Father here with a family of 4. our dishwasher runs multiple times per day and we never hand wash before, and I can tell you that the dishes tend to be very dirty before they go in. They always come out sparkling clean.

Here is what works for us: - keep the salt tank filled as well as the rinsing agent. Don’t use these tabs which claim to have all of this in there combined. - don’t overload the dish washer - clean it regularly. Once per week I take out the sieve at the bottom, clean it (takes less than 5 minutes) and then I use one of these bottles of cleaning fluid with a wax cap. You put it in, start a cleaning program, the wax melts and the fluid does its work. That’s also when I refill the salt and rinsing agent. Total time effort per week: 15 mins.

We have a low mid-tier dish washer, but I had the same results with cheaper ones.