By Glenn Hansen
When Toro purchased the Dingo line of mini skid-steer vehicles in 1997, it included the 222 model. “Today, it’s very unimpressive,” said Tom Werner, general manager of Toro Sitework Systems, the division that oversees the manufacturer’s growing mini equipment line. “At the time, though, that was a breakthrough technology; it lived in an age when skid loaders were prolific in the marketplace. And what would this small thing do?”
It would start a boom of mini machines. Today, Toro continues to produce model 323, which looks similar to that original 222. But, as Werner said during a press conference at Equip Expo, “The world has changed and now the Dingo represents a full line of compact utility loaders and has ultimately created an entirely new category for the compact construction industry.”
Where else would I begin this article on the growing market of mini machines?
After the Toro Dingo, the mini market began to mature. “It really started with four different companies: Toro, Bobcat, Ditch Witch and Vermeer,” said Brant Kukuk, Ditch Witch product manager for compact equipment. “And it blew up from there. But those four companies really started this market. We were actually the second, right behind Toro to enter the space — funny now that we work together. And I feel like the competitors continued to chase either our gap or a head-on model.” Toro acquired Charles Machine Works, the maker of Ditch Witch brand, in 2019 in a $700 million all-cash deal.
The momentum continues in this product marketplace. Quantifying the market is difficult today, without publicly available sales or production numbers. I’ve heard the total number of “mini” machines sold in the U.S. ranges from 35,000 to as high as 90,000. For comparison, the zero-turn mower market in the U.S. is nearing 1 million units at retail. Our friends at Power System Research estimate that 841,500 zero-turn mowers are expected to be produced in the United States in 2025. So mini is still relatively mini, but it’s moving up.
And what is a mini? Several manufacturers use the term “mini” to define a sub-category of compact equipment. Others stick with “compact.” When I spoke with Deere reps at Equip Expo, they wanted to avoid the term “mini,” but the company’s website does include the word parenthetically in its compact excavator category. The category includes tracked and wheeled vehicles, mostly stand-ons but also some with seats and cabs. For this story, I was mostly interested in the stand-on and even walk-behind loader-type minis.
Since I’m a hands-on learner, I began my research into this market by borrowing a mini loader from one of the newest entrants into the category. Through its dealer Olson Power Equipment in North Branch, Minn., Kubota sent an SCL1000, its newest compact loader and only stand-on model (Kubota uses “compact” instead of “mini”), plus a couple attachments. I spent about a month with the machine, working in my backyard and on a few jobsites with the help of Steiner Landscaping based in Stillwater, Minn. (more on that experience at the end of this story).
This market is blossoming for several reasons, and I cover three of the top reasons here. It’s about size, price, and convenience, which is a catchall category that includes ease of use and ownership, technology and more.
More mini purchase drivers:
Urbanization and confined job sites
The need for maneuverability
Residential and infrastructure boom
Lower costs to purchase and operate
Versatility with multi-attachment compatibility
Technology features
Advanced safety features
Rental market efficiency
I’m talking about both the size of the machines and the size of the worksite. When I asked Werner about the growth of the category overall, he pointed to data (backed up by data I found from the U.S. Census Bureau) showing that nearly “70% of all homes being built today are on 9,000 square feet or less, and 40% of all homes being built today are on 7,000 square feet or less.”
Toro and other manufacturers point to these smaller lot sizes as the “urbanization” of the U.S. home market. Werner continued, “And then the homes are being built on zero lot lines. In many cases, you can’t even get a full-size track loader between two homes.” For both initial construction and for ensuing landscape design or hardscape work, smaller equipment is not just convenient, it’s all that fits.
Smaller can be better than bigger, according to Doug Laufenberg, division sales manager for Deere, whether for the size of the job, or because it’s a homeowner renting one for ease of use. “Transportation gets to be an issue too, and smaller is better for hauling things,” he said. “It’s great for rental on the small end, just a lower cost, less things for operators to damage with a smaller machine.”
During my use of the small Kubota loader, I could see the ease-of-use factor and the potential benefit for a homeowner. I could also just see really well. “The primary building blocks of having smaller machines are based on the visibility factors, mainly the opportunity to sit inside machines up a little bit higher and have greater visibility outside around you,” said Jake Sickels, product marketing manager for New Holland. “Even if you’re standing on the back of a machine, you still get that same maneuverability, lifting capacity, hydraulic flow to run those smaller attachments — all while working in more confined areas; that’s what we’re looking at.” Sure, you can still get decent visibility on a traditional skid-steer or compact track loader, but not like you would get with a mini track loader.
Comparing price of mini equipment to more traditional compact equipment involves many factors, from initial cost (whether renting or purchasing equipment), cost of ownership (including maintenance, storage, transportation needs), and the cost opportunity for dealers that can now sell to a potentially new and growing market. That last category is a big one for New Holland and its dealers.
Compare the New Holland C314 mini track loader, priced at about $40,000, with the company’s C332 compact track loader, priced at about $75,000. That range is pretty consistent across manufacturers, give or take a few thousand bucks. And that can make a big difference for certain buyers. And it presents new market opportunities for dealers, especially for a manufacturer like New Holland whose dealers sell equipment that is much more expensive.
“Dealers love it,” said Sickels. “Of course, a dealer will need to sell 20 of these [C314 mini loaders] to sell one combine. However, they get more individual connections when selling construction machines because it’s one after another as opposed to one machine that’s going to last 10 years. They’re selling fleets of machines at a time.” (The retail price of a New Holland CR10.90 combine starts around $600,000 and goes up from there).
Increasing opportunities in the construction and landscape markets is a big driver for New Holland to expand beyond its home base of agricultural equipment. Over the last few years, New Holland has made an effort to grow the construction and landscape side by making retail opportunities more distinct from the ag side. “With the increase of our different product options, like small articulated loaders going into landscape opportunities, now we’re able to separate those a little bit better,” said Sickels.
While more affordable than a traditional compact loader, these mini machines are still not cheap. Enter the rental industry. “This price on this 17 P-Tier is about $40,000,” said Laufenberg. “Our dealers have their own rental strategy; we encourage them to get into that business. It’s a big part of the compact industry.” He added that Deere’s compact excavator and track loader are the two largest-volume machines in that business. “And landscaping is key to both of those machines,” he said, with rental being a main access point.
Looking at rentals, I searched online to compare daily and weekly rates for mini loaders and traditional compact loaders. Prices vary by region and rental business, but a mini loader, like a Dingo generally costs $100 less per day to rent than a larger Cat loader. And that translates to $500 per week.
Ditch Witch, meanwhile, focuses on the breadth of its own mini lineup to satisfy an increasingly diverse market, for dealers and users. “Some owner-operators buy small at first and wish they had gone bigger a year later,” said Kukuk. “So we allow the customer to grow with us by staying in our product lineup because we have a small stand-on mini loader all the way up to a full size stand on.”
The price factor applies to many potential buyers. The size factor applies to most potential buyers. The “convenience” factor applies to all. I’m talking about a variety of benefits here, including attachments and technology features, plus ease of use and ownership that can help with labor and more.
“We have labor challenges in this market,” said Werner. “These small utility loaders are more capable than ever. This helps improve the lives of the workers.” Werner talked about the machine’s quick learning curve and easy accessibility along with the capabilities in small spaces, which leads to workplace improvements. “A lot of times we talk about how hard it is to get labor,” he said. “If we could just focus on how we keep the labor we have and keep them in the industry, we could solve a lot of our problems.”
And that brings us to attachments. “A machine can do a job, but not without an attachment,” said Kukuk. Ditch Witch has grown its share in the tree-care business, in part due to a relationship with Branch Manager, a Minnesota-based manufacturer of attachments that serve arborists and other landscape pros.
“We realized there was a need in the market to support the attachment side of the arborist business,” said Kukuk. “So we partnered with one of the best brands out there and we launched five different attachments to help arborists do their jobs. That’s been very successful for us to support this market.”
The nascent technology side of these mini machines is a developing story for both users and business owners. And if a manufacturer does not offer tech features on its machines, it’s missing out.
“If you’re the owner, you can connect and monitor machine location and fuel level,” said Laufenberg. “Sometimes you can put in a code and check out how operators are performing versus another.” That kind of connectivity is increasingly important for business owners, and it’s possible in a variety of machine types — from mowers to loaders. “As you grow up in our product line with the telematics you can get alerts if there’s something going wrong with a machine,” added Laufenberg. “You can prevent something major from happening. Telematics is becoming very important for not only location and asset management, but also for managing the equipment so it can stay productive and not have as much downtime.”
Farmers and construction operators already know about the technology possibilities for proficiency in grading, digging and detailed sitework. These advancements are relatively new to mini loaders and excavators, but they are coming for most manufacturers. The landscape market will decide how much tech is needed on site to build a retaining wall or complete an irrigation install. That will, of course, vary by business.
Technology advancements have traditional equipment makers boasting about their high-tech capabilities as much as torque and power ratings. “CNH acquired a company called Hemisphere GNSS in 2013. Since then, we’ve been working with the Hemisphere team to develop in-house machine control solutions,” said Sickels. “Customers can buy a machine, they can buy their attachments, and they can buy their technology all in a single location, and that can also be financed with CNH finance.”
Such brand building is better for manufacturers than for users of this smaller equipment. Buyers want small machines that can help them do more work for less money. And they will find increasing value in technology; but those features will develop to meet the needs of users, not necessarily to create the need.
Buyers will and should look at features, controls and the specifications they need to get work done. What can they get on a trailer? How many attachments? Lift height and angles, horsepower, fuel type, maintenance requirements, etc. How quickly can a crew get to work? In the end, mini loaders are popular for their low-cost utility right now, as the rental market proves.
By Glenn Hansen
When Kubota said I could borrow its new stand-on loader, I knew now was the time to begin my backyard landscaping project. As a DIY homeowner, I enjoy getting into projects of all kinds (except plumbing). My backyard project started with removing grass and prepping a few hundred square feet for a new native-plants garden. I am sure there are better attachments for this type of project, but I had a bucket. And in old racing lingo, you run what ya brung.
Did it work? Yes, it worked well — once I got the hang of the machine’s controls, size and bucket angles. There is no doubt this machine saved me hours of labor and saved my aging back from the pain of otherwise manual labor. I still needed to work by hand near a couple of trees. But with practice over a couple days, I got better and manipulating the Kubota to do what I needed. And several of my neighbors were scrambling to find heavy things to move and jobs to get done.
I left the machine outside during the weekends I was working in my yard. Otherwise, this mini machine fit nicely in my third garage stall. At 36-inches wide, even with the attachment on, the Kubota easily slipped into my standard-size garage, and I could still access my bicycles, kayaks, workbench and all my tools.
Would I buy one? No, because I just don’t need one as a homeowner. But I will certainly rent one in the future. For maybe $1,000 a week I could get loads of work done and still store a mini machine safely in the garage. A machine like the Kubota has a simple learning curve. And weighing around 3,000 pounds, it can be towed easily on a sturdy utility trailer. A regular compact loader will weigh three times as much.
When I was done removing grass in my yard, I let my friends at Steiner Landscaping use the Kubota for a few projects. They had rocks and dirt to move, and a few stumps to remove. Owner Andy Steiner and his partner Rylan Lord have been in business just a couple years; they’re young and growing a business combining design and build work, plus some mowing and maintenance. Steiner owns a traditional Bobcat loader, a couple zero-turn mowers, and a mini skid-steer built by AGT International, which they purchased online for about $6,000.
They bought that mini machine for the low price alone. “We have issues with it,” said Lord. “It is slow, can’t lift much, and the tracks come off sometimes, but we could afford it.” Lord added that they will sometimes rent other mini loaders depending on the project. And they were eager to test the Kubota.
The Steiner team appreciated several features and characteristics of the Kubota, which easily outclassed the inexpensive AGT. This is not intended to be a comparison; that wouldn’t even be fair as the Kubota retails for around $42,000, seven times as much as the AGT.
As I learned during my homeowner test, the controls on the Kubota are easy to use, and pro users will appreciate their simplicity. The stand-on platform is roomy and stable, and also easy to jump off if you need to operate as a walk-behind (after pressing that safety-override button).
The Kubota has a rated top speed of 4.9 mph, and Steiner appreciated that when moving rocks from a worksite to a dump trailer, or from the transport trailer to the jobsite. They switched attachments from the bucket to the stump grinder a couple times (and so did I in my own practice driving). It takes a bit of patience to get the attachments to seat just right on the machine. Sometimes the locking pins click right into place, sometimes we had to try again (the dealer alerted us that the Kubota would require some practice here).
It did take a lot of practice to find the best RPM range to keep the Kubota from bogging down when lifting the bucket or running the stump grinder attachment. Both Steiner and I killed the engine multiple times while working. Not sure the solution to that issue.
Neither Steiner nor I used the Kubota long enough to consider maintenance needs. It does appear easy to access all essentials under the hood, with the fuel fill, battery, air intake, filters and more. We both appreciated the diesel engine’s miserly fuel usage.
Buying that AGT mini saved Steiner hours of labor. “It’s an hour of shoveling by hand compared to a couple minutes of using the loader. It changes the whole game for the type of jobs we could take,” said Lord. “And using the Kubota would save us even more time with its speed and reliability, I’m sure.”
Would they buy one? Lord said they would like to, and he knows it would be a good investment. “The more machines we have, the more jobs and money we can make. We bought two mowers and they were in use all summer,” he said. Steiner is not in a position right now to drop $40K on a new mini, however. With equipment financing relatively expensive, that’s a decision a lot of small business owners are probably reaching right now.
But the Steiner team has already seen the business-boosting efficiency of mini loaders. Lord talked about the ease of loading and transporting the Kubota on the company’s smaller trailer. They appreciate the narrow size to help them get through fence gates. And they appreciated the diesel fuel, though they’d buy a gas-powered mini too.
With the right attachments — Steiner would want a pallet fork attachment for moving retaining wall blocks and other hardscape materials — a machine like this stand-on Kubota SCL is an efficiency booster and business builder for a company like Steiner Landscaping. And it’s a back saver, plus a whole lot of fun, for a homeowner like me.