We Bought a Cheap $150 3-in-1 Lawn Tool and Checked It Against Australian Safety Standards. The Results Shocked Us.
If you've ever wondered why Lawno costs double, this is why. 5 things we found, and the last one costs people the most.
They look the same, don't they?
Mows. Trims. Edges. Cordless. Light. The same kind of photos online.
And the cheap one is around $150.
So why is Lawno more than double the price?
It's a fair question, and we get asked it every single week. By email, on the phone, and in the comments under our ads.
So we did something most people never get the chance to do.
We bought the cheap one ourselves, pulled it apart, and checked it against the Australian safety standards.
To be honest, we expected it to be a bit worse than ours.
It was far worse than we expected.
I'll show you exactly what we found in a moment. First, a few things worth knowing before you read on:
But let's start with a customer who'd already learnt this the hard way.
"Absolutely love my Lawno! After previously purchasing cheaper versions of this, that only lasted for a few months, I purchased my Lawno. I wish I had done it sooner... A+++ Rating from me. I am a 60 year old female."
Cheaper versions. Plural. Only lasted a few months.
She's not the only one who's told us that. So here are the five comparisons between Lawno and the cheap version. Some of them will surprise you.
Safety
This was the one that mattered most, so it went first.
Think about what a tool like this actually is. A blade spinning at speed, close to your feet and legs, powered by a lithium battery that you charge inside your home.
In Australia, tools like this have safety standards they're meant to meet. The tool. The battery. The charger.
So we checked the cheap one ourselves, against those same standards.
It didn't meet them. Not the tool, not the battery, not the charger.
Now picture where that battery actually sits. On the laundry bench. In the garage next to the car. Charging while you're out at the shops.
That is not the place for "close enough".
Now, Lawno.
PASSEDTool
PASSEDBattery
PASSEDChargerAS/NZS 62841-4-4 (IEC 62841-4-4)Electrical, fire and blade safety for battery lawn trimmers and edgers.AS/NZS CISPR 14.1Won't interfere with your TV, radio or wifi.AS/NZS CISPR 32Electromagnetic compatibility for the lithium battery pack.AS/NZS 60335.2.29 + AS/NZS 60335.1Electrical safety for battery chargers. RCM certified for Australia.That's a lot of money for a small business. And every Lawno is still checked for quality and safety before it leaves our warehouse.
Safety comes first, before anything else, every time. (Why would a small business spend that much when most sellers skip it? That's the story I promised you at the end.)
✓ Lawno passed the first test.
But safety wasn't the biggest surprise. That came when we went looking for where the cheap one actually comes from.
Mass Produced
They sell it to you for $150.
So we went looking for it online. It didn't take long.
The same tool. Less than half the price on eBay. Under a different name.
And it wasn't one listing. There are hundreds of them. The same generic tool, mass produced in a factory that makes it for anyone, bought in bulk, then resold under a new name by whoever happens to be selling it that week.
Next week it'll have a different name and a different website. Same tool.
Try finding Lawno anywhere else. You won't.
Lawno is our own custom-engineered product. It took 12 months of prototyping and testing, and it was shaped by feedback from more than 5,000 Aussies who told us exactly what was wrong with the tools they'd been using.
It's only sold by Gardeners Crate, at gardenerscrate.com.au. If you see it anywhere else, it's not us.
Where it ended up:
✓ Lawno passed the second test.
Which left us with one question. If the same tool sells for less than half the price elsewhere, what got cut to make it that cheap?
Quality
Cheap tool, cheap materials.
You feel it the second you pick it up. Thin plastic. Rattly joins. It flexes in your hands, and you can tell it isn't going to last.
Lawno is made from PA6 and aluminium. PA6 is an engineering-grade nylon, the kind used in power tool housings because it's light and tough. It costs us more to make it this way, but it stays light in your hands and it lasts.
Best purchase ever!
"At first, I was sceptical about how lightweight the lawn gadget was, but I was very impressed with how well it handled my overgrown, thick edges... My lawn and edges now look like they never need doing."
Then the battery.
Theirs goes flat quickly. And when it does, the charger is painfully slow, so the job sits half done.
Lawno gives you 45+ minutes of runtime, with a dual dock fast charger that charges 2 batteries in 1 hour.
Then we went looking for the edging wheel.
Remember the part I said most people only find out about when the box arrives?
The cheap one doesn't have an edging wheel. At all.
No edging wheel. Tilt the whole tool and guess the line.
Edging wheel included. Rest it on the path and walk it along.
It says "edges" on the box. But without a wheel, you're holding the whole tool at an angle, guessing the line, and trying to keep your hands steady the whole way along the path.
On Lawno, the edging wheel snaps straight on. Rest it on the path, walk it along, and your edges come up dead straight. The wheel takes the weight, so you steer it rather than carry it.
I don't have to wait until hubby comes home
"I have a disability so the fact it has wheels is awesome. I don't have to carry it I can just roll it along to where I need it... So now I don't have to wait until hubby comes home to do the edges."
✓ Lawno passed the third test.
But none of that matters if you can't get it out of the box and working. Which is where the cheap one really came unstuck.
Assembly
Open the cheap one and you get a box of loose parts and a fold-out manual with tiny diagrams.
The manual is generic. The kind that could belong to any tool from any factory, badly translated, with the steps out of order. And if you get stuck, there's no one to ask.
Lawno was designed to be easy, built off the back of feedback from people like you. Customers in their seventies and eighties have told us it's the easiest thing they've ever put together.
You get a one-page guide with real photos on it, not confusing diagrams. And a step-by-step video if you'd rather watch than read.
I have my garden back
"I'm 80 years old and have just unpacked my 'lawno' from Garden Crate. The videos they send you makes it easy to assemble and use. For the first time in years I have my garden back, yay!"
✓ Lawno passed the fourth test.
Which brings us to number five. The one I told you not to skip.
Support
Here's the thing nobody thinks about when they're comparing prices.
What happens when something goes wrong?
Try Lawno risk free for 30 days
Buying a tool online is hard when you can't pick it up first. So don't decide here. Decide in your own backyard.
Try Lawno for 30 days. If you don't absolutely love how much easier your lawn care feels, just message our support team and we'll refund you. No stress. No hassle. Just a promise from a small Australian business that stands behind every product we sell.
Plenty of sellers offer a trial. What matters is what happens when you use it.
Exceptional customer service, truly above and beyond
"When they say try out for 30 days they truly mean it and help you along the way."
The warranty
This is where it gets interesting.
A 3-Year FREE Replacement Warranty. If something goes wrong in those 3 years, we replace your Lawno. No receipts, no stress, no repair hassles.
We know what we've built, so we can stand behind it.
They promised a "worry-free" 3 year warranty, and they delivered!
"They promise a worry-free 3 year warranty and they absolutely stand by it... Contacted Gardeners Crate support team who came back to me same day... Without hesitation, they sent me a brand-new replacement, not a second hand refurbished."
The people
When something goes wrong with theirs, you get an email address and a hope.
With ours, you get live chat, email, and a phone number with a real person on the end of it.
Ring us. A real person picks up.08 7092 0892Mon to Fri, 9am to 6pm (ACST) · Email support 7 days
Now try finding a phone number on the cheap one's website.
So picture day 91. The cheap tool stops working. The warranty's gone. The email bounces. There's no one to call.
That $150 isn't a bargain anymore. It's $150 in the bin, and you're back to square one, buying another one.
That's why number five costs people the most.
✓ Lawno passed the fifth test.
See Today's Lawno Offer →30-Day Trial · 3-Year Warranty · Free DeliveryThe Results, Side by Side
After putting both through every test, it wasn't even close. The cheap one wins on one thing only: the price tag. And after everything we found, we don't think it's cheap at all.
| Cheap version | Lawno | |
|---|---|---|
| Safety testing | ✗ Didn't meet the standards in our checks | ✓ Tested and certified |
| Where it's from | ✗ Generic, from $35.99 elsewhere | ✓ Our own design |
| Materials | ✗ Cheap materials | ✓ PA6 and aluminium |
| Battery | ✗ Flat quickly, slow charger | ✓ 45+ min, 2 batteries in 1 hour |
| Edging wheel | ✗ None | ✓ Snaps straight on |
| Assembly | ✗ Generic manual | ✓ One-page photo guide + video |
| Trial | 30 days | ✓ 30 days, and we stand by it |
| Warranty | ✗ 90 days | ✓ 3-Year Free Replacement |
| Support | ✗ An email address | ✓ Phone, chat and email |
If you already own a cheap one
You're not silly for buying it. On the screen, it really does look the same. That's the whole problem.
When we checked it, it didn't meet the Australian standards, so please be very careful with it. And if it's already playing up, take that as your sign. Dianne went through cheaper versions first too. They only lasted a few months. When she finally switched to Lawno, her words were: "I wish I had done it sooner."
Why We Built Lawno in the First Place
I promised I'd tell you why a small business would spend close to $50,000 on testing most sellers skip. Here it is.
We're Nick and Aman. Two blokes from Adelaide.
For years we watched lawn care get harder for the people we love. Our parents. Our grandparents. The neighbours over the fence. Juggling three heavy tools just to finish one simple job. Restringing a whipper snipper on their knees. Yanking a pull cord until their shoulder gave out.
Some got so sore they gave up altogether. Others started paying someone to do it. Not because they wanted to, but because they couldn't keep up.
Gardening had always been a joy for them. It was turning into a chore.
So we went looking for something better. Most tools were made for tradies. Heavy. Oversized. Confusing kits.
So we built our own. We asked more than 5,000 Aussies what was wrong with their tools, and spent 12 months prototyping and testing until we had one light tool that trims, edges and mows.
When you're building something for people like your own parents, "close enough" is never good enough. That's where the $50,000 went.
"We innovate so you can keep tending your patch of the world, on your own terms."
Keep Gardening. Keep Living.Today, more than 15,638 Aussies have a Lawno in their shed. And we still read every review.
Which brings me to the last thing I promised you.
Don't Take Our Word for Any of It
Seriously. Don't rely on the reviews on anyone's website, ours included.
A company controls its own website, so it can show whatever it likes. A cheap seller can post fifty five-star reviews tonight and nobody would ever know.
So check somewhere they can't control.
What is Trustpilot?
- It's an independent review website. It doesn't belong to us or to any seller.
- We can't edit the reviews, and we can't delete them. Good or bad, they stay.
- You can read the bad ones too. That's exactly why they're worth reading.
- Anyone can look up any seller. Which is exactly what we did next.
So we looked up the cheap one's seller too
Same website. Same rules. Nobody can edit or delete these reviews either. Here's how the two compare, side by side.
100% of them 1-star
Now here's what our customers say. On the same website, word for word.
I have my garden back
“I'm 80 years old and have just unpacked my 'lawno'... Thank you for this easy to use life saver.”
I'm 80 years old and have just unpacked my 'lawno' from Garden Crate. The videos they send you makes it easy to assemble and use - for the first time in years I have my garden back - yay !
Thank you for this easy to use life saver.
Exceptional customer service, truly above and beyond
“It is incredibly rare to find a business that listens so closely to its customers, respects their time, and acts with this level of care and integrity.”
I recently had an interaction with the Gardeners Crate support team regarding my purchase of The Lawno, and I am absolutely blown away by their level of care.
Right from the start, my detailed product feedback was treated with genuine respect. Both Zoren and the co-founder, Nick, took the time to personally step in and troubleshoot with me.
Knowing that I am over 6 feet tall, Nick was incredibly thoughtful. He accurately diagnosed a specific handling angle issue that affects taller users and offered tailored, expert advice to help me optimize the tool's performance.
It is incredibly rare to find a business that listens so closely to its customers, respects their time, and acts with this level of care and integrity. I cannot recommend Gardeners Crate highly enough based on their outstanding customer service. When they say try out for 30 days they truly mean it and help you along the way
Best purchase ever!
“At first, I was sceptical about how lightweight the lawn gadget was, but I was very impressed with how well it handled my overgrown, thick edges... My lawn and edges now look like they never need doing.”
At first, I was sceptical about how lightweight the lawn gadget was, but I was very impressed with how well it handled my overgrown, thick edges. I ended up using 3 trimmers to get the job done, but I know it will only require one in the future if I do it regularly. That is the best thing about it, as it is so easy to use. Just click on the battery and go. Not having to thread a cord or deal with the usual jamming, but just using the supplied tool to undo the head and pop on a new one in literally 30 seconds is a game changer. I didn't even have to change anything to use it as a whipper snipper to go around poles or trees. I just turned it on its side. Because it is so lightweight, it didn't gouge into the grass or leave any evidence like others do by cutting lower than the mowed grass. It arrived in 2 days in perfect packaging with very easy-to-follow assembly instructions. I will no longer have to prepare or make time to do the lawns. I would compare it to the same thing as using a battery-operated blower. No waiting for the right time or conditions, and with zero effort. My lawn and edges now look like they never need doing. I am a very short 66-year-old female who has had multiple surgeries on my back and hip and who has always struggled with equipment being too long, heavy and time-consuming. Finally, a company that recognises that gardening equipment needs to be designed to be simple enough for all demographics.
What a wonderful Aussie company to be dealing with
“When 'Larry the Lawno' finally arrived, I was so excited that I sat just admiring him for a few days... And now my friends want to borrow him!! Get your own is my reply...lol”
What a wonderful Aussie company to be dealing with. I knew that I could trust them by the friendly updating emails as to when I could receive my order. When 'Larry the Lawno' finally arrived, I was so excited that I sat just admiring him for a few days. (It was too wet to mow) so Larry and I got to know each other before I put him to work. What a tough little guy he is. And now my friends want to borrow him!! Get your own is my reply...lol
They promised a "worry-free" 3 year warranty, and they delivered!
“Contacted Gardeners Crate support team who came back to me same day... Without hesitation, they sent me a brand-new replacement, not a second hand refurbished”
Most of us have had a bad experience buying online, well let me prove to you Gardeners Crate will never let you down. They promise a worry-free 3 year warrant and they absolutely stand by it. After just a couple of months of using my Lawno almost every day, I warn you its addictive, it's that good, but without warning it suddenly had a problem that I could not figure or fix. Contacted Gardeners Crate support team who came back to me same day. They sincerely did everything to help identify the problem, including a video, and how I might fix it. Obvious this was not a common problem, just a freak, random part failure. Without hesitation, they sent me a brand-new replacement, not a second hand refurbished, no what arrived was a brand-new machine. My son told me to keep the broken one for spare parts, I think that's a man thing?
We are 82 and 72 and absolutely love the Lawno
“It was not enjoyable doing our yards anymore... Wow. It is now a joy to get out in the yard and do stuff.”
I had seen the Lawno advertised and was very interested to try it.
I am 72. My hubby is 82.
I have rheumatoid and sciatica and hubby has arthritis as well.
We have a huge yard. 1527m2.
It was getting so hard for us.
Electric heavy edger with a long cord.
And a lawnmower that is getting so hard to start.
It was not enjoyable doing our yards anymore.
The Lawno looked so good, we thought we would give it a try.
Wow. It is now a joy to get out in the yard and do stuff.
We do it in stages. Not all at once and it is now fun.
With my hand, everything was hard. The Lawno is so light it is very, very easy for me to manage.
And, it is absolutely amazing.
We now do all the edges, trimming and mowing of the smaller areas with the Lawno. No more heavy tools with long cords.
The battery lasts about 40 minutes which is fabulous.
And no more threading trimmer cord, ever again.
The easy to screw on trimmer cord attachments are fantastic.
We really love getting out now and are working our way, a little each day, through all the overgrown places that we have had to let go because it was simply too hard.
It is so powerful, yet so light. We absolutely love it.
If you are elderly, like us, then you will find it amazing.
If you only have small areas of grass to be mown, then you don't need anything else except this.
I don't often leave reviews. Only for exceptional products and/or service.
We love it.
Oh. And an Australian company. Even better.
I don't have to wait until hubby comes home
“I have a disability so the fact it has wheels is awesome. I don't have to carry it I can just roll it along to where I need it.”
I used the Lawno for the first time last weekend. I'm very impressed with how it works. I have a disability so the fact it has wheels is awesome. I don't have to carry it I can just roll it along to where I need it. When I do need to pick it up it's weight is not a problem. So now I don't have to wait until hubby comes home to do the edges. Also it's great for getting into those awkward places. Highly recommend.
Gardener's Crate staff are the best!
“When I needed help they arranged a replacement part to be sent out straight away without any dramas whatsoever.”
Gardener's Crate staff have been quick and eager to help me. When I needed help they arranged a replacement part to be sent out straight away without any dramas whatsoever. This has been the best purchase I've made for gardening in a long time. So easy to use for mowing and trimming. Thank you Gardener's Crate!
I have never whipper snipped before in my life
“I found the lawno so easy to use and very light... Now I don't have to relie on my son to help me anymore or pay someone to do my lawn.”
My experience has been fantastic from start to finish. It was great getting updates from Nick about how my order was going. I tried the Lawno with my son and daughter in-law yesterday 23/8/2026. I had so much fun learning how to use it. My son was impressed and told me it's very ideal for me. My daughter in-law had a go as well and found it fun to use. I have never whipper snipped before in my life and I am 65 as I could never get a whipper snipper to start and they are so heavy. I found the lawno so easy to use and very light. I have been searching for years for a product to be made like this. I can't wait to use it again. It's perfect for my small front yard. Now I don't have to relie on my son to help me anymore or pay someone to do my lawn. Excellent product.
I was blown away
“How can something so small and so light do the job that my Whipper snipper can do... I don't think I stopped smiling”
Always very happy to support a great company. Yes, I was very sceptical at first. How can something so small and so light do the job that my Whipper snipper can do.
Well, I can be so very honest here: from the first go with this little light machine, I was blown away. I don't think I stopped smiling; I had to call my family to show them just how great this little machine really is.
Great Job Gardeners Crate.
How Can You Get Lawno?
Aussies loved the first Lawno
Now it's even easier and more comfortable to use. A comfier grip, a longer trigger that's easier to start, and a second handle with 3 positions. Why? Because every change came from owners like these.
Why it keeps selling out
Here's the honest part. We're a small Aussie team, not a giant factory. We make Lawno in small batches, so every single unit can be checked properly before it ships. Each batch takes about two months.
And word has spread. Customers buy one, then come back for their sister, their neighbour, their mum. That's why we've sold out 10 times.
When a batch sells out, the wait isn't a few days. It's months.
If you're reading this, there's still room in the current batch. We can't promise how long that will last.
Lawno is only sold in one place
gardenerscrate.com.auNot in stores. Not on any marketplace. Only from us.
Beware of copycats. If you see a tool that looks like Lawno somewhere else, it's not us. Please let us know.