.82 stars, so raw ratings barely separate them. Under our score a rating backed by thousands of jobs keeps nearly all of its value, while one resting on a few dozen is trimmed noticeably. Franchise networks count once, via their strongest Melbourne branch. Scores here range from 4.81 to 4.67 across the 10. Nobody pays for a position.

How the score works →

How much does carpet cleaning cost in Melbourne?

Carpet cleaners here mostly charge per room for homes and per square metre for offices. Published 2026 price guides put a steam clean at $32 to $63 a room in Melbourne, with a whole house with three bedrooms commonly landing between $160 and $370. Dry cleaning sits in much the same band. Rugs and lounges are priced per piece, so mention them when you ask for a quote.

The room rate is rarely the whole bill. Stain treatment is often priced per stain, at $20 to $50 each, and deodorising for pet odour adds $15 to $40 a room. Stairs are commonly counted as a room of their own. Basic spot removal, a vacuum beforehand and moving furniture should be part of the base price, but ask the question instead of assuming it.

Be wary of a headline price far below the going rate. A very low room price is sometimes just a way through the front door, with the extras pitched once the technician is standing on your carpet. Australian Consumer Law requires a business to show the total price as a single figure, including unavoidable fees. Get the quote in writing with rooms, stairs, stain work and GST spelled out.

Is steam cleaning or dry cleaning better for your carpet?

Steam cleaning is the everyday name for hot water extraction: heated water and detergent are driven into the pile and vacuumed back out with the soil. Carpet manufacturers generally name it as the preferred method. One major Australian wool carpet maker's care guide asks for a professional steam clean every 12 to 18 months, depending on use, and advises against shampooing, dry cleaning and machines you operate yourself.

Dry cleaning, in carpet terms, is a method that uses little moisture, chosen where a short drying time matters, such as busy walkways. It works as a maintenance clean between full ones. Before booking it for a whole house, read the care guide or warranty that came with your carpet. Some warranties ask for proof of professional hot water extraction, so the invoice should state the method used.

Machinery matters as much as method. Steam cleaning is done with either a unit mounted on a truck or a portable one, and the truck mount is the more powerful of the two. A properly extracted carpet should dry within six to eight hours in a ventilated room. If it is still damp after 24 hours, too much water was left behind, and that is worth raising with the cleaner straight away.

Do renters in Victoria have to pay for professional carpet cleaning?

Often they do not. The standard Victorian rental agreement says a rental provider cannot demand professional cleaning at the end of a tenancy except in two cases. The first is where the place was professionally cleaned immediately before you moved in and you were told so. The second is where that level of cleaning is needed to return it to its starting condition, allowing for fair wear and tear.

That clause applies to agreements signed after 29 March 2021, and a lease may not include a term that contradicts it. Consumer Affairs Victoria's cleanliness guideline treats carpet steam cleaning as going beyond the legal duty to leave a home reasonably clean. It gives wine or urine stains as examples that would justify a professional clean. Its own picture of reasonably clean is carpet free of pet hair, stains and strong odours.

Booking a clean to protect your bond makes sense only after you compare the carpet against the condition report from the start of the tenancy. When a clean is warranted, keep the invoice and take dated photos once the carpet is dry. Should the provider still claim against the bond, the dispute goes to Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria and, if unresolved, to VCAT, which has to consider that same guideline.

What should you ask a carpet cleaner before booking?

Five minutes on the phone sorts careful operators from careless ones. Tell them what the carpet is made of if you know, how old it is, and exactly which stains worry you. A cleaner who asks those questions unprompted is a good sign. Australia has a published standard for this work, AS/NZS 3733, and manufacturers expect professional cleaning to follow it, so it is fair to ask whether they do.

Unsolicited offers deserve extra care. If a carpet cleaning deal reaches you through a cold call or a knock on the door and is worth $100 or more, you get a cooling off period of 10 business days, and the business is not allowed to do the job or take payment during that time. A salesperson pressing to start this afternoon is ignoring that rule.

• What do you count as a room, and are the hallway and stairs charged separately?
• Is your machine mounted on a truck or portable, and can you reach an upstairs flat with it?
• Are spot treatment, a first pass with the vacuum and moving furniture included in the quote?
• Will the invoice name the cleaning method, so I can show it for my carpet warranty or my rental provider?
• If a stain you said would lift is still there afterwards, do you come back at no charge?

What can you do if the clean goes wrong?

Say the carpet has shrunk, the colour has run, or a stain you paid to remove is back within days. Carpet cleaning carries an automatic guarantee under Australian Consumer Law that the work is done with due care and skill. For a fixable problem, you have to give the cleaner the chance to put it right within a reasonable time. Report it in writing with photos as soon as you notice.

Refusal or endless delay changes things: you can have another cleaner fix it and claim that cost back. Where the fault is major, for instance a result that cannot be fixed quickly or easily, you may cancel and seek a partial refund. Consumer Affairs Victoria offers a voluntary dispute service but cannot force an outcome. Only VCAT or a court can order payment, so keep every quote, message and receipt.