Table of Contents
After nine years of testing more than 50 different air purifiers, we continue to believe that the excellent Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty is the best—as we have since 2015. However, as powerful as the Mighty is, its performance is no longer as unique as it once was, and several other air purifiers have recently come close to meeting our high requirements. If you like the aesthetics, price, or other characteristics of our other excellent choices, know that they work similarly to this Coway model in terms of purifying performance. For now, this is the Best Air Purifiers Under $400.
Air purifiers are fairly simple machines—little more than a fan and a filter—but a good one can enhance your life by catching bacteria, viruses, and smoke from wildfires and other sources and lowering airborne allergens like pollen and mold spores. To be considered great, an air purifier must not only function effectively, but it must also be well-engineered and creatively constructed. To us, this implies that the air purifier should be powerful enough to clear the air in a large living room or playroom, quiet and dark enough for you to sleep near the machine in a bedroom, and affordable enough that you can have several units dispersed throughout your home.
Best Air Purifiers Under $400
Blueair Blue Pure 211+
The Blueair Blue Pure 211+ achieves Excellent particle removal ratings at both high and low speeds. It is intended for rooms up to 540 square feet in size. However, because the 16-pound machine lacks a carrying handle and wheels, it can be difficult to transfer from room to room. When it’s time to change the filter, a light will flash, and this model has a machine-washable fabric prefilter (a stocking that goes over the bottom half of the device and comes in five colors) to capture bigger particles like pet hair, extending the life of the main filter. One tiny caveat: When the machine is running at high speed, expect some noise. Overall, this is one of the Best Air Purifiers Under $400 that you can buy right now.
Honeywell InSight HPA5300B
This compact HEPA air purifier can be used on the floor or on a tabletop. It has an Excellent grade for its ability to remove dust, pollen, and smoke at high speeds. While few air purifiers are whisper-quiet, the Honeywell Insight HPA5300B is among the quietest we’ve tested when set at high speed. It has an indication light that tells you when to change the filters (about once a year for the HEPA filter). A prefilter is also required to be updated every three months. This model has a yearly cost of $200 for filter replacements and energy use. Overall, it is one of the Best Air Purifiers Under $400 that you can buy.
Coway Airmega 150
Coway’s Airmega 150 is an excellent air purifier for small rooms. Its simplistic design complements any environment and is simple to use right out of the box. While it lacks apps management and integration with other smart appliances, it also lacks the associated connectivity and interoperability issues. Another reason we recommend it is because it precisely monitors and adapts to changing air quality, ensuring that you are constantly breathing at your best.
AP-1512HH COWAY
The Coway AP-1512HH is a wonderful pick if you’re looking for a no-frills portable air purifier that does its job. It’s long-lasting, capable, sturdy, sleekly built, and reasonably priced. It operates silently unless it senses excessive pollution, in which case it can be louder than a standing fan. Although the science underlying ionizers is unknown, the four-stage filtration system (Pre-filter, Deodorization filter, True HEPA filter, Vital Ion) operates automatically based on the quantity of pollutants detected. Still, it is one of the Best Air Purifiers Under $400 that you can consider.
This Coway air purifier is suitable for rooms up to 361 square feet in size. As with any air purifier, you’ll need to replace the HEPA filter on a regular basis, and if you don’t clean the pre-filter on a regular basis, it won’t turn on as frequently. We appreciated the option to turn off the display lights, which may be irritating in dark bedrooms or other low-light situations.
LEVOIT Core 400S
Easily one of the Best Air Purifiers Under $400 available on the market, The LEVOIT Core 400S has a good mix of features that make it suitable for compact apartments or children’s bedrooms. It has a sleek, small appearance that should fit well with most houses, and the voice control with Alexa compatibility puts it into the twenty-first century with hands-free operation.
The LEVOIT purifier is designed to cover up to 403 square feet and is also whisper-quiet. It is the quietest purifier on our list, with a maximum loudness of 23 decibels. The real HEPA filter enhances the performance of an already feature-rich small air cleaner. And it’s competitively priced.
Winix 5500-2
The Winix 5500-2 excels at particulate capture, catching 99.9% of the smoke in our test room in just 30 minutes on high. That’s marginally better (as in, 0.3% better) than the Coway Airmega AP-1512HH Mighty findings, but the difference is negligible in practice: When operated continually, as most homes do, both devices reduce particles to near zero in under an hour and keep them there. Thus, this product is one of the best Air Purifiers Under $400 available right now.
We still prefer the AP-1512HH because of its lower energy consumption, smaller visual footprint, and manual display-shutoff feature—the Winix’s display shuts off only when the fan is at its lowest fan speed, so if you want a dark bedroom, you have to sacrifice a lot of air filtration—but it’s a close race. The 5300-2 and C535 (unique to the Winix shop and Walmart) omit a number of the 5500-2’s features but operate just as well and may be less expensive.
Sharper Image Purify 9
The Sharper Image Purify 9 is a filter-based air purifier that is portable and meant for use on a tabletop or floor in spaces that are up to 350 square feet in size. It has six different speeds. During our evaluations, we found that this particular model was quite effective at clearing the air of smoke, pollen, and dust when it was set to its most powerful setting. In addition to being user-friendly, its filters are also straightforward to remove and replace. Currently, this is one of the best Air Purifiers Under $400 that you can buy right now.
Final Words
A device that eliminates impurities from the air in a room to improve the quality of the air inside of the space is known as an air purifier or air cleaner. These devices are typically sold with the claim that they are useful to allergy sufferers and asthmatics, and that they can reduce or eliminate the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke.