Is Robotic Mowing Worth It?

The benefits of autonomous robotic mowing are significant in many applications.

A home owner can free up time, reduce up front costs, keep the lawn at a cabin, second home, or rental property mowed without having to be there in person, reduce pollution, reduce noise, have their lawn mowed more frequently for aesthetic appeal with better turf health and quality, and minimize recurring costs associated with fuel and maintenance on traditional mowers.  Many homes are set up ideally for a single mower to handle multiple properties that are adjacent or close to each other.  When you have one mower taking care of multiple homes the benefits are even greater.  With the initial upfront cost of a residential mower handling .75 - 2.5 acres usually between $2,000 and $4,000 these mowers make sense for a single home but when considering they are able to handle multiple properties with next to no additional expenses the proposition is even more attractive.

Municipalities, golf courses, airports, campgrounds, cemeteries, resorts, school districts, parks, athletic facilities, and other areas with significant areas of turf to maintain and mow can also benefit from automation in terms of mowing.  We have models of autonomous lawn mowers designed to handle from less than an acre all the way to 30 acres in a relatively short time. While the costs with mowers able to handle 20-30 acres are in the tens of thousands of dollars the capabilities of them are immense.  Nearly all of these individual units can be combined and work together with other units in harmony so it is quite easy to accommodate mowing needs to the hundreds of acres.  Autonomous mowing doesn’t replace your maintenance staff, but it enables them to automate the most basic and time consuming parts of their days.  Autonomous mowing doesn’t handle 100% of your mowing and maintenance needs but it can typically handle 80-90% of your mowing tasks in a manner that is very high quality and very efficient with next to no time from a person and very low recurring costs once things are set up.  Mowing robotically with autonomous units allows for more frequent and stable maintenance of areas that were historically time consuming.  Staff can focus on more technical aspects of turf care and property maintenance allowing them to do more with less and add value.

An often overlooked segment of the population that can benefit from implementing some level of automation in mowing are commercial lawn and landscaping contractors.  Mowing grass is often the most basic function these companies perform and despite the relative simplicity of it, the time it takes is quite significant.  Automation in mowing isn’t going to replace the need for a person but it is going to enable them to handle more customers and provide better results.  Automation for a contractor who is mowing can be deployed on the most time consuming areas and easily handles obstacles that slow down traditional large scale mowing.  Automated mowing can allow a contractor to mow much more frequently than manned mowing.  By more frequent mowing long term you get stronger turf that is healthier and looks better.

By deploying some level of autonomous mowing a contractor can handle more customers and focus on higher end services that both residential and commercial customers demand - like fertilization, seasonal clean ups, trimming, edging, landscape refreshing, planting, aeration, and topdressing.  When dealing with customers in a subdivision or HOA the potential to market to groups of property owners in a single location is great.  Having a single autonomous mower, purchased at a wholesale rate by a contractor, mow multiple homes is very plausible and very attractive to your business model.   Your customers will love autonomous mowing because it is consistent, offers more frequent mowing, quiet, doesn’t pollute, and produces tremendous results  

We believe contractors benefit the most from deploying dedicated units to mow a property and leaving them on site.  This differs from the traditional mindset of route based property maintenance and traveling with all equipment from job to job.  While there is some potential in having an autonomous mower travel with a crew and perform mowing while a crew does ancillary tasks this requires a significant level of coordination and timing to be efficient and the units capable of this are significantly more expensive than dedicated units.  One could purchase 25-50 dedicated residential units for the cost of a single commercial robotic mower designed to travel with a crew. 

By having a dedicated unit at a property it is easy to offer mowing every 2-3 days and also very easy to set a single unit up to mow adjacent properties.  By utilizing this strategy a contractor can now spend less time at each site when doing inspections, cleaning, trim, & edging only compared to having all mowing to complete.  On site visits can typically be extended slightly also as the majority of mowing is done already and supporting services can be stretched out.  Autonomous mowers are not the enemy of lawn and landscaping contractors, they are tools that can be utilized to improve efficiency, profitability, and quality as part of your operation.  The technology is autonomous mowing is so good now you simply can’t afford to ignore it.

Dale Kleffman is the owner of LAWNAMATION, by Musson Landscaping.  LAWNAMATION is a full service B2C and B2B in both retail and wholesale as a seller of autonomous robotic lawnmowers and is the exclusive distributor of Mammotion products in Michigan, Wisconsin, & Minnesota. Musson Landscaping operates as a full service lawn company and landscaping company operating out of Northern Wisconsin.  LAWNAMATION provides sales, service, and customer support for Mammotion and other autonomous robotic mowing products throughout its territory.  Dale can be reached a dalek@mussonlandscaping.com or 715-891-0419.