2026 Cleaning Awards Submission Guidelines

Apartment Therapy’s Cleaning Awards is our guide to the best cleaning tools everyone should have in their home, as tested and vetted by our editors. Each year, our team vacuums, scrubs, and tackles messes big and small to find out what tools truly shine and sweep the competition. And for the first time ever, we’re accepting submissions from brands and including our favorite cleaning products for the 2026 awards program. That’s right, we’re including tools and products!

If you represent a brand, keep reading below for everything you need to know about how to submit for Apartment Therapy’s 2026 Cleaning Awards Program.

Cleaning tools include items, such as sponges, scrubbers, trash cans, and vacuum cleaners. We’re looking for cleaning tools that were released between the period of late 2024 to early 2026 (winners tentatively to be announced in March 2026). Take a look at the categories and superlatives we selected last year, but they may change in 2026: 2025 Cleaning Awards.

Additionally, we have a brand-new category: cleaning products. We’re expanding beyond the cleaning tools we’ve only featured before to include things like laundry detergent, oven cleaners, and any other liquids, sprays, and wipes. Cleaning products include items such as all-purpose cleaners, laundry detergents, carpet cleaners, and eco-friendly cleaners. This is a new addition to our awards program, and we’ll be focusing on our favorite picks, as chosen by our editorial team. We’re open to testing new products (as of 2025-2026) or stand-out favorites from brands (winners tentatively to be announced in March 2026). 

You can submit tools and products for consideration by filling out this online form.

We’re limiting it to one form per brand — whether you’re submitting for cleaning tools and/or cleaning products — and five items for cleaning tools and five items for cleaning products. So if you’re submitting items for consideration for both cleaning tools and cleaning products, you can submit five items each, equaling 10 items total. There is no cost for submissions.

After we’ve reviewed all submissions, we will ask for samples for our testing purposes. For cleaning tools, we may ask for one to three samples in total (at any time in the process). For cleaning samples, we’ll be asking for three to four samples in total (at any time in the process). Samples must be available for testing by early November 2025. If there are any shipping issues, please let us know. We test products and tools in our real life homes. Here are some factors we consider when testing items: effectiveness, ease of use, and price (is it fairly priced for what it does).

Please send your submissions by September 19, at 5 p.m. EST.

Got any questions? Please reach out to Lifestyle Director Stephanie Nguyen at stephanie.nguyen@apartmenttherapy.com.

Products we test or pick as winners will not be limited to submissions, but they will be prioritized for review. Any products tested will be considered for any awards and future editorial considerations, but coverage is not guaranteed. Awards evaluation is independent of sales campaigns. If samples must be returned, please let us know. Brands must cover any return costs.