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The short version: on a hill, drive type is the whole game, and it is why this ranking is not the same as our main roundup. As a mower climbs, its weight transfers backwards: a front-wheel-drive machine unloads its powered wheels exactly when you need them and spins, while a rear-wheel-drive machine grips harder the steeper it gets. So we ranked on drive layout first, then variable speed, wheel size and total weight. Our pick is the Greenworks 60V rear-wheel-drive mower.
That single criterion is enough to reorder the field. Our best self-propelled mower roundup ranks the same category on drive-system durability, runtime and value across an average American yard, and it lands on the EGO LM2135SP. Judge those machines purely on what a bank asks of them — traction, a pace you can control, wheels that bridge ruts, and weight you can turn at the end of a pass — and the order changes. If you are weighing fuel type as well, gas vs battery mowers covers that, and the lawn care hub has the rest.
Why Drive Type Outranks Everything Else Here
Every other spec on a mower is a preference. Drive layout on a slope is physics.
| Property | What it does on a slope | Weight in this ranking |
|---|---|---|
| Rear-wheel drive | Weight shifts back onto the driven wheels as the grade steepens, so traction increases exactly when it is needed | Decisive — every mower here has it or better |
| Variable speed | Lets you crawl across a face at a pace you set, instead of being dragged at one fixed speed | Heavy |
| Wheel size and tread | Big rear wheels bridge ruts and tussocks rather than dropping into them mid-traverse | Moderate |
| Total weight | What you fight sideways on a traverse and again at every turn; a heavy pack high on the deck is worst | Moderate |
| All-wheel drive | The only layout that keeps working past the walk-behind limit — and by then nobody should be on the hill | Decisive above roughly 20 degrees |
Note what is missing: deck width, cut quality, mulching systems and battery platforms all fall away, because none of them changes whether the machine holds the hill.
Top Picks at a Glance
Our #1 Pick: Greenworks 60V Rear-Wheel-Drive
This mower wins the hill question because it stacks the three slope properties on top of each other instead of trading one for another. It is rear-wheel drive, so the backwards weight transfer of a climb loads the driven wheels rather than lifting them. It has a variable-speed control, so you can set a slow, deliberate pace and hold it across the face of a bank rather than being hauled along at whatever speed a single-speed drive chose for you. And it ships with two batteries, which sounds like a convenience and is not: on a slope the drive works continuously, packs drain faster than the flat-lawn figures suggest, and having the spare on the charger means you finish the bank in one session instead of parking a heavy machine halfway across it.
The 21-inch deck matters for a different reason than usual here. Wider is not better on a hill — a narrower deck is easier to keep level across a grade and easier to swing around at the end of a pass, and it still fits a standard side gate to reach the back slope in the first place.
The honest weaknesses: it is a battery machine, so it carries pack weight the gas option does not, and runtime under sustained drive load is genuinely lower than flat-ground numbers imply — which is the entire argument for the second battery being in the box. It is also not the mower with the most polished drive control in this field; that is the EGO below it.
Check price on Amazon → (paid link)
The Ranked Field
Best for rear-wheel traction plus a second battery so a bank never strands you mid-pass
- Rear-wheel drive — grip increases as the grade steepens
- Variable speed, so you can crawl across a face instead of being towed
- Two 4.0Ah batteries in the box, no swap stop halfway up a bank
- 21-inch deck that still fits through a standard side gate
Why buy it: drive type is what decides a slope, and this one puts rear-wheel drive, a variable-speed control and a spare battery in the same box — so you pick a walking pace, hold it across the face of the bank, and finish without a trip back to the garage.
Best for the best-liked variable-speed control here, if you accept the weight
- Rear-wheel drive with the most-praised variable-speed dial in this field
- Holds a set pace steadily across a slope face
- Large battery platform shared with a wide tool range
- Heavy — and weight is what you fight at the end of every pass
Why buy it: the drive control owners rate most highly on grades. The honest caveat on a bank is mass: every turn at the end of a pass means muscling a heavy battery machine around on ground that is already working against you.
Best for tall rear wheels and no battery mass riding high on the deck
- Rear-wheel drive from a 170cc gas engine
- High rear wheels bridge ruts and tussocks on a bank
- Engine mass sits low, not in a pack above the deck
- 3-in-1 bagging, mulching and rear discharge
Why buy it: the traditional slope answer — rear-wheel drive, tall rear wheels, and the weight down low where you want it on a traverse. Buy it for the layout rather than the reputation: its owner-review record is the weakest of the drivetrains on this page.
Best for a drive that goes as fast as you walk rather than pulling you along
- Rear-wheel drive with Toro speed-matching drive
- Pace follows your stride instead of a fixed dial setting
- 22-inch deck, the widest cut in this field
- Folds upright for vertical storage
Why buy it: on a bank, the gap between a fixed drive speed and one that follows your stride is the gap between walking and being towed. The caveat is evidence: the owner-review record behind this listing is thin compared with the mowers above it.
Best for a bank past the safe limit for any walk-behind mower
- All-wheel drive, rated by the manufacturer for slopes up to 45 percent
- Wire-free setup — no boundary wire to bury across a grade
- Nobody has to stand on the hill at all
- Cutting height adjustable from 2 to 3.6 inches
Why buy it: the genuinely different answer. If the grade is steeper than you should be walking behind a mower, the right machine is one with all-wheel drive and no operator on the hill. The caveats are real: cost, a modest coverage area, and a thin owner-review record.
Best for a moderate grade where one battery gets the job finished
- Rear-wheel drive behind a strong 80V brushless motor
- One 4.0Ah battery and a 60-minute rapid charger
- Battery platform shared with 75+ Greenworks tools
- Runtime under sustained drive load is the limiting factor
Why buy it: the drivetrain is right and the motor is strong, but a slope loads the drive continuously and a single battery is what runs out first — which is exactly why it sits below the two-battery Greenworks rather than above it.
Quick Comparison
| Product | Best for | Rating | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenworks 60V 21-Inch Brushless Self-Propelled Cordless Lawn Mower | Best Overall on a Slope | — | Check (paid link) | |
| EGO POWER+ LM2135SP 21-Inch Cordless Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Kit | Best Drive Control | — | Check (paid link) | |
| PowerSmart 21 Inch 3-in-1 Gas Self-Propelled Lawn Mower, 170cc | Best Traditional Gas Traction | — | Check (paid link) | |
| Toro Recycler 21466 22-Inch 60V Self-Propelled Lawn Mower | Best Speed Matching | — | Check (paid link) | |
| Segway Navimow i210 AWD Robot Lawn Mower | Best for Slopes Too Steep to Walk | — | Check (paid link) | |
| Greenworks 80V 21-Inch Brushless Self-Propelled Cordless Lawn Mower | Best Single-Battery Value | — | Check (paid link) |
How We Rank
We do not buy, run or physically handle these mowers. For a slope specifically we weight drive layout first and hardest, because rear-wheel and all-wheel drive behave fundamentally differently from front-wheel drive on a grade; then speed control, since a pace you cannot set is a pace that sets you; then wheel size and tread for crossing rutted, uneven ground; then weight, including where that weight sits on the machine. Aggregated owner ratings and review volume sit alongside those, and we say plainly when a listing has a thin or weak review record rather than quietly ranking it anyway. Prices were current at the time of writing. Full method on how we rank.
The Hill Mowers, Reviewed
1. Greenworks 60V Rear-Wheel-Drive — Best Overall on a Slope
Covered above. The short case for it on the criterion: rear-wheel drive, a variable-speed control, two batteries, and a 21-inch deck that is easy to keep level on a face and easy to turn at the end of a pass. What owners praise: traction and the pair of batteries. What owners complain about: runtime under load and pack weight. Check price (paid link).
2. EGO POWER+ LM2135SP — Best Drive Control
Rear-wheel drive again, and the variable-speed control owners rate most highly of anything here — it holds a chosen pace steadily rather than surging, which is exactly what you want when the mower is crossing a bank and you are picking your footing. What keeps it off the top spot on this page is not the drive but the weight. This is a heavy machine, and on a slope weight is a live cost rather than a spec-sheet footnote: you carry it sideways on every traverse and wrestle it around at every turn. It is our #1 in the main self-propelled roundup, where flat-ground durability and runtime carry the ranking instead. What owners complain about: the weight, and shorter runtime when the drive is loaded. Check price (paid link).
3. PowerSmart 21-Inch 170cc Gas — Best Traditional Gas Traction
The old answer to a hill, and still a coherent one. Rear-wheel drive from a gas engine, tall rear wheels that ride over ruts instead of dropping into them, and mass carried low in the chassis rather than in a battery pack sitting high on the deck. On a traverse, where the weight sits changes how the machine feels more than how much of it there is. It also refuels in thirty seconds, which no battery mower can match on a long bank. The honest caveat, stated plainly: the owner-review record behind this listing is the weakest of the drivetrains on this page, so the recommendation rests on the layout rather than on a deep body of long-term owner evidence. Add the usual gas routine of oil, filters and off-season fuel management. Check price (paid link).
4. Toro Recycler 21466 60V — Best Speed Matching
Rear-wheel drive with Toro speed-matching drive, which on a bank means something specific and useful: the mower travels as fast as you walk instead of pulling you at a preset speed. Going across a face, that removes the low-grade fight of a drive that wants to be somewhere you are not yet standing. The 22-inch deck is the widest here, which is a benefit on a big flat lawn and a mild liability on a grade, where a wider deck is harder to keep level and harder to swing around. The honest caveat: the owner-review record on this listing is thin, so there is less long-run evidence behind it than the machines above. Check price (paid link).
5. Segway Navimow i210 AWD Robot — Best for Slopes Too Steep to Walk
This is the answer that the drive-type criterion produces once you follow it to the end. All-wheel drive is the only layout that keeps working past the point a walk-behind should be on the hill, and the manufacturer rates this one for slopes up to 45 percent — ground no homeowner should be traversing on foot behind a spinning blade. It sets up without a buried boundary wire, which matters on a bank where trenching a wire across a grade is its own miserable afternoon. Most importantly, nobody is standing on the hill.
The honest caveats: it costs several times what any walk-behind here does, its coverage area is modest, and the owner-review record is thin because it is a recent listing. It is the right recommendation for a genuinely steep bank and the wrong one for a rolling lawn a rear-wheel-drive mower handles comfortably. Check price (paid link).
6. Greenworks 80V Brushless — Best Single-Battery Value
A strong mower with the correct drivetrain, and it sits last here for one reason: it comes with a single battery. On flat ground that is fine. On a slope the drive is loaded continuously, so the pack empties faster than the flat-lawn figure suggests, and running out halfway across a bank means either a long wait on the charger or pushing a heavy mower home unassisted. If your grade is moderate and the yard is small enough that one charge covers it, the mower itself is capable and the rapid charger softens the problem. Check price (paid link).
What Owners Actually Complain About on Hills
Wheels spinning on the climb. Almost always a front-wheel-drive mower on ground it was never suited to. There is no technique fix; the fix is the drive layout, which is why the whole field above is rear-wheel or all-wheel drive.
Being dragged. A single-speed drive picks one pace and you match it or fight it. On a slope that is genuinely unpleasant and mildly unsafe, and it is the entire case for variable speed.
Turning at the end of a pass. The complaint that surprises people. Traversing a bank is manageable; pivoting a heavy machine around on a side slope, thirty times an afternoon, is what actually leaves you tired. Lighter machines and narrower decks win here.
Wheels dropping into ruts. Small rear wheels fall into the dips that hillsides always have, which stalls the pass and pulls the deck out of level. Larger rear wheels bridge them.
Drivetrain wear. Belts, cables and wheel gears all work harder on a grade than on the flat, so hill yards see these parts fail sooner. Keeping the deck underside clean and disengaging the drive before dragging the mower backwards both help. Wet grass makes every one of these worse and is genuinely dangerous on a slope — see whether you can mow wet grass.
How to Choose a Mower for Your Slope
Work down the criterion in order, and stop when you have an answer.
First, drive type. Rear-wheel drive or nothing on any real grade. Front-wheel drive is a flat-lot system and no amount of engine or motor power rescues it on a hill, because the problem is not power, it is that the driven wheels have gone light.
Second, variable speed. You want to be able to set a crawl. A drive that only offers one pace is a drive that decides how fast you cross a bank.
Third, wheels. Bigger rear wheels with real tread bridge the ruts a hillside collects; small hard wheels drop into them.
Fourth, weight and where it sits. Total mass is what you fight on a traverse and at every turn, and a large battery high on the deck is the least helpful place to carry it. This is the reason a lighter mower with the right layout regularly beats a heavier, more powerful one on a hill.
Then be honest about the grade itself. University of Georgia Extension puts the ceiling for a push mower at about 20 degrees, and Penn State Extension advises driving a riding mower up and down rather than side to side once a slope passes 15 degrees. Somewhere around 15 to 20 degrees, the machine stops being the limiting factor and your footing becomes it. Past that point the correct purchase is not a better walk-behind — it is a robot mower rated for the slope, or a professional with slope-rated equipment. Buying a stronger walk-behind for ground you should not be standing on is the one genuinely bad decision available in this category.
Mowing a Slope Safely
With a walk-behind mower, mow across the face of the slope, never straight up and down. If you slip while traversing, the mower runs away from you down the hill rather than back over your feet. University of Georgia Extension gives the same instruction — start at the bottom and mow back and forth across the slope, working to the top — and notes that riding mowers follow the opposite rule, mowing up and down the slope and turning on level ground at the top and bottom. They are stable up and down and roll sideways on a traverse, so match the direction to the machine and never carry one habit over to the other.
Beyond that: set a slow drive speed and let the mower do the work; keep passes narrow and overlap them rather than stretching for width; never mow a wet or dewy slope, where traction disappears for both you and the machine; and treat roughly 15 to 20 degrees as the hard ceiling for anything done on foot. For keeping a hill mower cutting cleanly through a season of hard work, see how often to sharpen mower blades.
The Verdict
Judged on drive type, traction and weight — the only properties that change on a hill — the Greenworks 60V rear-wheel-drive mower is the pick, because it combines the right drivetrain with a variable-speed control and a second battery for the runtime a loaded drive eats. Take the EGO LM2135SP if you want the best-liked speed control and can live with the weight, the PowerSmart 170cc if you want tall rear wheels and mass carried low with no battery to manage, and the Toro if a drive that matches your stride appeals more than a dial. If the bank is genuinely steep, the honest recommendation is the all-wheel-drive Segway Navimow i210 and nobody on the hill at all.
Rank the same mowers on durability, runtime and value across an ordinary yard and you get a different winner — that is our best self-propelled mower page. Check price on Amazon → (paid link)
More from this hub: lawn care & mowers · gas vs battery mowers · mowing height by grass type · how we rank.