Makita 18V LXT vs Ryobi ONE+ Australia 2026: Which 18V Platform Should You Buy?

Ask this question in any Bunnings car park and you'll start an argument. Makita 18V LXT vs Ryobi ONE+ in Australia comes down to one uncomfortable truth: you're not picking a drill, you're picking the battery you'll still be buying in 2036. Get it wrong and your third tool purchase quietly costs you double. If you just want the shortlist rather than the philosophy, our top 7 cordless drill picks covers both camps.

Here's the honest version. Ryobi ONE+ is the biggest prosumer platform in the country and it is very hard to beat on cost per tool. Makita LXT is the biggest professional 18V platform on earth, with north of 300 tools on the system, and it holds up under the sort of daily flogging that kills cheaper gear. Both are legitimate. What matters is which side of the line your work sits on, and there's a specific Amazon AU wrinkle with Ryobi that most comparison articles skip entirely. We'll get to that. First, the quick answer.

Quick Picks - Makita LXT vs Ryobi ONE+

Ryobi RPD18BL2-0 ONE+ Brushless Combi Drill (Skin)Check Price →

Prices move constantly on Amazon AU, so treat those as a guide and check the live listing before you commit. Skins run a lot cheaper than kits, which is exactly the point of picking a platform in the first place.

Makita 18V LXT vs Ryobi ONE+ in Australia: the platform maths

BL1850BCheck Price →

Forget the tool for a second. The real cost of a cordless platform is batteries, and batteries are where these two brands separate hardest.

A genuine Makita 5.0Ah LXT pack like the BL1850B sits around A$110 to A$140 on its own, and the BL1850B-L twin pack at around A$259 is the cheaper path if you're feeding a few tools. Ryobi's own RB18L50 ONE+ Lithium+ 5.0Ah pack undercuts that comfortably at Bunnings, where it is about the cheapest name-brand 5.0Ah pack going. On Amazon AU it does not - genuine Ryobi 5.0Ah packs are hard to find there at the moment, and the search results are mostly third-party "compatible" batteries rather than the real thing. That is the single most useful thing to know about this comparison: Ryobi's battery-cost advantage is real, but you collect it in store, not online. Our 18V tool battery guide runs the genuine packs for every platform side by side.

Then there's the compatibility promise. Ryobi has kept ONE+ backwards compatible since 1996, which means a battery you buy today drops into a tool your old man bought before the Sydney Olympics. Makita's LXT has been going since 2005 and has the same story within its own system, with the caveat that the newer 5.0Ah packs want Star Protection tools (look for the star symbol or the yellow battery receiver under the tool). Neither brand is going to strand you.

The split is this. Ryobi wins on how cheaply you can add the twelfth tool. Makita wins on what happens when the tool is running eight hours a day, five days a week, in the rain, off the back of a ute.

Where Ryobi ONE+ actually wins

Breadth for the money is the whole argument, and it's a strong one. The ONE+ range covers drills, drivers, saws, blowers, mowers, inflators, glue guns, a bloody fan. If your weekend is half renovation and half backyard, you're feeding one battery system for the lot instead of two.

The brushless line has also closed the gap more than Ryobi's old reputation suggests. The RPD18BL2-0 brushless combi drill is rated to 95Nm through a 13mm metal ratcheting chuck, with a two-speed gearbox, 24 clutch settings and a proper percussion mode, which is plenty for hanging doors, sinking coach screws into a pergola post, or drilling anchor holes in double brick, and it sits around A$188 as a skin. If you want something shorter nose-to-chuck for cabinet work, the compact R18PD5-0 runs Ryobi's e-torque clutch at 400/1400rpm and 50Nm, and at around A$174 it costs about the same as the harder-hitting RPD18BL2-0, so buy it for the size rather than the saving. One catch on both: the current Amazon AU listings ship from Amazon's UK and German stores rather than local stock, which matters for warranty (more on that below).

Down the value end, the Ryobi R18DD3-0 compact drill driver is about as cheap as a name-brand skin gets in this country at around A$140, and the R18MT3-0 multi-tool at around A$145 lets you fill out the kit without a second mortgage. The R18CS-0 165mm circular saw is the other obvious ONE+ add-on, but it is out of stock on Amazon AU right now, so that one is a Bunnings buy. Add the six-year consumer warranty when you register the tool and the ownership case is real.

The good: lowest cost per additional tool of any name brand here, enormous range including garden gear, long warranty, batteries that go back three decades.

The trade-off: the plastic gear cases and lighter chucks show up under sustained load, resale is soft, and site theft insurance conversations are less fun when half your gear is green.

Where Makita 18V LXT pulls away

Makita DHP486Z 18V LXT Brushless Heavy Duty Combi Drill (Skin)A$255Check Price →

Put a Makita on a job that never stops and you understand what you paid for. The DHP486Z combi drill runs a brushless motor through an all-metal two-speed gearbox with Makita's XPT dust and water protection, rated to 130Nm of hard-joint torque and 65Nm soft, for around A$269 as a skin. It drives 100mm batten screws without the gearbox complaining about it.

Pair it with the DTD153Z brushless impact driver at 170Nm, or step up to the four-stage DTD173Z if you do a lot of fine work where the assist mode stops you burying a screw through 6mm villaboard. Our full impact driver comparison pits both against the M18 and XR equivalents.

The bigger point is depth of range. Once you're on LXT you can reach for the DHS680Z 165mm brushless circular saw, the DGA504Z 125mm grinder, the DTM52ZX3 brushless multi-tool, the DML808 adjustable-beam LED torch, proper rotary hammers, dust extractors, mitre saws, and so on down a list Ryobi simply does not have a professional answer for.

The good: metal gearboxes and sealed electronics, 300-plus tool range, every tool shop in the country stocks parts, holds resale value, service network you can actually walk into.

The trade-off: roughly double the money per tool, no lawnmower or line trimmer on 18V LXT (that lives on the separate 40V XGT system), and you'll pay for the badge on batteries.

The Amazon AU catch: AU-spec vs US-spec Ryobi

PSBID01 HP impact driverCheck Price →

This is the bit most comparisons leave out, and it costs people money.

Ryobi ONE+ in Australia is a Bunnings house arrangement. That means a good chunk of the Ryobi gear you'll find on Amazon AU is parallel-imported US-spec stock, which you can spot by the model numbers. Anything starting with P or PBL or PSB or PCL (the PSBID01 HP impact driver, the PBLHM101B HP hammer drill, the PCL1200K2 drill and impact driver combo kit) is North American stock. Anything starting with R18 or RPD18 is the AU and European line.

The batteries and tools work together fine, the voltage is the same, and the tools themselves are the same quality. The catch is the warranty channel. Ryobi Australia's six-year registered warranty runs through Bunnings, not through a US import, so a parallel-import tool generally leaves you relying on the seller rather than the local service network. Chargers on US kits can also ship with US plugs.

None of that makes them a bad buy at the right price, and plenty of people run US-spec Ryobi happily. Just go in knowing what you're getting. If warranty backing matters to you, stick to R18 model numbers sold from local stock on Amazon AU (check the "Ships from" and "Sold by" lines, because even some R18 listings arrive from Amazon UK or Germany) or buy that side of the platform at Bunnings and buy your Makita gear online where the discounting is sharper.

Makita has no equivalent trap of that size, though plain-packaging listings are common and are the usual way skins get sold. Check the seller and check whether it's Makita Australia stock if you want local warranty rather than seller warranty.

Head to head: the same six tools on both platforms

Read down that table and the pattern is obvious. At the drill end, Ryobi's brushless HP gear is genuinely competitive on paper. Move to grinders and saws, and Makita is brushless where Ryobi is still brushed, with the runtime and heat difference that implies. Our circular saw rankings, angle grinder picks and multi-tool rankings go deeper on each row.

Which platform for which trade

Chippies, sparkies and anyone on the tools full time

DHP486 brushless hammer drill kitCheck Price →

Makita LXT, without much hesitation. The dust sealing matters when you're framing in Queensland summer, the metal gear housings matter when you're lay batten screwing all day, and the fact that every tool shop from Sydney Tools to Total Tools to Tool Kit Depot carries the parts matters when something dies on a Thursday. Makita's two-piece DHP485Z and DTD153Z combo is out of stock on Amazon AU, so the cleanest start right now is the DHP486 brushless hammer drill kit (one 5.0Ah pack, a rapid charger and a case, around A$399) plus a DTD153Z impact driver skin at around A$159. Add a BL1850B-L twin pack when one battery stops being enough, then buy skins from there.

Renovators, handymen and the serious weekend crowd

Ryobi ONE+, and don't feel bad about it. If the tool sits in the shed six days a week and works hard on the seventh, you're paying Makita money for durability you'll never consume. Buy the brushless R18 and RPD18 gear rather than the cheapest brushed skins and you'll have a kit that handles a full bathroom reno without embarrassment.

Apprentices

Makita, but buy it slowly. A drill, an impact driver and two decent packs beats a big cheap kit you'll replace in two years. Resale on used LXT is strong enough that a bad guess isn't a disaster.

The mixed household

If you want one battery running the drill, the blower, the line trimmer and the mower, Ryobi ONE+ is the only realistic answer of the two. Makita splits its outdoor power equipment across LXT and the 40V XGT system, and XGT batteries do not fit LXT tools.

Our pick

For anyone earning a living with the tool, the Makita DHP486 Brushless Hammer Drill Kit is the cleanest entry onto LXT at around A$399. It lands the DHP486 hammer drill, a 5.0Ah pack, a rapid charger and a case in one box. Add the DTD153Z impact driver skin for around A$159 and you have the drill-and-driver pair for about A$560, on the deepest professional 18V range going.

For everyone else, the Ryobi RPD18BL2-0 as a skin at around A$188, plus a couple of ONE+ packs bought at Bunnings rather than online, gets you eighty percent of the capability for something closer to a third of the money, with a platform that will happily grow into mowers and blowers later. Just watch the model prefix and the seller so you know which warranty you're actually buying.

The one thing you shouldn't do is buy one of each. Two chargers, two battery types, two piles of packs going flat in the shed. Pick a side, then buy skins for the next decade.

Next up: see how Makita stacks up against the red team in our Makita 18V LXT vs Milwaukee M18 FUEL comparison, see how all four big platforms compare in our battery platform showdown, or read the budget-end version of this argument in Ryobi ONE+ vs Ozito PXC. If you're shopping right now, our full cordless drills buying guide and the top 7 impact drivers and our work light rankings have the current picks, and the live tool deals page rounds up everything on sale across every category we track.

Prices quoted are indicative Amazon AU pricing at the time of writing and change frequently. Check the live listing for current pricing and availability.