Maxpower Planet vs FURminator Deshedding Tool: Which One Removes More Cat Fur

If your cat sheds heavily, you have probably stood in a pet store aisle holding a FURminator and staring at the price tag, wondering if the brand name is doing most of the work. We asked ourselves the same question. After six weeks of testing both tools on our Maine Coon mix, Ptolemy (11 lbs, dense double coat), and our shorthair tabby, Mochi (8 lbs, medium shedder), here is what we found: the Maxpower Planet Double-Sided Deshedding Rake outperformed the FURminator in practical everyday use, and it costs about a third of the price.

That is the short answer. The longer answer involves rake geometry, tine spacing, how each tool handles sensitive skin, and what "deshedding" actually means versus what the marketing says it means. Keep reading if you want to know which one belongs in your grooming kit, and which one can stay on the shelf.

	Maxpower Planet	FURminator
Price	~$17	~$45-55
Design	Double-sided rake (9 + 17 tines)	Single-sided fine blade
Best Coat Type	Long, medium, or thick double coats	Short to medium single coats
Undercoat Access	Deep penetration via long round-tipped tines	Surface-level blade strips topcoat fur
Skin Safety	Round-tipped tines, very low scratch risk	Fine metal blade, scratch risk if pressed hard
Mat and Tangle Handling	Yes, 9-tine side loosens mats before raking	Not designed for mats; can pull and catch
Ejector Button	No, fur clears manually (fast and easy)	Yes, one-click fur release
Handle Ergonomics	Non-slip rubber grip, balanced weight	Ergonomic molded handle, slightly heavier head
Amazon Rating	4.6 stars / 57,867 reviews	4.5 stars / varies by size

Where the Maxpower Planet Rake Wins

The Maxpower rake is a double-sided tool, and that double-sided design is the whole reason it outperforms a single-blade tool for most cats. The side with 9 wider-spaced tines works like a detangling comb, loosening mats and surface tangles before you go in with the 17-tine side for deep undercoat removal. On Ptolemy, who builds mats near his haunches every two weeks without fail, this two-pass system meant we could groom him start to finish in under ten minutes without hitting a single snag that made him flinch. That is not something we can say about sessions with the FURminator.

The tine tips on the Maxpower are rounded and smooth. We ran our thumb across them before the first session and again after three months. No sharpness, no burrs. For cats with sensitive skin or thin coats, that matters enormously. The FURminator has a fine metal blade that does a good job stripping dead fur from a short coat, but if you apply any real pressure or catch a small mat, you feel it, and so does your cat. We saw Mochi flinch twice in early FURminator sessions when we caught the edge of a small knot. With the Maxpower on the same cat, zero flinches across the entire testing period.

For long-haired cats especially, the Maxpower rake simply reaches where a blade cannot. The tines penetrate the guard hairs and get into the dense undercoat where the real shedding problem lives. After a ten-minute session on Ptolemy with the Maxpower, we pulled enough fur to fill a small bowl. After the same time with the FURminator, we had maybe half that volume, mostly topcoat fur. The rake wins on raw yield for double-coated cats, which is what most Maine Coons, Siberians, Norwegian Forest Cats, and domestic longhairs are.

Where the FURminator Wins

The FURminator does one thing that the Maxpower does not: it has an ejector button that clears fur off the blade with a single click. After a grooming session, you press the button and the fur falls away cleanly into the trash. With the Maxpower, you pull the fur clumps off the tines by hand. That takes maybe 30 extra seconds per session, but if you groom multiple cats daily or have limited hand dexterity, the FURminator ejector is a real quality-of-life feature.

The FURminator also has a slight edge for shorthair cats with single coats and no undercoat to speak of. The fine blade moves quickly through a sleek coat and captures loose fur from the surface layer efficiently. On Mochi in shorthair mode, both tools performed comparably for fur volume removed, but the FURminator felt slightly more precise for that thin, sleek coat. If you have a Siamese, a Burmese, or another single-coat shorthair breed, the FURminator is a more purpose-built tool for that specific job.

After ten minutes on Ptolemy with the Maxpower rake, we pulled enough fur to fill a small bowl. The FURminator got about half that on the same cat in the same time. For long double coats, the rake is not even a close call.

How We Tested Both Tools

We ran six weeks of structured grooming sessions, three per week, alternating tools every session so the coat condition stayed consistent between comparisons. Ptolemy, our Maine Coon mix, was our primary test cat. He is 4 years old, 11 lbs, with a dense double coat that goes into full shedding mode every spring and stays moderately active the rest of the year. Mochi, our 6-year-old domestic shorthair tabby at 8 lbs, was our secondary subject.

For each session we logged: time spent grooming, volume of fur collected (rough estimate by compressing into a standard plastic cup), any negative reactions from the cat, and post-session coat appearance. We also noted how long the tool took to clean after each session. Neither tool was given an advantage from pre-grooming or using conditioning spray. Straight dry-coat grooming, same as most cat owners do at home.

The Price Gap Is Real and It Is Hard to Justify

The Maxpower Planet rake currently sits around $17 on Amazon. The FURminator, depending on the size you buy, runs $45 to $55. That is a $28 to $38 price difference for a grooming tool you use a few times a week. Over a year, the Maxpower costs less than two months of the FURminator's price in upfront spend. And if the rake ever wears out (ours shows no signs of that after six months), you replace it for $17 instead of $50.

We understand why cat owners reach for the FURminator. It is the name brand in the deshedding category. The marketing is strong. The retail presence is everywhere. But after six weeks of direct side-by-side testing, we cannot find $30 worth of performance difference that justifies the FURminator at its price point, especially not for long-haired or double-coated cats where the Maxpower genuinely pulls more fur per session.

Who Should Buy the Maxpower Planet Rake

The Maxpower is the right call for most cat owners, and especially the right call if your cat has a medium to long coat, a double coat, or a tendency to develop mats. It is also right if you have a cat that is finicky about grooming, because the rounded tines are gentler and easier to use lightly without causing discomfort. The price makes it an obvious pick if you are new to deshedding tools and not sure whether your cat will tolerate the process. Spend $17, figure out if it works for your cat, then upgrade later if you need to. Most people never feel the need.

It is also a strong choice for multi-cat households, since the manual cleanup between cats is fast enough that you can move from one to the next without a production process. And with over 57,000 Amazon reviews at 4.6 stars, the data from actual cat owners backs up what we found in our testing.

Who Should Buy the FURminator

Buy the FURminator if you have a single-coat shorthair breed and you want a blade tool that is specifically engineered for that coat type. It also makes sense if the ejector button is genuinely important to you, either for convenience or for accessibility reasons. And if you have tried the Maxpower and your specific cat simply responds better to the FURminator's blade style, that is a real and valid reason. Cats are individuals and some do prefer one tool's sensation over another's.

What we would not do is buy the FURminator as an upgrade from the Maxpower based on brand recognition alone. In our testing, brand recognition was the only area where the FURminator came out clearly ahead.

Our Final Pick

For the vast majority of cat owners, the Maxpower Planet Double-Sided Deshedding Rake is the better buy. It removes more undercoat fur from dense and long coats, it is gentler on cat skin, it handles mats in the same pass, and it costs a fraction of the FURminator. We use it as our daily grooming tool for both cats in our household, and neither Ptolemy nor Mochi puts up a fight when they see it come out of the drawer. That cat-cooperation factor is worth more than any spec we can put in a table.

If you want to dig deeper into what six months of regular use looks like with this rake, including how we built Ptolemy's grooming tolerance from scratch, read our full long-term review at Maxpower Planet Deshedding Rake Review: Six Months on a Maine Coon. And if you are looking for a step-by-step process to make grooming sessions easier for a cat that fights the brush, we cover that in detail at How to Deshed Your Cat Without Stress.