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Updated September 2026: Maytronics’s, Polaris’s and Beatbot’s current prices, warranty terms and pool-size ratings re-verified against each maker’s own product pages, cross-checked against an authorized Dolphin dealer’s listing and against independent reviewer and owner-report data from The Pool Nerd and Birdeye.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
Best for most pools: the Maytronics Dolphin Cayman, at $1,129.00 direct from Maytronics’s own store — $564.50 for every year of its 2-year warranty, the cheapest of the four here. It runs floor and walls on a built-in weekly timer with no battery to manage. Skip the cord only if your pool deck has nowhere safe to plug one in; that’s the one problem the Polaris Freedom and Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra solve that a Dolphin doesn’t.
The Beatbot is the one to skip outright right now. At $2,299.00 on sale — $3,150.00 at list — it’s the most expensive robot in this comparison and the worst-reviewed: The Pool Nerd’s independent review calls it “Pool Nerd Disapproved” and reports weak suction that gets weaker as the battery drains. Its own coverage spec isn’t even measured the same way as the other three, which is its own finding below.
What Does Each Robot Cost per Year You’re Covered?
A pool robot’s warranty is the maker’s own bet on how long it lasts. Divide today’s price by that bet and you get a real number: what a single covered year actually costs. Every price below is what each maker (or, for Polaris, an authorized retailer) charges today, pulled September 2, 2026 — not carried over from an old listing.
| Model | Current price | Warranty | Cost per covered year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolphin Cayman | $1,129.00, per Maytronics’s own store | 2 years | $564.50 |
| Polaris Freedom | $1,199.00, per Leslie’s Pool Supplies (Polaris’s own product page lists no price) | 2 years | $599.50 |
| Dolphin Premier | $2,499.00, per Maytronics’s own store (Poolbots currently lists it on sale at $1,999.00) | 3 years | $833.00 |
| Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra | $2,299.00 on sale, $3,150.00 list, per Beatbot’s own site | 3 years | $766.33 at the sale price, $1,050.00 at list |
The Cayman wins this even before you get to pool size: cheapest sticker, shortest warranty, and still the cheapest year-by-year math of the group. The Premier costs $833.00 a covered year — the most of any Dolphin — but it’s also carrying a full extra year of coverage the Cayman doesn’t offer, on a bigger pool.
Rated pool length is the second real number, and it’s where the four stop being comparable on one column. Maytronics’s own Cayman page and an authorized Dolphin dealer’s listing don’t even agree with each other on the Cayman — that disagreement gets its own section below. Here’s what each currently states, plus what that works out to per foot:
| Model | Rated pool length | Cost per foot |
|---|---|---|
| Dolphin Cayman | Up to 40 ft, per Maytronics and per The Pool Nerd’s independent review; a Dolphin dealer’s own listing says 33 ft | $28.23 at 40 ft / $34.21 at 33 ft |
| Polaris Freedom | Up to 50 ft, per Leslie’s Pool Supplies listing (Polaris’s own page states “in-ground pools” with no foot figure) | $23.98 |
| Dolphin Premier | Up to 50 ft, per Maytronics | $49.98 |
| Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra | Not rated by length at all — see below | Not comparable |
The Freedom actually posts the cheapest cost per foot of the four, even though it isn’t the cheapest cost per covered year — the Cayman’s shorter warranty term drags its per-year number back down below the Freedom’s. Neither number is “the” answer; a buyer sizing a large pool on a budget should weight the per-foot column harder, and a buyer who just wants the cheapest total commitment should weight cost-per-year harder. Both are real math from the same two prices.
Beatbot doesn’t publish a maximum pool length for the AquaSense 2 Ultra at all. Its own product page rates the robot by area instead — 3,875 square feet of coverage per cleaning cycle — which isn’t the same kind of measurement as a linear foot rating and doesn’t convert into one without guessing. Rather than force a number that isn’t there, it sits out of the per-foot column above. That gap is worth knowing on its own: every other maker in this comparison tells you how long a pool the robot is built for, and Beatbot doesn’t.
Which Pool-Length Number Is Real — Maytronics’ 40 Feet or the Dealer’s 33?
Two sources say 40 feet. One says 33. Here’s what’s actually printed where, plus two more places a maker’s page and an independent reviewer land on different footing.
| What’s claimed | Source | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Dolphin Cayman covers pools up to 40 ft | Maytronics’s own Cayman product page; The Pool Nerd’s independent review separately notes the Cayman’s 50-ft cord is “adequate for pools up to 40 feet” | Two sources agree on 40 ft. An authorized Dolphin dealer’s own listing page states 33 ft for the same model. If your pool sits between 33 and 40 feet, size to the smaller number. |
| Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra runs “up to 10 hours” | Beatbot’s own spec sheet | True only for surface-only skimming. The same page lists 5 hours for floor cleaning and 4.5 hours for wall-and-waterline cleaning — the modes that actually clean the pool run less than half the headline number. |
| Beatbot’s own retail reviews | Fakespot authenticity rating, reported by The Pool Nerd | F, versus an A for the Cayman on the same rating system. Treat Beatbot’s own product-page star rating with real skepticism before treating it as owner sentiment. |
| Polaris Freedom cleans fine debris like sand | A Birdeye-verified owner review of the Freedom | The reviewer reports the unit doesn’t ship with an ultra-fine filter and paid roughly $100 extra for one to handle sand. Budget for the accessory if your pool sees fine sediment. |
Does Cordless Actually Mean You Do Less Work?
The pitch for both cordless robots here is that you stop thinking about pool cleaning entirely. Neither one’s own numbers back that up. Polaris’s own Freedom page states a single run takes “2.5 hours or less” and a full recharge takes “less than 5 hours” — so between cleanings, someone is pulling the robot out and putting it on a charger. Beatbot’s numbers run the same way: 4.5 to 10 hours of runtime depending on mode, against a 4.5-hour recharge, per Beatbot’s own spec sheet. A corded Dolphin, by contrast, sits on a built-in weekly timer and runs itself; nobody retrieves it between cycles unless they’re taking it out for a swim day.
There’s a real safety reason to take that extra handling seriously, too. The CPSC has recalled two different cordless robotic pool cleaners from Aiper over the past few years — the Elite Pro in 2023 and the Seagull Pro in 2025 — both over charging setups that could overheat and cause burns or fire. Neither Aiper model appears in this comparison, and none of the four robots here carry an open recall as of this writing. But it’s the reason to buy an established brand, register the product, and follow the maker’s charging instructions exactly with any battery device that lives near water.
How Do the Four Score on Power, Coverage and Reviews?
Four axes, weighted by what actually determines whether a pool robot does its job: cleaning power and coverage, cost per covered year (from the table above), what owners and independent reviewers actually report, and how much hands-on work it demands between cycles. These are our own weighted scores, built from the sourced facts in this piece — not a lab result, and not anyone else’s rating system.
| Axis (weight) | Dolphin Cayman | Dolphin Premier | Polaris Freedom | Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleaning power & coverage (30) | 24 | 30 | 16 | 10 |
| Cost per covered year (25) | 25 | 15 | 19 | 4 |
| Owner & reviewer sentiment (25) | 23 | 24 | 20 | 5 |
| Hands-off convenience (20) | 20 | 20 | 6 | 4 |
| Total (100) | 92 | 89 | 61 | 23 |
Coverage is the one axis where the Premier legitimately beats the Cayman — 4,500 GPH and full floor-wall-waterline cleaning against the Cayman’s 4,000-plus GPH and floor-and-walls-only. It’s also the reason The Pool Nerd’s reviewer, who has reviewed more than 30 robotic cleaners for that site, names the Premier a personal favorite. The Cayman closes almost the entire gap on price and convenience instead. The Freedom’s biggest score loss is convenience, not cleaning — 784 Birdeye reviewers rate it 4.0 out of 5, but every one of those reviews happened around a retrieve-and-recharge routine the corded models don’t require. The Beatbot loses on every axis at once, which is a different problem than losing on one.
Who Should Buy the Dolphin Cayman?
The Cayman is dual-motor, wall-climbing, and rated for over 4,000 gallons an hour of flow, per Maytronics’s own spec sheet — enough to clean the floor and walls of a pool up to 40 feet on its own timer. The Pool Nerd’s independent review backs the reliability case specifically: it reports “zero downtime between cleaning sessions” and no measurable loss of power over time, the kind of claim a battery robot structurally can’t make. The one drawback either source names is minor — the power cord lacks the anti-tangle swivel found on pricier Dolphins.
Buy it if your pool is 40 feet or under and you want the cheapest real ownership math here. Skip it if you’re under trees — it doesn’t clean the waterline, and it has no leaf bag for heavy debris. That’s the Premier’s job.
Who Should Buy the Dolphin Premier?
The Premier is Maytronics’s flagship for a reason: 4,500 GPH of flow, dual scrubbing brushes, full floor-wall-waterline coverage, and a multi-media filtration system built around an oversized leaf bag that the Cayman doesn’t have. It’s rated for pools up to 50 feet and backed by a 3-year warranty, the longest of the four here. The Pool Nerd’s reviewer, who has reviewed 30-plus robotic cleaners for that site, calls it a personal favorite and reports a specific unit “running strong for over three years without a single hiccup” — a first-hand claim from that reviewer, not from us, and worth reading as one data point rather than a guarantee.
Buy it if your pool sits under trees, tops 40 feet, or both — the leaf bag and waterline cleaning genuinely earn the extra cost there. Skip it if your pool is small and mostly clear of debris; you’re paying $833.00 a covered year for capability the Cayman’s $564.50 already covers.
Who Should Buy the Polaris Freedom?
Polaris has built pool equipment for decades, and the Freedom is the sober cordless choice on that reputation alone — an established dealer network matters if something needs warranty service in year two. Birdeye’s 784 verified reviews average 4.0 out of 5, with reviewers specifically praising waterline cleaning and how it handles fine particles. The catch sits in the fine print of those same reviews: the standard filter isn’t the ultra-fine one, and at least one reviewer paid roughly $100 more to add it for sand. A single reviewer also reported it doesn’t always stop reliably at the deep end.
Buy it if your pool deck genuinely has no safe outlet and you’ve priced in the ultra-fine filter as a real add-on cost. Skip it if you have an outlet — a corded Dolphin outperforms it on this Ledger at a lower cost per covered year, with none of the retrieve-and-recharge routine.
Who Should Buy the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra?
The AquaSense 2 Ultra is the only robot here that skims the surface as well as cleaning the floor, walls and waterline, with AI-driven mapping across 27 sensors, per Beatbot’s own spec sheet. On paper, that’s the most capable machine in this group. The Pool Nerd’s independent review says the paper doesn’t hold up in the water: weak suction that gets noticeably weaker as the 13,400 mAh battery drains, debris missed in corners, and a 26.5-pound unit that’s genuinely heavy to lift out for its daily recharge. The same review flags an F rating on Fakespot for the product’s own retail reviews — a signal to discount Beatbot’s star rating on its own listings rather than take it at face value.
Buy it if the surface-skimming feature specifically matters to you — floating leaves and pollen are a real nuisance a corded Dolphin can’t touch — and you’re prepared to pay $766.33 a covered year, even at the current sale price, for that one capability. Skip it for straightforward floor-and-wall cleaning; three other robots here do that job better, more reliably, and for less money, on both our numbers and an independent reviewer’s.
So Which One Should You Actually Buy?
Buy the Dolphin Cayman unless a specific reason points you elsewhere. It’s the cheapest robot here per covered year, the independent review backs its reliability claim specifically, and a built-in timer means you never touch it once it’s set. Go to the Premier only if your pool is over 40 feet or sits under real tree cover — the leaf bag and extra flow are worth the jump from $564.50 to $833.00 a year. Take the Freedom only if a cord genuinely can’t reach your pool, and budget for the ultra-fine filter separately. Leave the AquaSense 2 Ultra to buyers who want surface skimming specifically and have already accepted the price and the weaker independent review that come with it.
Two more stops on the backyard: our above-ground pool comparison covers what’s left to buy after a 2025 recall pulled two popular models, our quiet window AC shortlist handles the heat once you’re out of the water, and our portable grill comparison covers the rest of a pool day.
