EGO vs Ryobi Lawn Mowers and 6 More Tool Questions: A Procurement Manager's Honest Answers

I manage procurement for a 40-person landscaping company. I've handled our equipment budget (roughly $85,000 a year) for 6 years, negotiated with 30+ vendors, and documented every order in the same cost-tracking spreadsheet since 2020. So no, I'm not here to sell you EGO. I'm here to give you the answers I'd want if I was writing the purchase order.

Here's what this article covers:

• Is the Ryobi vs EGO lawn mower comparison fair?
• Which EGO chainsaw should your crew run?
• Does a hole saw attach to a drill?
• Is the screw extractor and drill bit combo worth buying?
• Do you need a multi-hanger mount tool storage rack?
• How many EGO batteries do you really need?
• What would you do differently if you started over?

1. Is the Ryobi vs EGO lawn mower comparison fair?

It depends on the lawn, which isn't the answer most people want, but it's the honest one.

For a half-acre lot mowed once a week, Ryobi is a smart buy. The price gap is real — $100 to $300 apart on comparable self-propelled mowers — and for light duty, the 40V platform does exactly what it needs to.

EGO made more sense for our crew because of duty cycle. The 56V platform holds blade speed through most of the discharge, so the mower doesn't fade in thick grass near the end of a charge. That sounds like marketing fluff until you're paying someone to double-cut a lawn because the deck bogged down.

I also care about warranty, not just sticker price. EGO's published warranty — I checked egopowerplus.com — covers 56V tools for 5 years, batteries for 3. FTC advertising guidance (ftc.gov) requires marketing claims, including runtime, to be substantiated, so I read the published specs instead of the box copy. We filed a claim in 2024 and had the replacement part in four days. Even after we standardized on EGO, I second-guessed the premium. That first claim cleared without a fight and closed the question for me.

So, Ryobi vs EGO: if the mower is for a homeowner, buy Ryobi and keep the $200. If a crew runs it six hours a day, compare total cost over three years — including downtime — and pick the machine that keeps them moving. For our fleet, that was EGO.

2. Which EGO chainsaw should your crew run?

For storm cleanup and limbing, the 16-inch EGO chainsaw is the sweet spot. It balances reach with battery drain. If your crew regularly cuts 12 to 18-inch wood, step up to the 18-inch bar. What I'd skip is buying the biggest bar available just to look prepared — a longer bar pulls more from the battery on every cut, so you end up buying batteries you never planned for.

The question to ask yourself: what's the thickest wood you actually cut in a normal week? Add 2 inches for the occasional big branch. That's your bar length.

On cost, the saw itself runs somewhere in the $350–450 range depending on the kit. Don't hold me to current street price. The real repeat cost is chain and bar wear. I keep a spare chain with every saw, and I buy OEM chain, because a dull chain costs more in battery runtime than it saves in steel. We also check chain tension before the first cut of the day.

Five minutes of verification beats five days of correction.

3. Does a hole saw attach to a drill?

Yes — but you need an arbor, and it's easy to mix up the parts. Most hole saws have a round shank that threads onto an arbor, and the arbor is what goes into the drill chuck. So if you're using the EGO 18V Power+ drill, the 1/2-inch keyless chuck takes a standard arbor with a 1/2-inch or 3/8-inch shank. Put the pilot bit in first, thread the hole saw onto the arbor, tighten the chuck, and you're cutting.

A few field rules: for anything over about 1-1/2 inches, run the drill at a slower speed. A hole saw bites hard at high speed, and you'll either stall the drill or twist your wrist. And check the pilot bit direction before you start — I've seen a “broken” hole saw that was just spinning backward.

I'm not 100% sure why, but a lot of younger crew members grew up on impact drivers and never learned hole saws. So we keep a 1-1/4-inch saw with the arbor attached in each truck. It's a $12 tool that has saved us at least $200 in damaged doors and frames.

4. Is the screw extractor and drill bit combo worth buying?

Keep one in every truck. A decent screw extractor and drill bit combo runs $30–50, and at that price it's insurance, not a budget line. Stripped bolts don't discriminate: mower deck shields, chainsaw tensioner covers, trailer tailgates. When one snaps mid-season, your options are drill it out with the extractor set or order a $40 part and lose the machine for three days. I know which one my operations manager prefers.

I used to buy cheap bit sets to “save” maybe $15 a season. Then a bit snapped off inside a stripped bolt, and two hours of labor disappeared trying to coax it out. The branded set I replaced it with was boring, but it's still boring three years later.

One rule we added after that: if a screw won't budge, stop. Hit it with penetrating oil, wait five minutes, and let the extractor do its job. Most “seized” screws are just stripped by someone in a hurry — and that someone was me in 2023.

5. Do you need a multi-hanger mount tool storage rack?

I'll be direct: I didn't budget for one at first. We stored everything on a shelf in the back of the shop and told everyone to “put things back.” That lasted until I audited our 2023 spending and realized we were re-buying about $1,400 a year in tools that weren't broken. They were buried, misplaced, or left in a truck overnight. We didn't have a formal storage process. That was the gap.

A multi-hanger mount tool storage rack fixes the storage half of that problem. It's a wall panel with heavy-duty hooks rated for trimmers, blowers, and chainsaws — not a plastic over-door hook that sags after a week. The rule is simple: every tool has one place, and hanging it up takes five seconds. A decent rack runs $150–250, which sounds like money until you price a new EGO blower at $300+.

If you're running a crew, add a paper inventory sheet next to the rack. Check tools out and in by serial number. It's the cheapest “tracking software” you'll ever buy.

6. How many EGO batteries do you really need?

More than you think, and this is the number that surprises everybody.

A single 56V battery can cost anywhere from $250 to $350, depending on capacity and when you catch a sale. If you budget for the tool but not the batteries to keep it running, you've bought a paperweight. For our fleet, I plan two batteries for every high-draw tool — mower, chainsaw, leaf blower — and one for every low-draw tool — trimmer, hedge trimmer, edger. That ratio, more than the sticker price, is what decides whether the crew is running or waiting on a charger.

Battery care is also a cost line. Capacity that fades silently is real money. We lost a battery to theft in 2023, and found six dead batteries after a cold winter in 2024. That was a $1,800 hit I could have avoided with a cheap insulated box and a serial-number log.

So, how many batteries? About 1.5 times what you think. And number every single one. It feels like micromanagement until the first $300 battery walks off.

7. What would you do differently if you started over?

Buy the storage and the checklist at the same time I bought the tools, not a season later. I walked in thinking I was a “tool buyer”: spec the right machine, negotiate the price, sign the PO. What I learned is that you have to be a “tool-system buyer.” That means tools, batteries, storage, and a way to know where everything is before the first invoice lands.

The equipment doesn't wear out on its own — it gets stored wet, run dry, borrowed without a signature, and hidden in a trailer corner. A 5-minute end-of-day check beats a five-day wait for a replacement.

Last thing: if you already have a platform that's working, keep it. Switching costs are real, and I'm not going to tell anyone their current gear is garbage. But if you're starting fresh, or your current battery line is getting hard to source, EGO deserves a spot in your TCO spreadsheet. You still have to run the math — that's the honest version of the answer.