Are robot lawn mowers worth it?

A robot mower is worth it if you value your time, have a lawn of a few hundred square metres or more, and can live with daytime-only mowing. It is harder to justify for a tiny lawn, a lawn you rarely cut, or a garden full of obstacles.

Pros

• Time back. No weekly mow from April to October.
• A better lawn. Cutting a little, often, thickens grass and mulches clippings back in.
• Quiet. Most publish 55–60 dB, about a normal conversation.
• Quick set-up for wire-free models: an hour or two, with no wire to lay.

Cons

• Upfront cost of £299.99 to £4,899 across the models we track.
• Edges still need trimming on most models.
• Hedgehogs: never mow at night.
• Hidden running costs on some brands: 4G plans after the free period.
• Theft risk for a valuable machine left outside.

Payback, worked example

Assume a mowing round costs £25 a visit, every week for 30 weeks: £750 a year. A £1,200 mower costs about £90 a year to run (blades, electricity and a battery spread over five years), so it saves about £660 a year and pays back in about 1.8 years. A mowing service usually trims the edges too, which most robots do not, so this flatters the robot slightly. If you mow yourself, the payback is in time: about 30 hours a year on a medium lawn. These are illustrative assumptions, not quotes; plug in your own figures.

Next: find the mower that fits your garden.