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Published July 12, 2026. Prices and specs checked September 1, 2026.
Air purifier coverage is published twice, and the two numbers are 4.8 times apart. Levoit’s Core 300S-P page gives 1,051 square feet and 219 square feet. Coway’s Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH page gives 1,748 and 361. The Winix 5510 page gives 1,882 and 392. In each case the smaller figure is the one AHAM certifies, and the larger one is what the marketing leads with.
On the five-axis tally below, the Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH wins at 87.3 out of 100, the Levoit Core 300S-P takes 76.2 and the Winix 5510 finishes last at 61.2.
Prices are approximate, current as of publication, and change frequently — confirm the latest price with the retailer before buying.
$149.99 buys the smallest certified room here
- Best overall: Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH, $239.99. Three years of warranty, the fullest coverage disclosure of the three, and the lowest cost per certified square foot.
- Cheapest to buy: Levoit Core 300S-P, $149.99. It is also the most expensive of the three per certified square foot, because 219 square feet is a small room.
- The one with an asterisk: Winix 5510, $259.99. The largest certified room at 392 square feet, the shortest warranty, and a warranty clause that voids on non-Winix filters.
- Gone: Winix 5500-2. Discontinued in the US and Canada as of May 2025. If a roundup still recommends it, that roundup has not been re-checked.
$1.19 per certified square foot is the cheapest of the three
A purifier’s sticker is not what it costs, because the filter is a consumable and the machine runs continuously. The comparable number is what the whole package costs divided by the coverage the certification actually stands behind. I used a three-year window for every machine so the filter counts line up, then divided by the AHAM-basis square footage.
Electricity is priced at 16.48 cents per kilowatt-hour, the EIA’s US average residential figure for 2024, running 24 hours a day on the lowest fan speed. The wattages are HouseFresh’s measured figures at each machine’s speed one, not the makers’ rated maximums.
| Input | Levoit Core 300S-P | Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH | Winix 5510 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machine | $149.99 | $239.99 | $259.99 |
| Filters, three years | $123.73 to $164.97 — Levoit sells a 2-pack at $54.99, so $27.50 each, and says every 6 to 8 months | $170.97 — one $56.99 set per year, covering a 1-year HEPA and two 6-month deodorization filters | $167.97 at the current $55.99 sale price, $239.97 at the $79.99 list price, for Filter Q on a 12-month interval |
| Electricity, three years | $25.55 — 5.9 W measured, 51.68 kWh a year | $18.19 — 4.2 W measured, 36.79 kWh a year | Empty. Winix publishes no rated wattage for the 5510 and I found no independent measurement of it. |
| Three-year total | $299.27 to $340.51 | $429.15 | $427.96 to $499.96, plus power |
| Certified coverage at 4.8 ACH | 219 sq ft | 361 sq ft | 392 sq ft |
| Dollars per certified square foot | $1.37 to $1.55 | $1.19 | $1.09 to $1.28 |
The cheapest machine is the most expensive one on this measure. $149.99 sounds like the value pick until you notice that Levoit certifies 219 square feet against Coway’s 361 and Winix’s 392, and that Levoit wants a new filter up to twice as often as either of the others.
The Winix column has a hole in it on purpose. I am not going to fill an electricity cell with the discontinued 5500-2’s measured 6.5 watts and call it the 5510’s, because they are different machines. If Winix published a wattage the cell would have a number in it.
1,051 square feet and 219 square feet sit on the same Levoit page
Both numbers are true. They answer different questions, and only one of them is the question you are asking.
AHAM’s own white paper on air changes per hour is explicit: “Air cleaners that carry the AHAM Verifide Mark have a suggested room size based on 4.8 air changes per hour.” The formula it prints assumes an 8-foot ceiling, and AHAM’s reasoning is that indoor air quality researchers put the minimum ventilation recommendation at three air changes an hour, so 4.8 clears that with margin.
The bigger number on each product page is the room the machine can turn over once an hour. Once an hour is below the minimum AHAM is designing against.
| What the maker publishes | What the certification stands behind | Ratio | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Levoit: “1051 ft2 (1 ACH)” | “219 ft2 (4.8 ACH)” | 4.80x | Both labelled with their basis. The larger one leads. |
| Coway: “1 air change/hr. 1,748 ft²” | “4.8 air changes/hr. 361 ft²” | 4.84x | Three rungs published — 1, 2 and 4.8 air changes. Fullest disclosure here. |
| Winix 5510: “cleans rooms up to 1,882 sq ft in 1 hour” | “AHAM Verified Room Size: 392 sq. ft.” | 4.80x | Names AHAM on the certified figure, which the other two do not. |
AHAM’s shopping advice is a shortcut around all of this: “Follow the 2/3 rule, and choose an air cleaner with a tobacco smoke rating that is two-thirds the size of the room’s area.” The EPA’s own guide encodes the same thing without naming it — its table asks for 65 cfm of clean air delivery for 100 square feet, 195 for 300, 390 for 600, which is exactly two-thirds of the floor area every time.
Measure your room. Multiply by 0.65. Shop for a smoke CADR at least that high, and ignore the square footage on the front of the box entirely.
38.9 decibels is what a 22-decibel claim sounds like at three feet
All three makers publish a quiet-mode decibel figure. HouseFresh measured all three with a sound level meter from three feet away. The gap is about 15 decibels, and it is the same gap for every brand.
| Machine | Maker’s quiet-mode claim | HouseFresh, measured at 3 ft, speed 1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Levoit Core 300S-P | 22 dB | 38.9 dB | 16.9 dB |
| Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH | 24 dB(A) | 38.9 dBA | 14.9 dB |
| Winix 5500-2, the discontinued model | 23.5 dB | 38.8 dBA | 15.3 dB |
Three unrelated companies do not land within two decibels of each other by coincidence. Companies do not exactly lie here. None of the three publishes the distance its figure was taken at, or whether the number is A-weighted, so the claim and the measurement are not the same quantity and were never meant to be compared.
Practical version: assume about 39 decibels on the lowest speed on any of these, at bedside distance. Coway’s top speed is the loudest of the group at 60.1 dBA measured, against its published 53.
87.3 out of 100 goes to the machine with the longest warranty
Cost per certified square foot carries 30 percent, because it is the only figure that folds the machine, the filters and the power into one comparable number. Disclosure carries 25 percent — on a product whose whole value proposition is invisible, what a maker prints is most of what you have. Filter economics and lock-in get 20 percent, warranty 15 percent, and continuity of the model and its filter 10 percent.
| Axis (weight) | Levoit Core 300S-P | Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH | Winix 5510 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per certified sq ft, cheapest = 100 (30%) | 81.4 | 100 | 93.2 |
| Disclosure (25%) | 75 — two labelled coverage rungs, 23 W published, a 22–50 dB range with no weighting stated | 85 — three labelled rungs, 77 W published, 24–53 dB(A) with the weighting stated | 55 — names AHAM on the certified figure, publishes no wattage at all and only a minimum decibel |
| Filter economics and lock-in (20%) | 80 — $27.50 a filter, no third-party filter prohibition in the warranty | 60 — $56.99 a year, warranty excludes damage from non-genuine filters | 45 — $55.99 to $79.99 a year, warranty invalid if non-Winix filters are used |
| Warranty, longest = 100 (15%) | 66.7 — 2 years | 100 — 3 years | 33.3 — the FAQ says 1 year, the product page says 2 |
| Continuity of model and filter (10%) | 70 — renamed mid-series to 300S-P; filter compatibility listed inconsistently across Levoit’s own two filter pages | 90 — same model name, same filter set, unchanged | 55 — the 5500-2 was discontinued and the 5510 takes a different filter, though Winix has committed to 5500-2 filters through 2032 |
| Weighted total | 76.2 | 87.3 | 61.2 |
Disagree with a weight? Re-run the tally. Push cost to 60 percent and drop disclosure to 5, and Winix moves ahead of Levoit but Coway still wins, because Coway is first on the cost axis too.
3 years of warranty is Coway’s, and 1 year may be Winix’s
Coway covers the AP-1512HH for three years from purchase. Levoit covers everything it makes for two. Winix is where it gets awkward: the Winix America FAQ describes standard coverage as one year from purchase, and the 5510 and A231 product pages both advertise two.
I am printing both because I cannot tell you which one a claims department would honour. Two of a company’s own surfaces disagreeing is a fact about the company, not a detail to smooth over.
The filter clause is not ambiguous at all. Winix states the warranty is invalid if non-Winix brand filters are used in the unit. Coway’s registration terms exclude any malfunction or performance degradation from non-genuine or unauthorized filters. Levoit’s warranty policy has no equivalent prohibition; it treats filters as ordinary consumables.
Skip the Winix 5510 if you were planning on third-party filters, or if a one-versus-two-year warranty question is the kind of thing that will annoy you in month 14.
$54.99 buys two Levoit filters and eight to sixteen months
Levoit’s Core 300 series filter is $29.99 on its own or $54.99 for two, and Levoit recommends replacing every 6 to 8 months. That is the widest replacement window of the three and it is where the Levoit’s running cost gets uncertain: at 6 months you buy six filters over three years, at 8 months you buy four and a half.
Small oddity worth knowing before you order. Levoit’s single-filter page lists compatibility as the Core 300-P and does not name the 300S-P; only the 2-pack page names both. Check the model on your own machine rather than the one in the review you read.
Coway is the simplest to budget. One $56.99 set a year, containing a HEPA filter rated for a year and two deodorization filters rated for six months each. No arithmetic required.
Skip the Levoit Core 300S-P if your room is bigger than about 220 square feet, or if a filter interval you have to guess at bothers you more than $90 of purchase price saves you.
May 2025 is when Winix stopped selling the 5500-2
The Winix 5500-2 is the machine most air-purifier roundups still name, and Winix does not sell it. HouseFresh reports Winix confirmed the discontinuation for the US and Canada as of May 2025. It is absent from the Winix America catalogue, which currently runs from the A230 at $129.99 up to the XQ at $1,099.99.
The successor is the 5510 at $259.99, which is roughly double what the 5500-2 sold for. The A231 at $129.99 is the model people reach for instead, and it is not the same machine: AHAM Verifide at 246 square feet against the 5510’s 392.
Winix still sells Filter H for the 5500-2 at $59.49, and has committed to making it through 2032. If you already own one, you are fine. If you are shopping, the value argument that made the 5500-2 famous did not transfer to its replacement.
Skip the Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH if you need the quietest possible top speed. It measured 60.1 dBA on speed three, the loudest here, and its measured draw jumps from 4.2 watts to 77.3 watts between speed one and speed three.
0.050 parts per million is all a CARB seal certifies
Every portable air cleaner sold in California has to be certified by the California Air Resources Board, so the seal appears on almost everything. It is worth knowing what it means, because it is routinely read as a quality mark.
CARB tests electrical safety, and for electronic devices it tests ozone emissions against a limit of 0.050 parts per million. That is the whole scope. CARB says so itself, in unusually direct language: certification “does not reflect air cleaner effectiveness or ‘health safety’”, CARB “does not evaluate the effectiveness of air cleaners at removing pollutants”, and certification “does not imply that a specific air cleaner is ‘safe to use’.”
A CARB seal tells you the machine will not gas your room with ozone. It tells you nothing about whether it cleans the air.
One naming trap while we are here, because it will come up if you search. Levoit’s parent company is Arovast Corporation. The company behind the February 2026 recall of 191,390 Aroeve MK04 air purifiers for fire and burn hazards is Airova, Inc. Different companies, similar names, and searching “Levoit recall” surfaces the wrong one. No CPSC recall was found for Levoit, Coway or Winix purifiers.
219 square feet is the air purifier coverage to shop against
Buy the Coway Airmega Mighty AP-1512HH at $239.99. It is cheapest per certified square foot, it has the longest warranty by a year, it publishes more about itself than either rival, and it is the only one of the three still sold under the name the reviews use.
The Winix 5510 is the loser at 61.2, and it loses on paperwork rather than on air. It has the largest certified room of the three. It also has the shortest warranty on one of its own pages, the only outright ban on third-party filters, no published wattage, and a predecessor that vanished from the catalogue last year.
Before you buy anything, measure the room and multiply the floor area by 0.65. That gives you the smoke CADR to shop for. Coway’s is 233, Winix’s 5510 is 253, and Levoit publishes 141 CFM without splitting it by particle.
These three are mid-room machines. If your room is genuinely large, the 400-series units are a different calculation and we ran their filter bills separately.
Sources, named where they did the work: AHAM’s white paper on air changes per hour and its 2/3 rule guidance, the EPA’s Guide to Air Cleaners in the Home, the California Air Resources Board on what its certification covers, and HouseFresh’s measurements. Every price and specification came from the maker’s own store on 31 August 2026.
If you want to know whether the machine is doing anything, we ranked home air quality monitors on sensor depth per dollar. For the dust that never made it into the air, our cordless stick vacuum comparison prices the battery first. More in Home & Living.
