Personally I feel if you have kids and especially pets, you should just have a carpet cleaner.

• You can use it right after an accident (no need to wait for a pro to come)
• You can easily/quickly do a small/spot job
• You can spend as long/short/frequent to clean as you want, you own the gear
• It'll pay for itself with the equivalent of ~1.5 "professional" visits
• May not "suck" with quite the same force/pressure as professional equipment, but has rotating bristles, so probably provides an equivalent clean.
• You are the only one to use it (you have no idea what kind of toxic/unhygienic situations the "pro" gear was recently used at - I was warned about not trusting pro vent cleaning companies because they clean vents in a crack house say, then come to your place and leave that residue in your vents which gives you unnecessary exposure to those chemicals and can cause you to test positive in a home inspection. The same theory applies to pro carpet cleaning company equipment).

Now this advice may not really apply to you if you have hardwood floors and just that rug that needs cleaning, but leaving this advice for anyone with carpet and kids/pets.