Garden Last updated · owner ratings verified July 2026
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Side by side
| Our pick Kenmore Kenmore 600 Series Pet Friendly Bagged Canister Vacuum with Pet PowerMate Best overall $300–380 Check price | Kenmore Kenmore BC3005 Pet Friendly Lightweight Bagged Canister Vacuum Lighter Kenmore $230–300 Check price | Bissell Bissell Zing 4122 Bagged Corded Canister Vacuum Cheapest canister $80–110 Check price | Bissell Bissell MultiClean Allergen Lift-Off Pet Vacuum (2998) Bissell’s real answer $180–240 Check price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What owners rate it | ||||
| Owner rating | 4.1 / 5 (12,501) | 4.1 / 5 (12,501) | 4.3 / 5 (4,797) | 4.3 / 5 (11,002) |
| Specifications | ||||
| Format | Bagged canister | Bagged canister | Bagged canister | Upright with lift-off canister pod |
| Floor head | Motorized Pet PowerMate brush roll | Powered head, lighter duty | Suction-only floor tool, no brush roll | Motorized tangle-free brush roll |
| Filtration | Sealed HEPA | Sealed HEPA | Multi-level filtration, not sealed HEPA | Sealed allergen system with HEPA media |
| Bagged or bagless | Bagged — no dust cloud when emptying | Bagged — no dust cloud when emptying | Bagged — no dust cloud when emptying | Bagless — dust cloud when emptying |
| Motor layout | Two-motor system | Two-motor system | Single motor | Single motor |
| Reach and handling | Retractable cord, telescoping wand | Extended telescoping wand | Short hose and wand | Lift-off pod plus hose |
| Consumables | Bags plus filters | Bags plus filters | Bags plus filters, widely stocked | Filters only, no bags |
| Who it suits | ||||
| Best for | Carpet and stairs in a house with a shedding dog | Apartments and anyone who has to carry the canister | Hard floors, rugs and stairs on a small budget | Someone who wants upright power and canister reach in one machine |
Ratings are aggregated Amazon owner ratings, not our own testing. Figures verified July 2026.
Pros and cons
Kenmore 600 Series Pet Friendly Bagged Canister Vacuum with Pet PowerMate
- Pet PowerMate has its own motor driving the brush roll, which is the only reliable way to lift hair woven into carpet
- Two-motor design means brush-roll load does not steal suction from the airflow
- Sealed HEPA filtration keeps fine dander from being blown back out the exhaust
- Retractable cord and a telescoping wand make stair work far less awkward than an upright
- Amazon pools ratings across the Kenmore canister family, so this score covers several models rather than one
- Bags are a recurring cost and Kenmore-branded stock is less certain than it once was
- Heavy canister body to drag up a flight of stairs
Kenmore BC3005 Pet Friendly Lightweight Bagged Canister Vacuum
- Noticeably lighter than the 600 Series, which matters on stairs and in small spaces
- Same bagged, sealed-HEPA approach that keeps dander contained
- Extended telescoping wand reaches ceiling corners and under low furniture
- Cheaper entry into a proper canister than the 600 Series
- Shares the pooled Kenmore canister rating rather than carrying its own
- Less powerful than the 600 Series on deep carpet
- Still needs bags, with the same long-term availability question
Bissell Zing 4122 Bagged Corded Canister Vacuum
- A third the price of the Kenmore machines and genuinely light to carry
- Bagged, so emptying does not release a dust cloud — unusual at this price
- Excellent on hard floors, where a powered brush roll adds nothing anyway
- Bissell bags and filters are stocked at nearly every big-box store
- No motorized floor head at all, which is the thing that matters for embedded pet hair
- Small bag capacity fills quickly in a shedding household
- Short hose and wand compared with either Kenmore
Bissell MultiClean Allergen Lift-Off Pet Vacuum (2998)
- The canister pod lifts off the upright body, so you get both formats without buying two vacuums
- Tangle-free brush roll genuinely reduces hair wrapping — the recurring frustration with long-haired pets
- Sealed allergen system with HEPA media, which the Zing does not have
- Bagless, so there are no bags to run out of
- Bagless means a dust cloud every time you empty it, which matters for dander allergies
- Heavier and bulkier than either Kenmore canister
- Lift-off pod is a compromise at both jobs rather than excellent at either
Decision factors
What you actually pay
The gap is wide and it is mostly justified. Bissell’s Zing is $80–110, its Lift-Off Pet is $180–240, and the Kenmore canisters are $230–380. What the Kenmore money buys is a separately motorized floor head, a two-motor layout and sealed HEPA filtration — three things the Zing does not have at any price.
Bags are the recurring cost, and this is where the two brands split. Bissell bags and filters sit on shelves at Walmart, Target and most hardware stores, typically $10–18 for a multi-pack. Kenmore bags are still widely available online, and third-party equivalents are cheap, but the Kenmore brand has moved through several owners since the Sears era and shelf presence is thinner than it once was. Buy a year’s supply with the machine and the question stops mattering for a while.
Expect to change a bag every four to eight weeks in a shedding household, and a HEPA filter once or twice a year at $15–30. Call it $40–70 a year in consumables for a bagged canister. The bagless Bissell removes the bag line item entirely, which is a genuine saving — offset by having to wash filters and by the dust cloud on every empty.
One cost worth naming: a powered floor head is a wear item. Belts and brush rolls on a Pet PowerMate need replacing eventually, at $15–35. That is the price of the thing that actually cleans your carpet, and it is money well spent.
Which one fits you
- Carpeted house, shedding dog Kenmore 600 Series A separately motorized brush roll is the only reliable way to lift hair that has worked its way down into carpet fibers.
- Hard floors and area rugs only Bissell Zing 4122 A powered brush roll adds nothing on hard floors, so the Zing does the same job for a third of the money.
- Allergies to pet dander Kenmore 600 Series Bagged plus sealed HEPA means dander is captured and stays captured — bagless machines release a cloud every time you empty them.
- Stairs, upholstery and floors in one machine Bissell MultiClean Lift-Off Pet The pod detaches so you get upright cleaning power and canister reach without storing two vacuums.
If neither is right
- Miele Complete C3 Cat & Dog Bagged Canister Vacuum The category benchmark. A sealed HEPA canister with an electrobrush head, built to a standard neither brand here attempts — and priced accordingly. Buy it if you intend to keep a vacuum for fifteen years.
- Miele Classic C1 Turbo Team Bagged Canister Vacuum The entry point into Miele, with an air-driven turbo head rather than a motorized one. Better build than the Kenmore, weaker floor head — a real trade-off rather than a straight upgrade.
- Atrix Ergo Backpack Canister Vacuum If stairs are the actual problem, a backpack vacuum solves them in a way no canister does — you carry the machine instead of dragging it behind you.
Which should you buy?
Buy the Kenmore 600 Series if your floors are carpeted and you have a shedding animal. It is the only machine in this comparison with a separately motorized floor head, and that single feature does more for pet hair than every other specification combined. Buy the Bissell Zing if your floors are hard, because a powered brush roll contributes nothing to a tile or hardwood floor and you would be paying $250 for a capability you cannot use.
Why does a powered floor head matter so much?
Because suction alone does not remove pet hair from carpet. Hair from cats and dogs has a fine, slightly barbed structure that works its way down between carpet fibers and grips. Airflow pulls at it and it stays put — which is why people vacuum a carpet three times and still see hair when they look closely.
A motorized brush roll agitates the pile mechanically, flicking the hair up out of the fibers where the airflow can carry it away. This is why the Kenmore’s Pet PowerMate exists and why it costs what it does: it is a second motor inside the floor head doing physical work.
Kenmore’s two-motor layout matters for the same reason. On a single-motor canister, driving a brush roll robs power from the suction motor. Splitting them means the brush keeps turning at full speed through deep carpet while the airflow stays strong. On hard floors this whole argument evaporates — there is nothing to agitate, and the Zing’s plain suction tool is the right tool.
Is Bissell even a canister brand?
Not really, and it is worth being direct about that. Bissell’s strength is upright and portable cleaning — carpet washers, pet spot cleaners, lift-off uprights, handhelds — and its pet-specific engineering in those formats is genuinely the best in the mainstream market. Its canister presence is essentially the Zing, a budget machine with no powered head.
The Bissell product that actually competes with a Kenmore canister is the MultiClean Lift-Off Pet: an upright whose canister pod detaches for stairs and furniture. It has the motorized tangle-free brush roll the Zing lacks, and sealed allergen filtration the Zing lacks. It is bagless, heavier, and a compromise at both jobs — but it is a real answer, and for many households a more useful one than a second vacuum.
If you want Bissell’s pet engineering rather than the canister format, the honest recommendation is one of its uprights plus a handheld, covered in the best upright vacuum for pet hair.
Does bagged really matter for pet dander?
For allergies, yes, and it is the most underrated factor in this whole category. A bagless vacuum concentrates everything it picks up into a bin, and every time you empty that bin over a trash can you release a plume of the finest particles back into the room — the exact fraction that triggers allergic reactions.
A bagged vacuum seals that material inside the bag. You pull the full bag, the collar closes, it goes in the trash, and the dander never re-enters the air. Combined with a genuinely sealed HEPA system, where the airflow path is gasketed so unfiltered air cannot bypass the filter, that is a meaningful difference for anyone reactive to cats or dogs.
Note the word sealed. Plenty of vacuums advertise a HEPA filter while leaking unfiltered air around it through gaps in the housing — a HEPA filter in an unsealed machine is close to decorative. The Kenmore canisters and the Bissell Lift-Off both specify sealed systems; the Zing does not. More detail is in HEPA vacuums and allergies.
Will you still be able to buy bags?
This is the legitimate worry with Kenmore and we would not pretend otherwise. Kenmore was Sears’ house brand and has changed hands since; shelf presence in physical stores is much thinner than it was a decade ago. Bags remain widely available online, both genuine and third-party, and the canister bag formats are long-established rather than newly proprietary.
The pragmatic move is to buy a year or two of bags and a spare filter when you buy the machine — around $40–60 — which removes the risk from the decision entirely for the period you would worry about it. Bissell has no such question mark: it is an independent, financially healthy company with bags in every big-box store in the country.
What about stairs?
Canisters win, which is the main reason to choose the format at all. You set the body on a step, work the wand up two or three stairs, then move the body. An upright has to be carried and balanced, which is why so many people simply do not vacuum their stairs properly.
The Kenmore machines come with a telescoping wand for exactly this, and the BC3005 is the lighter of the two to carry. The Bissell Lift-Off gets there differently: you detach the pod and carry just that. And if stairs are genuinely the dominant problem in your house, the backpack option in our alternatives solves it more completely than any canister does.
The bottom line
Kenmore wins this comparison on the specific job it is being asked to do. A motorized Pet PowerMate, a two-motor layout and a sealed bagged HEPA system are exactly the specification for pet hair on carpet, and Bissell does not offer an equivalent canister. Bissell wins on price, on parts availability and on everything outside the canister format — where its pet engineering is genuinely class-leading.
For the full field including Miele, see our canister vacuum for pet hair roundup, and upright versus canister if you are still deciding on format. Every ranking here comes from aggregated owner ratings, review volume and expert consensus rather than first-hand testing — see how we rank.