Scotts Snap System - Spreader

For years I have had a broadcast spreader that I had to convert from one brand of manufacturer to another in order to try and get the correct application rate. Even when I was pretty sure that I had it right, it seemed like I was hoping and praying more than getting it right. So along comes the Scott's Snap System. Not just fertilizer, but Grub Worm killer, fire ant killer and so much more! Some people have complained that the fertilizer costs more this way and Scotts is locking you in to their products. Others suggest saving the old bags and refilling them. If saving money is high enough on your priority list, then by all means find the solution that works for you! I mean that with all due respect. But my dad used to say that we were too poor to buy cheap stuff. Cause we often ended up buying it twice. This is a place where I'm willing to spend a few dollars more to get Scotts quality and to KNOW that I am getting the best possible treatment for my lawn. We have a contest in our neighborhood for best looking lawn each week during the summer. We win the competition more than once during those 12 weeks each summer and our lawn is one of over a hundred. You do the math. Scotts makes a difference. And the snap system is, well, a snap! No setting the amount of fertilizer. No guesswork from one brand of spreader to another. You just snap it in, and go. It re-seals automatically when you take it off the spreader. It's genius. So in the end, you can save money and buy off-brand fertilizer. In the end, it is mostly nitrogen and phosphorus anyway. But with Scotts fertilizer and the snap system, you have the best fertilizer with not just the food for your lawn, but all the other additives and coatings that really make Scotts the best plus an EASY-TO-USE system that doesn't have you trying to pour a 40lb bag into a spreader, and ESTIMATE how much you will need, then pouring leftover fertilizer back into the bag and breathing the dust... Finding the correct spread setting. Etc... And that is a big deal to me about this product, the breathing in of the dust. When you pour any lawn care product from a large bag into a hopper, unless you are wearing a Walter White Breaking Bad Meth Lab quality filtration system, you are breathing in powdered fertilizer, insecticide or whatever... The Scotts snap spreader gets rid of that completely. It stores your leftover product safely and securely and it is ready to use the next time you need it. In the end I bet it saves you money! Or you can grab this easy to carry, snap on pac and just start spreading WHATEVER you are putting down. I'm willing to pay a little more for the convenience of the snap system and Scotts name brand and quality.

The system seems to work great. I got the spreader for $10 which made the price of entry easier to swallow. Each of their bags spread about 4000 sq. ft., so if you want to use something out of the system, you can kind of convert over to that measurement if you cut out the top of a used bag to get cheaper treatments (I haven't needed to do this yet). It's very simple to use, and the side guard (prevents you from wasting material in neighbors yards or garden spots) works well enough once you've gotten used to how the spreader works.

I've been on the fence since the Snap was new, and when I caught the spreader on sale this year, I decided to give it a shot. For perspective's sake, my yard is between 3,500 and 4,000 square feet. If you measure your lawn in acres (or even fractions of acres), the Snap fertilizer might be cost prohibitive in large quantities. I'm pretty sure the Snap was designed more for smaller lawns like mine. From opening the box, I was impressed to see the Snap flop in to place. All you need to do is tighten the handle, and take off a paper information sheet. No tools (not even scissors) necessary. I was really skeptical about the bags being able to go on and off without making a mess, but that was also a happy surprise. You don't have to spend any time lining up the bag a certain way, or touch any part where fertilizer has made contact. You just set it, flip the switch, and you're good to go. Same goes for removing the bag. Not a single pellet came out of the bag (though, you would want to move the Snap around a little, because there will be some fertilizer in it until you flip the switch to "unlock"). The edge guard works brilliantly -- not just deflecting the fertilizer, but also reducing the spread (so you're not overdoing the line you're edging). Really, really smart design there that helps you squeeze every last pellet out of these bags. On one hand, I was a little put off by the Snap bags being a bit more expensive than their standard counterparts, but when I thought about how many partially-used fertilizer bags I've disposed of over the years because of moisture, or less than optimal storage, it's really not more expensive to me at all. Having self-sealing bags that distribute the perfect amount of fertilizer, and that I can switch out whenever I want... that kind of convenience is well worth a tiny premium.

This might work well on a perfectly even lawn. There are minimal instructions included with it so I don't know if something should have been set differently so that it would have worked better for me. My old lawn has lots of uneven ground so the spreader never put out a regular spray. It spit and didn't do anything and then everything spurted out at once. Sounded great in theory but not worth the money in reality. A hand spreader would have been a lot cheaper and worked a lot better.

I have a much better spreader, but I generally don't use it, since it's kind of a pain. Finding the right stuff that it will spread, figuring out what setting to use, filling it then emptying out anything left in it when I'm done, it's just more than I want to deal with. I'm in the IT field, and while I enjoy some yard work, grass care is NOT part of what I like to do to relax. I saw the commercial for this, and thought to myself, "That's custom made for me!" I picked one up and a fertilizer bag. First off, the convenience. It deserves 5 stars just for that. I like that there's a handle to flip that puts it in "edge mode" so I can walk right next to the drive and sidewalk and it only spreads out the front and left side, so it doesn't waste it on the sidewalk and driveway and other areas you may not want it to spread, such as a garden if you have one. That lever works well. The trigger to turn the spreading on and off works very well also. Putting the bag on was a piece of cake, as was removing it. Just remember to get the hook holes on the top of the bag in place over the tabs on the handle as you lower it into place. I didn't even know they were there at first and ended up pulling it off again to put those on. It folds up easily, which is another bonus, since it's already so tiny to start, once it's folded in half it fits nearly anywhere completely unobtrusive. My complaint, and why it lost two stars, is that the lack of size, and relatively small bags, means there's not much weight on the wheels. So it's not very good at actually ENGAGING the gears and such. I spent far more effort pushing it DOWN hard against the ground while using it, since just its weight was not enough to keep the wheels from being basically locked and just sliding on the ground rather than rolling. But this was just my first experience with it, so we'll see if that improves at all after it's been used a few times. If it does, I'll update the review here. I love the convenience, it did spread decently once I bore down on it to make things engage and spin, and when I was done (it emptied out before I finished my 1/4 acre yard) it popped off easily and didn't leave hardly anything in the spreader. If the wheels worked better, this would be a 5 star product, but for now, I can only give it 3 despite the well thought out design.

Used it today to overseed our lawn, it was great! This thing is so easy! We have probably about 12,000 sq ft of lawn/moss/dandelions, based on the amounts of product we used. Our lawn is kinda graded, not level, with tree roots, and poorly maintained (by us). It was dead simple to load the snap bags on the spreader and push it around. Super easy to pick up the snap bags and pour leftovers back into the stock bags at the end. Edge guard worked great, spreads product evenly even with edge guard on. 3 tips / things we learned: -- When reusing bags with non-snap-pac product, keep the bag handles intact. Just make a slit in the top of the bag, cutting only through the front plastic. The bag handles must be able to loop onto the spreader to keep the bag upright so that the contents don't spill. We have one spot that should grow a grass monster now... -- To load more product into an opened snap pac, take the bag off the spreader and set it on the ground to load because the bag stays upright by itself. The spreader does NOT have a kickstand or some method to stay upright by itself... Second grass monster seeded... -- In the rain, we plan to try covering the slit in the snap pac with Saran Wrap and scotch tape to improvise a rain cover. Should be even greatert! Sad that I missed the ridiculous Amazon sale last week, but will totally buy another if it goes on sale again so we can wrap up yard work twice as fast. Glad we got this! * Disclaimer: we've never used another kind of spreader and we're first time homeowner so we have no actual basis for comparison.

The easy snap in, snap out bags are a nice convenience, and the fertilizer with weed killer has my lawn greener than anyone else in the neighborhood. However, the spreader is messier than the demo video would lead you to believe. Make sure to shake/tap out any remaining pellets in the base in when you're finished, or you'll end up with a garage full of fertilizer pellets. All said, I would buy again.

I hate yard work so anything that makes the job easier, I am all for it. We have had a massive red ant infestation develop in our backyard. It had gotten so bad that I couldn't even let my toddler girls go out back to play. I didn't really want to continue handling pesticides with my hands so this product really appealed to me. The snap-in design is very easy to use and there are a variety of products you can use with it, including red ant killer. Using this product, it cuts the time it takes to treat our yard to a fraction of what it was when we were spreading a granule-type product by hand before we bought this. Just snap the right product into the spreader and walk back and forth across your lawn. It really doesn't get any easier (other than hiring someone to do it for you, but this is a much more affordable alternative). If you have a red ant problem, I highly recommend this product. It will really make getting rid of the fire ants (and keeping them away) a much simpler process and will save you a lot of time and frustration.