Want to see your electric mower power consumption? Enter your wattage, how many hours a day you run it and what you pay per kWh as your electricity rate, then hit Calculate to get the monthly cost and kWh used on your bill. Those same results also cover electric mower electricity consumption. Also see how much electricity does an elliptical machine use.
Wondering what a weekend mow does to your power bill? Electric mower electricity consumption is lower than most people expect: a typical electric lawn mower pulls about 1 kilowatt while the blade is spinning, which works out to a few cents per mow and a few dollars over a whole season. Below you'll find real wattage ranges by mower type, the formula for turning watts into dollars, and a fully worked example you can copy with your own numbers.
Most electric lawn mower models draw somewhere between 500 and 1800 watts while cutting, and the average sits at around 1000 watts. Your wattage is simply the rate of power usage at any moment, so a 1500W motor running for one hour uses 1.5 kilowatt-hours of energy. Manufacturers often print the figure on the data plate, and brand spec sheets list it as well. A robot unit sits at the low end of the scale, while a heavy corded unit sits at the high end.
The table below turns each typical power consumption figure into a running cost, using an electricity price of 18.7 cents per kWh. Figures are rounded to the nearest cent, and each row shows what one hour of continuous mowing costs.
| Mower type | Typical watts | kWh per hour | Cost per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robot mower | 80 W | 0.08 | $0.01 |
| Cordless push mower | 500 W | 0.50 | $0.09 |
| Remote control mower | 900 W | 0.90 | $0.17 |
| Corded electric mower | 1250 W | 1.25 | $0.23 |
| Riding mower | 1800 W | 1.80 | $0.34 |
A corded model pulls current straight from the wall, so its motor never has to wait on a pack. Cordless units use a battery, and the draw you pay for is the charging energy, which is slightly higher than what the motor uses because chargers lose some energy as heat. A robot mower runs for hours but sips only tens of watts, and a riding mower carries the biggest motor. Remote control mowers land in between, and an autonomous mower is a robot design that docks and recharges by itself.
Two identical mowers can show very different energy consumption in two different yards. Four things matter most, and each one moves your bill in a predictable direction. For comparison, see how many watts does a night light use.
If your mower is cordless, the battery type shapes how often you recharge. Modern lithium-ion packs hold their voltage under load and last longer than older lead-acid packs, while a higher-voltage pack with more battery capacity means fewer charging cycles per lawn. A battery bank on a riding mower can store several kilowatt-hours at once.
Thick grass forces the motor to work harder, so wet or overgrown grass conditions raise the draw noticeably. Cutting a tall lawn in two lighter passes can use less total energy than one struggling pass, and it protects the battery life too.
Motor efficiency decides how much of the energy you buy turns into blade speed. A less efficient motor draws more watts for the same cutting work, so it uses more kWh on every mow. A brushless motor wastes less than a brushed one, and a high-torque design handles dense turf but pulls more current doing it. Extra deck motors raise the draw further, which is why a multi-motor autonomous build can need several kilowatts at the peak.
Heat, humidity and cold all change how a pack performs. In a hot summer a cordless mower may need to recharge more often, and low temperature reduces the usable battery capacity. These environmental conditions rarely change the bill by much, but they do change run time.
You only need three inputs: the mower's wattage, the hours you mow and your local electricity rate. The same method works for any electric appliance in the house.
$$\text{kWh} = \frac{\text{watts} \times \text{hours}}{1000}$$
$$\text{Cost} = \text{kWh} \times \text{electricity price}$$
Say your motor is rated at 1250 W but averages 70% of that under normal load, so the real draw is 875 W. You mow for 52 minutes, 28 times a season, and your electricity price is 18.7 cents per kWh. The numbers go like this:
That's about 33 cents a month if you spread the year's cost over twelve months, which is why energy costs for an electric mower hardly register on a household bill. Spec labels often quote watts per hour as shorthand for the draw, but what you actually pay for is energy, so the same mower costs only 14 cents per mow. Your electricity cost scales in a straight line: double the mowing time and you double the bill.
Run time follows from capacity: multiply voltage by amp-hours to get watt-hours, then divide by the draw. A 56 V, 6 Ah pack holds 336 Wh, and at 875 W it lasts about 23 minutes. Two packs cover the 52-minute lawn above with a little to spare, and charging them draws about 0.76 kWh from the wall plus a small loss; that charging energy is what counts toward your mower's electricity use.
The energy usage is small to begin with, yet the same habits protect the motor, extend its lifespan and add up to real savings over a decade of mowing:
Your location also affects the total. Electricity rates differ widely from state to state, so the same mower might cost less than a dollar per month in a low-rate region and noticeably more where power is expensive.
Your mower's roughly 0.76 kWh per mow, about 14 cents at 18.7 cents per kWh, is the number to hold up against a gas machine's fuel spend.
A gas-powered mower burns gasoline, and a petrol mower the same, measured in gallons per mow. By energy content gasoline holds about 114,000 Btus per gallon against roughly 3,413 Btus per kilowatt-hour of electricity, and an electric motor wastes far less of it. The result is a large saving in fuel spend, and you also skip oil, spark plug and air filter changes, so maintenance drops. There is no tailpipe emission when you mow, and electric models are much quieter, which is a bonus for neighbours.
The trade-off is the up-front price of batteries and the need to keep them charged. If you're comparing options, put your wattage, mowing hours and local rate into the formula above and the choice usually becomes clear; most lawns of normal size stay in the range of a few dollars a year.
An electric lawn mower draws about 1 kW while cutting, so a typical mow uses 0.4 to 1.0 kWh. Whether you call it a lawnmower or a mower, electric lawnmowers convert nearly all that electricity into blade speed, and their running cost stays far below a fuel-based machine. Related: how much energy does an electric oil diffuser use.
If you only need a number: expect roughly 0.4 to 1.0 kWh per mow for an average yard, a cost per hour under a quarter in many areas, and a yearly total in the single dollars. For bigger lawns or a riding model, scale the same formula by the extra hours. Your own usage will always depend on your yard, your appliance and the rate printed on your bill.