Best Lawn Mowers for Small Yards

Battery mowers are best suited to smaller lawns because of their run times—generally 30 to 45 minutes, according to our testing. Battery technology also continues to improve, and some of the best performers can provide 60 minutes or more of run time.

Gas-fueled mowers aren’t limited by rechargeable batteries and can cut much larger lawns in one go—assuming you have enough gas on hand—but they are also great for small lawns.

To test lawn mowers and tractors, our testers and engineers travel every winter to specially prepared grounds in Florida, where we plant 1,800 pounds of grass seed (predominantly annual rye, prized for its dense growth). That’s where we put the mowers to work, cutting 500,000 square feet of grass using three modes: mulching, side-discharging, and bagging (accumulating a total of 3,000 pounds of clippings). We cut both level turf and slopes to get a feel for how each model handles the terrain. We also review convenience features.

In our view, a mower that works well now but conks out in a year or two doesn’t—ahem—cut it. So the Overall Score for each lawn mower and tractor in Consumer Reports’ ratings incorporates not only its test performance data but also predicted reliability and owner satisfaction ratings from our latest member surveys. These surveys, fielded in the fall of 2022, 2023, and 2024, leverage data on more than 46,000 lawn mowers and tractors that members purchased between 2014 and 2024.