How much should you spend on a riding mower?

We do not print prices on this site, for the reason set out on our walk-behind cost page: a number typed into a page goes stale and a stale price is worse than none. What we can do is tell you how much machine your lawn actually requires, in a unit that does not go out of date.

The short answer

Watt-hours per acre is the unit that travels

Every maker publishes a horsepower-equivalent claim — 22 HP, 24 HP, 25 HP — and none of them publishes how it was derived. Watt-hours per acre comes straight out of each machine's own two published figures: how much battery it carries and how much lawn it claims to cut.

Sizing your own purchase

Read that against the machines and something becomes clear: all three are sized for one to two acres, and only one of them — the EGO at full bays — carries enough energy for a comfortable two-acre cut with headroom. A half-acre lawn does not need any of them, which is a cost conclusion rather than a performance one.

What each machine carries

What an empty battery bay is worth

The EGO ZT4204L is the only machine here that publishes a bay capacity above what it ships with: four packs installed, room for six. That is a cost feature disguised as a specification.

Whether that is worth paying for depends on whether the packs are shared with tools you already own. On the EGO platform they are — the same 56V packs run the mower, the blower and the trimmer. That is the argument our platform cost calculator exists to make.

#ad Check the EGO Power+ Z6 42" Zero Turn ZT4204L price on Amazon — how we're funded.

The other two, and what they trade

The RYOBI ZR3 carries the same 2,240Wh in two big 80V packs rather than four smaller ones, publishes on-board charging and a 250 lb towing rating front and rear, and carries a five-year warranty. What it does not publish is top speed, blade speed, weight, cut height range or bay capacity — the thinnest spec sheet of the three.

#ad Check the RYOBI ZR3 80V HP Brushless 42" Zero Turn Riding Mower price on Amazon — how we're funded.

The Greenworks CrossoverZ publishes the most: a 1.5 to 4.5 inch cut height, 17,000 FPM blade speed, 456 lb weight, 90 minute charge time with two dual-port chargers and a 350 lb towing rating. It carries the least energy at 1,920Wh and is the least efficient per acre at 1,280Wh — but it is the only one you can size against a published cut height.

#ad Check the Greenworks 60V 42" CrossoverZ Zero Turn (CRZ4262) price on Amazon — how we're funded.

When a riding mower is the wrong purchase

The cheapest riding mower is the one you do not buy. Below about a quarter acre the deck cannot turn, the storage footprint outweighs the time saved, and a self-propelled walk-behind finishes first.

The other alternative is a robot. The Segway Navimow i105N covers up to an eighth of an acre, weighs 24 lb, publishes 58 dB(A) and needs no wire — a completely different purchase with a completely different cost structure, worked through in robot mower running costs and robot vs riding.

#ad Check the Segway Navimow i105N Robot Mower price on Amazon — how we're funded.

The costs that are not the sticker

• Batteries, eventually. Packs are warranted four to five years on these machines and are the most expensive component. Nobody publishes a replacement cost.
• Charging time as a constraint. Greenworks publishes 90 minutes with two dual-port chargers — note the plural. Neither EGO nor RYOBI publishes a charge time for these machines at all.
• Storage. A 42 in deck needs a bay it can be driven into. The Greenworks publishes 456 lb; the other two publish no weight.
• Blades and belts. Ordinary consumables on any mower — see riding mower maintenance.

The purchase, in four steps

1. Measure the lawn. How to measure your lawn gets you an acreage figure rather than a guess.
2. Multiply by 1,200 watt-hours and add 30%. That is the installed capacity to shop for.
3. Check what the platform shares. Packs that also run your blower and trimmer are worth more than packs that do not.
4. Check the bay capacity, not just what ships. Room to add packs later is the cheapest form of headroom there is.

Which of these to buy, rather than how much to spend, is in best electric zero turn mowers.

What we cannot tell you

We have not mowed with any of these machines. Every acreage claim is the maker's own, measured on their own terms, and RYOBI's is an ECO-mode figure while the others are not — so the 1,120 versus 1,280 comparison is not strictly like for like. Nobody publishes a battery replacement cost, a charge time for two of the three machines, or a weight for two of the three. And we print no prices, deliberately.