SCARA Robots by Payload and Reach: 51 Down to 2
51 of 58 SCARA robots in our database clear 3 kg and 400 mm reach together. Just 2 clear 35 kg and 1,000 mm, a 25.5x collapse, and both are Chinese-built.
51 of 58 SCARA robots in our database clear 3 kg payload and 400 mm reach at the same time. Push the target to 35 kg and 1,000 mm and exactly 2 robots clear it, both from Chinese brands. That’s a 25.5x collapse across five buyer-realistic brackets, and neither of the two survivors is Epson, the brand with the largest SCARA catalog we track.
This is the third installment of a series we’ve been running on combined payload-and-reach targets. We ran it on cobots first (118 robots down to 8, a 14.75x drop) and then on articulated arms (94 down to 1, a 94x drop). SCARA lands in between, and the brand story at the top is the real finding here.
How many SCARA robots clear a given payload-and-reach target?
We pulled every SCARA robot in the Industrial Robotics Hub database and checked performance.payloadKg and performance.reachMm together. All 58 publish both fields, 100% coverage, the cleanest spec pair of any robot type we’ve run this test on.
We then ran five combined targets, each requiring one model to clear both numbers at once:
| Payload threshold | Reach threshold | Qualifying robots | % of 58 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 kg | 400 mm | 51 | 87.9% |
| 5 kg | 600 mm | 36 | 62.1% |
| 10 kg | 650 mm | 18 | 31.0% |
| 20 kg | 800 mm | 12 | 20.7% |
| 35 kg | 1,000 mm | 2 | 3.4% |
Source: Industrial Robotics Hub database, 58 SCARA robots publishing both payload and reach, live query 2026-08-21.
The steepest single step, by percentage lost, is the last one: 20 kg/800 mm to 35 kg/1,000 mm, 12 robots down to 2, an 83.3% loss in one jump. The next steepest is 5 kg/600 mm to 10 kg/650 mm, 36 down to 18, exactly half gone. Below 10 kg, a buyer is comparing a wide field. Above it, the field thins fast.
Why does Epson, the largest SCARA catalog we track, miss the top bracket?
Epson supplies 15 of the 58 SCARA robots in our database, the biggest single-brand SCARA lineup we track by a wide margin (Inovance is next at 10). Epson also brands itself the world’s number one SCARA maker, a claim we’ve cited before in our Epson buyer guide.
That catalog breadth does not carry to the top of the payload-and-reach curve. Epson’s heaviest SCARA in our database, the Epson G20, tops out at 20 kg payload and 850 mm reach, enough to clear the fourth bracket but not the fifth. At 35 kg and 1,000 mm, Epson has nothing.
The two robots that do clear it are both Chinese:
- Estun ER50-1200-SR (/robots/estun/estun-er50-1200-sr/), 50 kg payload, 1,200 mm reach, 0.025 mm repeatability. Estun markets it for lithium-battery stacking and photovoltaic-panel handling, not electronics assembly, the application SCARA is usually associated with.
- Inovance IR-GS60-120Z40S-INT (/robots/inovance/inovance-ir-gs60-120z40s-int/), 60 kg payload, 1,200 mm reach, 0.07 mm repeatability, the heaviest SCARA in our entire database.
Inovance is the one brand present in every single bracket, from the loosest to the tightest, 9 of its 10 SCARA models clear the 3 kg/400 mm floor and 1 clears the 35 kg/1,000 mm ceiling. No other brand spans the full range. Epson, Omron, and Siasun all disappear before the top bracket. Yaskawa (3 models, capped at 6 kg), Staubli (4 models, flat at 8.4 kg across every reach variant), and KUKA (1 model at 8 kg) never clear even the 10 kg/650 mm mark, meaning their entire SCARA presence in our catalog sits in the light-duty tier only.
Which brands actually compete as the bracket tightens?
The brand count at each bracket narrows faster than the robot count:
| Bracket | Qualifying robots | Qualifying brands |
|---|---|---|
| 3 kg / 400 mm | 51 | 11 of 11 |
| 5 kg / 600 mm | 36 | 11 of 11 |
| 10 kg / 650 mm | 18 | 8 of 11 |
| 20 kg / 800 mm | 12 | 7 of 11 |
| 35 kg / 1,000 mm | 2 | 2 of 11 |
Every brand in our SCARA catalog has something in the bottom two brackets. That changes at 10 kg/650 mm, where Yaskawa, Staubli, and KUKA all drop out simultaneously, each for the same reason: none of them publish a SCARA model above roughly 8 kg. Omron is the next to go, falling out between the 10 kg and 20 kg brackets despite having 8 models in the catalog, its heaviest (Omron i4-850) rated at 15 kg.
By the top bracket, only Estun and Inovance remain, one robot each. ABB, FANUC, Mitsubishi, and Siasun, all of which clear the 20 kg/800 mm bracket, have nothing past it either.
How does this compare to the same test on cobots and articulated arms?
Three types, three collapse rates, run the same way:
- Cobots: 118 robots at the loosest bracket down to 8 at the tightest, a 14.75x drop. (full breakdown)
- SCARA: 51 down to 2, a 25.5x drop.
- Articulated arms: 94 down to 1, a 94x drop. (full breakdown)
The pattern tracks each type’s total payload range, not its catalog size. Articulated arms span the widest range in our database (0.5 kg to 1,700 kg) and collapse the hardest. Cobots span the narrowest practical range (roughly 3 kg to 50 kg) and collapse the least. SCARA sits in the middle on both counts, a 1.5 kg to 60 kg range and a 25.5x collapse.
What’s different about SCARA is where the collapse happens. The cobot and articulated posts each found one brand (Universal Robots, then FANUC) sitting alone or absent at the extreme. Here it’s a category-wide pattern: the brand with the biggest catalog (Epson) and three brands with real market presence (Yaskawa, Staubli, KUKA) are all absent from the top bracket, while a brand ranked outside the traditional SCARA leaders (Inovance) is the only one that spans the entire range.
What should a buyer take from this?
If your application needs a SCARA under 10 kg and 650 mm, you have 18 qualifying robots across 8 brands to compare, a normal sourcing process with real competition on price, lead time, and controller ecosystem.
If you need 35 kg and 1,000 mm together, heavy-duty work like battery-pack or panel handling that a standard SCARA wasn’t built for, you have two candidates, both from Chinese manufacturers, and neither is a brand traditionally associated with SCARA leadership. That’s worth knowing before you assume a “SCARA” search will surface the brand you already buy from. At the top of this market, the familiar names (Epson, Yaskawa, Staubli, Mitsubishi) aren’t in the running at all, and the ones that are, Estun and Inovance, are worth a direct look rather than an afterthought.
For the full catalog view of how SCARA compares to every other robot type on repeatability, reach, and speed rather than just this combined-bracket cut, see our SCARA robot type page and our payload-vs-reach frontier analysis.
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