The honest answer depends less on the machines than on your driveway. An ATV plow wins when you have distance to cover and somewhere to put the snow: a long rural drive, a farmyard, open ground on either side. A snow blower wins when the snow has nowhere to go. That covers most in-town lots, anything hemmed in by a garage and a fence, and any surface you would rather not scrape. A plow moves snow sideways and stacks it. A blower throws it clear. That single difference decides most of these, and it shows its hand in February rather than in the first storm of the year. Work out where the snow is going before you spend anything.
Key Takeaways
- Plows push snow sideways and stack it. Blowers throw it clear. Your lot decides which matters.
- Banks are the plow's real limit. By midwinter the lane you are clearing is narrower than the one you started with.
- An ATV plow needs a winch to lift the blade. On the Herc system it is not optional and not in the box.
- Plowing is slow work. Herc's own manual caps the machine at 5 MPH with the plow on.
- Wider blades are not automatically better. Blade width has to suit machine weight as much as driveway width.
Where does the snow actually go?
Every other question here sits downstream of this one, and most people skip it.
A plow does not remove snow. It relocates it, and it relocates it to the edges of whatever you just cleared. First storm, fine. By the fourth or fifth those edges are packed banks, and a bank is a wall your blade cannot climb. The driveway starts closing in on itself. You end up pushing snow further every pass, or clearing a lane narrower than the one you had in November.
A blower has no such problem. It picks snow up and throws it well past the edge, so your working width in March matches what it was in December.
That is the trade in one paragraph. The rest is detail.
So before comparing machines, walk the driveway and answer one question: is there open ground along the sides where a season of snow can pile without getting in the way? On a farm drive or an acreage, usually yes. On a sixty foot city lot with a fence line and a neighbor, usually no.
When is an ATV plow the right call?
The plow pulls ahead when the job is about covering ground.
Long drives are the clearest case. A quarter mile of gravel is miserable behind a walk-behind blower and quick with a blade, because you are seated and moving a full blade width every pass. Scattered areas help too: a house drive, a shop apron, a path to the barn. You ride between them. A walk-behind gets walked, or loaded into a truck.
It matters that the machine is already there. If you own an ATV that spends the other nine months hauling feed and pulling a trailer, a blade turns it into a winter tool for the price of the attachment. A blower is a whole second machine that does one thing and sits in the corner from April to November.
One honest correction to the usual pitch. Covering ground quickly is not the same as travelling quickly. Herc's own install manual says never to exceed 5 MPH with the plow on the machine, and that is an instruction rather than a suggestion. Plowing is slow, deliberate work. Pass width and riding instead of walking are what make it quick overall.
When is a snow blower the better buy?
We build plows. We will still tell you there are driveways where a blower is the right purchase, and here they are.
Start with tight lots. If you are boxed in by a garage, a fence, and a property line, only one of these two machines can put snow somewhere it will not come back from, and it is not the plow.
Deep or wet heavy snow is the next case. A blade pushing a foot of wet snow builds a wall ahead of itself and starts spilling around the ends. Narrower bites and starting from the center get you through it, and people do exactly that, but a fifteen minute job becomes an hour. A blower chews the same snow at the pace it always keeps.
Then there is everything a machine cannot physically reach. Sidewalks, steps, the strip between the house and the fence.
Surfaces matter too. A blade rides on whatever it is clearing, so stamped concrete, pavers, and a finished apron all carry real risk. Skid shoes reduce that without eliminating it. A blower lifts snow up and off the surface, and that is also why it is gentler on gravel.
And if you are clearing lots for money, this whole comparison is the wrong one. Herc's manual is plain that the 55 inch system is a general use plow, not intended for commercial use or heavy applications. Commercial work is a different category of equipment.
One last thing to weigh before you lean blower. They carry their own risk profile, and it is a serious one. The CPSC's snow thrower safety alert reports that most injuries happen when someone clears a clogged chute or auger by hand, with finger amputations among them. Stop the engine and use a clearing tool, every time, including the time you are cold and in a hurry.
What does a plow setup cost you beyond the blade?
This is where plow shopping goes sideways, because the blade carries the price tag and the rest is easy to miss.
The winch. The blade has to come off the ground every time you back up, cross a cleared section, or stack a pile, and on a heavy morning that is dozens of lifts. The Herc system lifts by winch, hooking to the cutouts by the swivel, and the kit ships with the blade, swivel, push tube, and mount. The winch is a separate purchase and it is not optional on this design. On the upside, it earns its keep the other three seasons on recovery.
Traction and ballast. A plow is only as useful as the grip behind it. On an ATV that generally means chains or aggressive tires plus weight at the rear. Without it the blade stops and the machine spins, a lesson a slope will teach you in about four minutes.
Cold-weather reality. You are outside on the machine, in the wind, for the length of the job. Some people count that as the fun part. Others buy a cab.
None of that makes a plow a bad buy. It makes it a system rather than a single purchase, the same way the rest of an ATV setup works. Already settled on a blade? Our earlier piece on using an ATV plow for winter maintenance covers that ground.
How wide a blade, and does wider always win?
No, and this is the most common overbuy in the category.
A blade wants to be wide enough to cover your tire tracks with a margin either side, so you are not driving over snow you have not moved yet. Past that, extra width mostly buys trouble. Put a wide blade on a light machine and the snow pushes back harder than the tires can hold. The machine wanders, the blade rides up, and you spend the morning correcting. Angling the blade shrinks the effective clearing width too, and buyers forget that when they size up.
What about the machine itself? Herc publishes no minimum displacement or weight for this system, so we are not going to invent one. Your owner manual answers that. The install manual does give you a fitting check: roughly 22 inches from the pin-up hole to the front of your tires, so the angled blade clears them.
One thing this post cannot help with: the Herc 55 inch is an ATV system. If you run a side by side, you are shopping a different size class and a different mount entirely.
Height matters as much as width and gets discussed a tenth as often. A short blade fills up and the snow simply rolls over the top of it, so you push the same drift twice. Herc's blade stands 20 1/2 inches, which holds a deeper load before that happens.
Two more things worth checking before you compare plow systems. Trip springs let the blade fold forward when it catches something rather than stopping the machine dead, and the tension is adjustable. Skid shoes set how high the blade rides, and that is your protection for gravel and a finished apron. Both are on the Herc system.
What does Herc build for this?
Herc Outdoors makes the Herc 55 inch ATV Plow System, model 2551HO. It is a complete kit: a one-piece 55 inch blade at 20 1/2 inches tall, a swivel with three pivot positions for left, right, and center, a square-tube push tube, a universal forward mount, easy on-off pins, and skid shoes. The whole thing goes about 140 pounds and ships in two boxes. It is welded rather than bolted together. That is the distinction the shop cares most about on this product.
The mount attaches to your frame tube with U-bolts, and three sizes ship in the kit so it fits straight or angled depending on the machine. Fitment covers Arctic Cat, Bobcat, Can-Am, CF Moto, Hisun, Honda, John Deere, Kawasaki, Polaris, Suzuki, and Yamaha. The CF Moto and Hisun coverage is worth noting if you run one, since budget brands do not always make an accessory maker's list. Check your machine against it before ordering.
The Herc Winch handles the lift, in 2500 and 3500 pound models with synthetic rope and a remote, and pairs with the winch mounts.
All of it is designed, cut, welded, powder coated, and assembled in Pine City, Minnesota, by Product Fabricators, a shop running since 1973 and still owned by the family that started it. Second generation now, about 45 people, one building. The crew plows their own driveways with this.
Thirty days to run it on your own ground, and a 2 year warranty behind it. If your driveway turns out to be a blower driveway, we would rather you learn that in the first month than in February.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a winch to run an ATV plow?
On the Herc 55 inch system, yes. The blade lifts by winch line hooked to the cutouts by the swivel, and no manual lift is offered for it. Some other plow systems on the market do sell a hand-lift kit as a lower-cost route, so check the specific system you are looking at rather than assuming either way.
Can an ATV plow handle wet heavy snow?
Up to a point, and the point arrives sooner than most people expect. A blade in deep wet snow builds a wall ahead of itself and starts spilling around the ends instead of carrying the load forward. The workarounds are real: narrower bites, start from the center and work outward, and clear partway through a long storm rather than waiting it out. With traction and weight behind it an ATV moves a lot of wet snow. It simply takes more passes than a dry-snow morning does.
How fast can you plow with an ATV?
Slower than you would guess. Herc's manual sets 5 MPH as the ceiling any time the plow is on the machine, and going faster is how you damage a blade on something frozen.
Will a plow damage my driveway?
It can, since the blade rides on the surface. Adjustable skid shoes are the control, and they come with the Herc system. On gravel, set the blade slightly high early in the season and let a hardpack base build. That spares the surface, and it spares your lawn come spring. On stamped concrete or pavers, think hard before choosing a blade at all.
Is it worth buying an ATV just to plow?
Usually not. If the machine would only ever plow, a blower is less money for the same result. A plow makes sense when the ATV already earns its keep year round and the blade is one more attachment rather than the reason for the purchase.
Decide it in August
An install done in a warm garage in August goes considerably better than the same install done in a driveway in December, in the dark, with snow already down. You also get the shoulder season to sort out chains and ballast before any of it matters.
If your driveway is the kind with somewhere to put the snow, start with the ATV snowplow systems. Free shipping over $100, and thirty days to decide you called it right.
