1. Purchase price, by what you get
| Band | What it buys |
|---|
| $130-200 | Floor-only cordless, small above-ground pools, ~90 min, 180 micron |
| $330-450 | Wall climbing, 150-160 min, app control, both pool types |
| $450-600 | 6,800 GPH, 5 L baskets, published 10-micron filtration |
| $600-900 | Waterline passes, 3-micron filtration, charging docks, cameras |
| $900-1,500 | Corded 40-50 ft machines, surface skimming, 70 ft cables |
| $1,500-2,500 | Camera mapping with debris detection, five-function flagships |
The $450-900 band is where capability per dollar peaks — the under-$1,000 roundup covers it.
2. Electricity: genuinely trivial
A robotic cleaner draws on the order of 150-200 W. A two-hour cycle three times a week is roughly 1-1.2 kWh a week, or something like 25-30 kWh across a six-month season. At typical US residential rates that is a few dollars a season.
We are not going to print a dollar figure as though it were precise: rates vary by a factor of three across the country and your machine’s draw may differ from the range above. Look up your own rate per kWh and multiply — the number will be small either way.
3. The pump-time saving, which is the real money
Here is the comparison that matters. A suction cleaner or a manual vacuum only works while your pool pump runs. Pool pumps are among the largest electrical loads in a home, and the Department of Energy identifies pump run-time and sizing as a primary efficiency target.
A robot cleans with the pump off, so your pump only needs to run for circulation and chemistry — which for most pools is considerably less than the hours a cleaning cycle would demand. On a single-speed pump, cutting an hour a day of run-time dwarfs the entire running cost of the robot.
4. Consumables, with real prices
| Item | Typical cost | How often |
|---|
| Dolphin ultra-fine cartridges (4-pack) | ~$19-26 | Annually |
| Aiper filter basket or cloth | ~$20-60 | Annually |
| Beatbot genuine filter basket | ~$60-100 | Annually |
| Dolphin brush pair | ~$30 | 1-3 seasons |
| Dolphin track pair | ~$35 | 2-4 seasons |
| Replacement charger | ~$10-17 | As needed |
| Replacement battery (where sold) | ~$69-80 | Year 3-5 |
| Caddy (optional but advisable) | ~$99-129 | Once |
Note the spread in filter costs — $19 for a Dolphin four-pack against $100 for a single Beatbot Ultra basket. Over five years that is a real difference, and it is the figure nobody checks before buying. Filters by brand has all of it.
5. Five-year totals, worked
Cordless mid-range, $500: $500 purchase + ~$150 filters + ~$25 brushes + ~$80 battery in year four = roughly $755, or about $150 a year.
Corded Dolphin, $899: $899 purchase + ~$100 filters + ~$30 brushes + ~$35 tracks = roughly $1,064 over five years. But the machine is good for seven to ten, so over eight years with a $110 motor in year seven it is roughly $1,175, or about $147 a year — and falling.
Budget cordless, $130: $130 + ~$60 filters over three seasons = roughly $190. If the battery dies in year three with no replacement sold, that is the end — about $63 a year, which is still the cheapest per-year of the three, for a floor-only machine in a small pool.
The costs people forget
- A caddy, at $99-129, if the machine is over about 20 lb. Not optional in practice.
- A booster pump, if you were comparing against a pressure-side cleaner.
- A second filter set, so you can run two and wash two. The Dolphin four-pack solves this for $26; most brands do not.
- The sunk cost of buying too small. A machine rated below your pool area never finishes, and no setting recovers that.
