Push, self-propelled, riding or robot: which class of mower fits your lot

Most mower research starts with brands and ends in confusion, because the brand question is the third question. The first is which class of machine your lot needs — and unusually for this category, the manufacturers publish enough to answer it without anybody guessing.

The short answer

The published ratings, in one table

Three of these figures come straight from manufacturers who are willing to print them. Two brands print no acreage rating at all, which is its own information.

The gaps are as useful as the numbers. Two of the three brands selling premium 21 inch self-propelled mowers decline to state an acreage, which is a fair admission that coverage depends on grass, terrain and how fast you walk. It also means that when a brand does print a figure, it has committed to something.

Push: under a third of an acre, flat

A push mower is the only class where less machine is genuinely better. The Greenworks LM2054 is 57.5 lb, the lightest published weight of any mower we hold specs for, and it is the most energy-frugal by a wide margin.

The catch is published in the same breath: a third of an acre, and a 1.2 to 3.6 inch cut-height range whose ceiling sits below the three inches or higher that University of Minnesota Extension recommends for a typical residential lawn. If you want to mow high, check the top of the range before you check anything else.

#ad Check the Greenworks 40V 20" Push LM2054 price on Amazon — how we're funded.

Self-propelled: a third of an acre to an acre, or any hill

Self-propel is not really a size feature. It is a weight-and-slope feature. Every machine in this class that publishes a weight is between 66 and 75 lb, and a drive motor is what makes that number tolerable going uphill with a full grass bag.

Within the class, how far you get on one charge is set by energy on board rather than anything about the deck. Kobalt reaches an acre by carrying 640Wh in two bays; Greenworks reaches half an acre on 320Wh. Those two ratings agree on roughly 640 watt-hours per acre, which is the most useful sizing rule in this whole category.

#ad Check the EGO Power+ 21" Select Cut LM2135SP price on Amazon — how we're funded.

Riding: an acre and up

The EGO Z6 publishes up to two acres per charge on four 56V 10.0Ah packs. That is 2,240 nameplate watt-hours installed, and it puts the same 640Wh-per-acre rule within reach: two acres at that rate would be 1,280Wh, so the machine is carrying substantial headroom for a 42 inch deck working harder than a walk-behind.

That is the honest trade for the class: a rider is not efficient, it is fast. The time arithmetic is worked through in how long it takes to mow an acre.

Robot: an eighth of an acre and 16 degrees

A robot mower does not cut faster. It cuts more often, with a 7.1 inch swath, and the specification that decides whether that works is the duty cycle.

Where each class actually stops

What we cannot tell you

We have not run any of these machines. Acreage ratings are manufacturer claims under conditions none of them publish, and thick spring growth, wet grass and a lot broken up by beds and trees all cost coverage that a rating on a flat test field does not capture.

What the ratings do give you is a class boundary that somebody has committed to in print. Start there, then argue with it based on your own ground.