Our top pick for the best ant killer between Terro and Combat is Terro.
Specifically, Terro liquid ant bait is our number one pick among Terro ant killer products because it’s ideal for indoor and outdoor use.
With Borax as the active ingredient, it is an effective, easy-to-use bait station.
It’s a slow-acting liquid bait that kills ants once they ingest it.
Workers take the bait back to the nest, and all the ants that feed on it also get killed.
Thus, Terro ant killer can potentially eliminate an entire colony, including the queen ant.
Besides, Terro products have a proven effectiveness record, and Terro has been used for ant control for over a century.
In this article, we FULLY compare Terro vs. Combat.
The comparative guide should help you choose between these two products and help you decide which ant killer is best for you and your family.
Terro liquid ant killer
Terro liquid baits are formulated for all types of ant activity.
Below are some product features that make us suggest Terro as the best overall ant infestation product;
Broad spectrum activity and easy to use
Terro ant killers eliminate a wide range of common ant species like black ants, Argentine ants, odorous ants, pavement ants, and most sugar ants.
Terro is ideal for indoor and outdoor ant control.
The products are ready, effective, and easy to use.
Terro products are slow acting.
Worker ants find the bait and bring it back to their colony. All the ants that ingest the bait eventually die, including the queen.
Terro offers several product presentations
Three product designs are available. Terro liquid, Terro liquid outdoor ant bait, and Terro multi-surface ant bait.
Terro baits use Borax (Sodium tetraborate decahydrate) as the active substance.
Terro liquid ant killer model T100-12
The bait is presented in the liquid form contained in an easy-to-use 1-ounce bottle.
The product also comes with nine square pieces of cardboard for product placement.
You only need to pour a drop of syrupy liquid on the cardboard.
Place the cardboard in areas frequented by the ants, such as underneath food cabinets, close to trash cans, sinks, and along ant trails.
The workers will eat and carry the liquid poison bait back to the colony, feeding it to the queen ant.
Use this ant bait indoors—the more bait points, the higher the efficacy.
The liquid is ideal for indoor ant control and small to medium ant infestations.
Since it’s available on open unprotected cardboards, keep the bait stations away from kids and pets. If you have kids, one of the choices presented below will be a better pick.
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Terro liquid outdoor bait model T1804-6
The same liquid bait in the liquid ant killer bottle is presented in easy-to-use bait stations.
Think of each bait station as an ant trap.
For the T1804-6, one bait station can take on one queen and her colony.
The bait attracts ants that swarm the trap to collect the bait that feeds the entire colony.
The bait stations are easy to install outdoors and are designed not to let the liquid bait dry.
Terro outdoor is ideal for controlling large ant populations living outdoors.
Place the bait stations around the house in common ant activity areas and close to identified ant colonies.
The enclosed bait traps make the product safe for kids and pets.
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Terro liquid Multi-surface bait model T334-B
This is our pick for “ease of use.”
This design contains the lethal bait held inside handy baits with adhesive strips to ease the placement of the prefilled bait stations.
This method overcomes the limitations of the liquid bait that can only be given to the ants on open, unsecured cardboard.
The presentation makes the product safe for use around children and pets.
The Multi-surface 6 pack cost is only a little bit more than the gel and gives the ease of placing and forgetting.
As we’ve previously mentioned, a key limitation of the multi-surface ant killer is its ineffectiveness against pharaohs, harvesters, carpenters, and fire ants.
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Safety of Borax-based products
Borax is a naturally occurring product.
Even though Terro ant killers are not organic, they’re much safer for animals, birds, and marine life than most other ingredients used in most products.
Combat ant killer
Combat is a different ant killing formulation from Terro, and the active ingredient in Combat is Fipronil, a synthetic chemical commonly used in insecticides.
The Combat Max bait stations are ideal for outdoor and indoor use and should be placed close to ant trails or ant activity.
Like Terro, Combat is slow-acting; the most common products are Combat gel and bait stations.
Like Terro baits, Combat bait stations must be placed close to ant activity.
Unlike Terro liquid packed in a bottle, the ant-killing gel is packed in syringes.
The gel is applied to crevices, holes, or places ants visit frequently.
Combat ant gel kills carpenter ants, fire, and pharaoh ants, a killing ability Terro does not have.
While you do get the advantages of killing a few more kinds of ants, the active ingredient in Fipronil is so toxic to the environment that we have a hard time recommending any of their products. You can read more on this here.
Another key disadvantage of the gel (outside of the toxicity) is that it tends to dry faster than liquid formulations when exposed to air. As it dries, it’s less attractive to ants.
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Our top ant-killer pick
Between Combat and Terro range of products, Terro is the best ant killer of 2023, based on our review above. What’s better than eliminating your ants while also not ruining your local environment? The active ingredients present in Combat solutions are a complete no-go for us.
Even though the best ant killer depends on the kind of ant, Terro and Combat have a record of success against indoor and outdoor ants.
They do not kill ants on contact.
Rather, they have a slow-killing action whose effects eliminate entire colonies.
In the ant baits category, Terro offers three product presentations in liquid form.
Terro liquid bait and Terro Multi-surface succeed against indoor ant control, whereas Terro ant bait is optimized for outdoor use.
Both products have a broad action against most ant species, but the Borax killing substance in Terro does not act on Fire, carpenter, and Pharaoh ants. Fipronil, the active ingredient in Combat, does kill these ant types.
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Other Terro Articles
We’ve written a bunch about this brand; check some of them out here:
