Mower Type Calculator: Push, Riding, Zero-Turn or Robot Mower?

Each mower type starts at zero and gains or loses points for each answer. Lawn size carries the most weight: walk-behinds score highest under half an acre, lawn tractors and electric riders from about three quarters of an acre to three acres, and zero-turns from about one and a half acres up. Slopes push points toward walk-behinds, lawn tractors and all-wheel-drive robot mowers and away from zero-turns, whose manuals set low slope limits. Many trees and beds favor zero-turns and walk-behinds. Budget removes types that cost far more than you plan to spend, and if walking a lawn is not practical, push and self-propelled mowers drop out entirely. Wanting quiet or no fuel adds points to battery and robot mowers, and having little time adds points to robots and faster riders.

A lawn tractor steers with its front wheels and brakes through its transmission, which keeps control on moderate slopes, and it pulls carts, sweepers, spreaders and aerators. A zero-turn steers and brakes with its rear wheels, turns in place around trees and cuts about a third faster at the same deck width, but loses traction and steering on wet or steep ground. The Husqvarna TS 120 46 in. Lawn Tractor is a common 46 inch tractor, and the Husqvarna Z254F 54 in. Zero Turn Mower a common 54 inch zero-turn; the full comparison is in zero-turn vs lawn tractor.

For lawns up to about an acre with simple layouts, often yes, if the upfront price and setup are acceptable. Robot mowers cut a little every day, keep the lawn consistently short, and are quiet enough to run while you are away. Wire-free models such as the Segway Navimow i210 AWD Robot Mower and the Mammotion LUBA 2 AWD 3000X Robot Mower skip the boundary wire. They struggle with very large or fragmented lawns, tall overgrown grass, and busy yards where children play during mowing hours. Compare in robot mower vs zero-turn and robot mower vs push mower.

A push mower is fine on small, flat lawns if you do not mind the effort. Self-propelled drive helps on anything larger or sloped, and rear-wheel drive holds traction best uphill. Battery walk-behinds such as the EGO POWER+ LM2135SP 21 in. Select Cut Self-Propelled Mower Kit match gas performance on most suburban lawns, start instantly and need no oil or fuel storage, and a 7.5 Ah battery covers about half an acre per charge in normal grass. See push vs self-propelled mowers and gas vs battery lawn mowers.