Air Purifier Comparisons: IQAir vs Austin Air – Which one is better?

When it comes to improving indoor air quality, choosing the right air purifier can make all the difference. Our air purifier comparisons highlight the best models on the market, helping you understand key features, performance, and pricing to find the perfect solution for your home or office.

When it comes to air purifiers, these are two of the heaviest hitters. Let’s take a look at the IQAir HealthPro Plus vs the Austin Air Healthmate and compare them side by side on different variables and applications. I have an IQAir Healthpro Plus in my home – I ran one at my desk for 10 years and have sold thousands of them over 15 years, during which I received a ton of feedback from countless customers.  I also have 2 Austin Air Healthmates running in my home that I’ve had for over 15 years now, and I’ve sold over a thousand of them over that same timeframe.  

That said, out of the fifty or so companies I have worked with, these are two of the top brands and units. Let’s do an air purifier comparisons:

Manufacturing

The IQAir HealthPro Plus is manufactured in Switzerland while the Austin Air Healthmate is manufactured in America in Buffalo, NY. The Austin Air Healthmate is made with a steel exterior frame and the IQAir HealthPro Plus has a plastic exterior frame. Both have solid, secure frames, so both are excellent picks for this category.

Market Age

Both units have been in the American air purifier market for over 20 years and there has been very little change to these units over that time. This lack of change speaks volumes to the quality of each unit as the air purification industry itself has changed dramatically over the past several years and there is a lot more competition in the market today. 

The HealthPro Plus did have an upgrade to its fan several years ago – and they called the newer units the “New Edition”. All the HealthPro Plus units sold are now “New Edition” units and have been for several years. The upgrade made the unit more energy efficient and 32% quieter. However, when it comes to reputation and market longevity, neither one has an edge over the other. 

(Air Purifier Comparisons)

Maintenance

An air purifier is only as good as its filter. IQAir’s HealthPro Plus has three filters that get changed after different intervals: a prefilter that gets changed every 18 months, their V5 Gas and Odor Carbon filter that needs replacing every 2 years or so and then the HyperHEPA filter that gets replaced roughly every 4 years.  

In comparison, the Austin Air Healthmate has a prefilter you can occasionally vacuum if you wish and a combination HEPA and Carbon cylindrical filter, which is a 2-in-1 filter that gets replaced every 5 years or so. I found that changing my Healthmate filters around the 5-year mark kept everything running smoothly. With the IQAir HealthPro Plus, there’s more maintenance required than the Austin Air Healthmate so for this round, the advantage goes to the Air Healthmate.

Filter Cost 

Pricing is one of the biggest deciding factors when making a purchase. As mentioned above, the IQAir has three different filters: the prefilter costs $79, the V5 gas filter with carbon is $99, and the HyperHEPA Filter is $199. If you change these filters at the recommended intervals over 10 years you would be paying a total of $1,367 every decade.  

In comparison, the Austin Air Healthmate’s 2-in-1 filter (combines the HEPA filter with the carbon and you get a wrap-around prefilter) costs about $290. If you replace these filters at the recommended intervals – every 5 years – then you would pay $580 every decade. Breaking it down, you would pay $787 more for the IQAir filter replacements over 10 years, 235% more than the Austin Air Healthmate filter replacements. When considering the cost of replacement filters over 10 years,the advantage goes to the Austin Air Healthmate.

Energy Consumption 

The IQAir HealthPro Plus has speed 6 options. When put on high it provides 300CFM (cubic feet per minute) and uses 215 watts.  In comparison, the Austin Air Healthmate on High speed = 250 CFMs at 132 watts. So, on high speed, you get 20% more CFMs with the IQAir HealthPro Plus but you pay 32% more for the electricity for it.  

The current average electricity rate in the US is 16.09 cents per kWh. So, if you ran the HealthPro Plus on high all day every day, then it would cost an average of $7.88 more per month to run in comparison to the Austin Air Healthmate on high speed.  Extrapolated over a year it would be $94.66 more for the HealthPro Plus to run on high, on average. Using our 10-year period from before, it would be about $945 more in energy costs to run the HealthPro Plus…  but for 20% more CFMs. 

If we add up the IQAir HealthPro Plus’ decade-long costs of $787 for the filters and the energy costs of $945 to run at high speed, the total cost of ownership would be about  $1,732 more expensive than the Austin Air Healthmate. The HealthPro Plus would give you 20% more CFMs in that period – but the overall cost of ownership would be more expensive than for the Austin Air Healthmate. Again, these numbers are for the high setting and if the unit was being used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so the energy cost of ownership would probably be lower for the typical user. Regardless, the HealthPro Plus is a more expensive air purifier.

Output

We have already established that the IQAir HealthPro Plus delivers 20% more CFMs on high than the Austin Air, but let’s break down the true output capabilities. 

Austin Air Healthmate’s manufacturer says it can do an air exchange for a room up to 1,500 square feet. However, if you want 2 air exchanges per hour, then it can only cover around 900 square feet in an area with 8-foot ceilings. In comparison, the IQAir units can get 2 air exchanges over 1,125 square feet at high speed, so the IQAir HealthPro Plus does provide more coverage and can complete more air exchanges per hour over a larger area. 

Noise 

So which air purifier makes less noise?  The IQAir HealthePro Plus has 6 speeds and registers 41.8 decibels for its low setting and 59.3 decibels on high. The Austin Air Healthmate only has 3 speeds in comparison, on low it is 44.6 decibels and on high it is 65.1 decibels. Even with its 20% higher CFM output, the IQAir HealthPro Plus is quieter on both low and high settings. 

Filtration 

The Austin Air Healthmate filters at a HEPA level, which is 99.97% down to .3 microns and it filters 99% down to .1 microns. But the IQAir HealthPro Plus filters better than HEPA and filters 99.5% down to .003 microns (100 times the air cleaning efficiency of traditional HEPA).

Additionally, I have spoken with air purifier customers through the years who have switched out their Austin Air units for IQAirs and they noticed a difference in filtering. That said, the Austin Air unit has been in my home for 15 years and is a very good unit, but the IQAir HealthPro Plus does filter particles better. 

Odor and VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) Filtration

The Austin Air Healthmate has 15 pounds of carbon and 780 cubic inches of Activated Carbon and Zeolite. In comparison, the IQAir HealthPro Plus uses about 5 pounds of granular activated carbon adsorption – Bituminous coal, potassium permanganate, and impregnated alumina.  I spoke with the CEO of IQAir, Mr. Hammes, years ago about the carbon in the HealthPro Plus and he explained to me it was pelletized and superior for VOC and odor absorption. In my personal opinion, I love the way the HealthPro Plus has worked for me for VOCs like new paint and carpet off-gassing. The unit did an amazing job in a very tough environment.

In comparison, I have never felt like the Austin Air Healthmate did a great job on odors. Despite Austin Air Healthmate having a lot more carbon weight, I was much more impressed with the HealthPro Plus’s noticeable ability to take out odors and VOCs. 

This is a very tricky issue, knowing which air purifiers have the best carbon and which one filters VOCs and odors better is oftentimes very hard to test for. There is more to it than the sheer weight of the carbon itself, as these two units have shown. But when it comes to odor and VOC filtration, I’m going with the IQAir HealthPro Plus.

Warranty

The IQAir HealthPro Plus has a 10-year warranty as of 2016, and that shows me they have a lot of confidence in their product and their ability to fix any issues should they arise. The Austin Air Healthmate has a 5-year warranty, but they’ll fix your unit outside of that warranty for $90 plus shipping. Whatever the issue, The Austin Air team will take care of it. I think that is a really fair and good deal, but the IQAir HealthPro Plus does have a longer warranty so this advantage goes to the HealthPro Plus.

Longevity and Reliability

I currently have two Austin Air Healthmate units running 24/7 at high speed, and they’ve been doing this for over 15 years. Each one has over 131,000 hours of runtime on its motors which I think is incredible. I do also have an IQAir HealthPro Plus running in my home and I had one running at my desk for 10 years, but it did break right after the 10-year mark. Compared to my Austin Airs, I only had this unit running about 40 hours a week, for a total of around 20,800 hours of runtime before it broke (only 15% of the hours I currently have on my two Austin Air Healthmate units).  

Now, you can’t make too many judgments on a single unit breaking after 10 years, the sample size is too small.  But if I had to put money on it, I do think the Austin Air Healthmate will last longer than the HealthPro Plus units so I’m giving the advantage to the Austin Air Healthmate for the longevity and reliability. 

Digital

The Austin Air Healthmate is not digital at all so you just plug it in and choose 1 of the 3 speed options. This air purifier is simple to operate and I personally love that type of product.  If you want a more digital approach, then you would go with the IQAir HealthPro Plus. The IQAir has its own timer and will tell you when to replace your filters. However, it does not actually know how dirty your filters are, the filter change intervals are just based on time and speed usage, and the replacement filter lights sometimes inform you to prematurely replace your filters (in many instances, I found). It also comes with a little remote. Digital advantage goes to the IQAir.

Customer Service

I emailed Austin Air three times over the past 4 months and in every case, they responded to me within 24 hours. Their average response time was 19.3 hours. Now, I also emailed IQAir 3 times off a form on their website over the past 4 months and I never received even one answer back which I think is just crazy. I am shocked that they never even responded one time in my 3 attempts. 

IQAir got rid of all their North American dealers about 2 to 3 years ago around when Covid was hitting the United States, and I worked for one of their dealers at that time. When I found out that IQAir was cutting off all their North American dealers, the first thing that came to my mind was “how are they going to deal with all the increased sales and customer service inquiries from customers? They’re gonna have to staff up to meet the huge demand their dealers helped them with” and it looks like they haven’t yet.

Austin Air still has its North American dealer network, and it is quite large.  I hope that customers will get better service from IQAir North America eventually, but based on Austin Air simply responding to my inquiries at all, never mind in a very timely manner, gives Austin Air the customer service advantage.

Aesthetics

This category really is up to your personal opinion. When it comes to which unit looks better – it is tough to say. Through the years, I’ve heard people say both air purifiers are relatively unattractive, but I have definitely heard more people say the Austin Air Healthmate is bad looking, for sure. While the appearance of the unit isn’t too big of a deal to me, I know some folks do care about the appearance and they don’t want to stare at an eyesore in their family room every day. I have heard fewer people say the HealthPro Plus unit is ugly, so although it sounds like the “lesser of two evils”, I’m gonna give a slight advantage to the HealthPro Plus for appearance. 

 

Air Purifier Application Ratings (Air Purifier Comparisons)

Here is a rundown of how I would rate both air purifiers for different applications and environments: 

#1. Allergies, Asthma, Dust, Pet Dander and Mold

I do like the IQAir HealthPro Plus better but both are still good for these issues.  That said IQAir does the job better.

#2. Second-Hand Smoke 

I like the IQAir HealthPro Plus better for this – and I would actually not recommend the Healthmate at all for this application because I’ve had a few customers return units for 2nd hand smoke.

#3. Wildfires

I would rule in favor of the IQAir HealthPro Plus, but the Healthmate can be decent for this.  The Healthmate has definitely done a decent job for us in Georgia when people are burning leaves outside and the air quality in our neighborhood is terrible. So I do think the Austin Air Healthmate can do a good job for this but the IQAir HealthPro Plus would be better. 

#4. Chemical Sensitivities: 

The IQAir HealthPro Plus could be good for this, it’s hit or miss. I’ve had customers who loved the HealthPro Plus and others who couldn’t coexist with it at all.  IQAir officially recommends their GC unit for MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) customers so I’d probably take a look at that solution if you have MCS. 

The Austin Air Healthmate has less of a chance of irritating MCS customers as it possesses very little rubber and plastic, however, Austin Air recommends MCS customers get their Plus unit or even their Bedroom unit.  So, I’m gonna say this is a tossup and not really pick a winner here. It is a tie.

#5. Viruses

I would go with the IQAir HealthPro Plus over the Austin Air Healthmate on this. I have dealt with 50 to 100 hospitals all over the United States in 15 years and they ONLY ordered the IQAir HealthPro Plus from me. No other brands at all, and we carried over 40 different brands. That should tell you the story about how elite the HealthPro Plus filtration is.  Advantage HealthPro Plus.

#6. General Odors and VOCs 

Neither air purifier is specifically designed for odors and VOCs, but their carbon does offer help with both issues. That said, I would go with the IQAir HealthPro Plus over the Healthmate on these issues given my personal experience with the two units over the years. 

The IQAir HealthPro Plus dominates almost all filtration applications between the two units.

Tallying it All Up

When we add up the scores, we have the IQAir HealthPro Plus winning 7 categories and the Austin Air Healthmate winning 5 so it’s 7 to 5 in favor of the Healthpro Plus on these 12 issues.

And here is a quick summary of the score breakdown: 

For the Austin Air Healthmate: 

#1) Less Maintenance 

#2) Less Expensive Filter Replacements 

#3) Less Expensive Cost of Energy 

#4) Better Longevity/Reliability 

#5) Better Overall Customer Service at this time – should you need it. 

The IQAir HealthPro Plus features: 

#1) More Coverage/CFMs 

#2) Lower Noise Levels 

#3) Better Particulate Filtration 

#4) Better VOC and Odor Filtration 

#5) The Warranty is longer 

#6) It is Digital with a Remote 

#7) The Aesthetics (the less Ugly of the 2 solutions)

Air Purifier Comparisons are essential to finding the right one for your needs. By evaluating key features like filtration efficiency, noise levels, and cost, you can make an informed decision and enjoy cleaner, healthier air in your space.

I do hope this article about Air Purifier Comparisons helps with your decision-making process. Choosing the right air purifier to meet your specific needs is important. Please reach out and let me know if you have any questions I can help you with. 

If you would like to support my work you can purchase either unit from the affiliate links (IQAir and Air Austin), I certainly do appreciate your support.  Thank you!