Toja Grid vs Bjorn vs Zen: which pergola bracket kit should you buy?

You are buying steel connectors. The posts, beams, anchors and any roof come from a lumberyard and a hardware store, and the build is yours. The bracket price is only part of the finished cost, so it cannot be set against a boxed aluminum kit.

On top of the brackets, budget for these:

None of the three states a total for all this. For what the extras run, read what a pergola kit price leaves out. For why bracket kits sit outside every price-per-square-foot figure on this site, see the bracket tier of the kit guide.

Each brand’s pages say what its base kit contains. The table sets those statements side by side for a single four-post kit in 4×4 lumber: Toja’s Any Size Pergola Kit, Bjorn’s Pergola Bracket Kit and Zen’s Basic Pergola Frame Kit.

Zen says a kit may or may not include a roof, privacy walls, side railings or corner supports. It leaves out anchors, because the right ones depend on your surface and local codes.

Watch out: Bjorn’s kit page lists “Matching Black Lag Bolts and Concrete anchors” in the box, but its instruction sheet says the ground bolts and adapters are “(not included in kit)”. We cannot tell which is current, so ask Bjorn before you order and get the answer in writing.

All three state a steel gauge. Gauge is the thickness of the sheet, so a lower number means thicker steel. None of them gives a rust test.

Toja says it uses 12 or 14 gauge North American steel, depending on the bracket, with an outdoor weather coating, and that the brackets are made in Canada. Bjorn lists 12 gauge carbon steel with a flat black powder coat. It calls itself USA designed and does not say plainly where the brackets are fabricated. Zen says 14 gauge steel with a weather coating, made by Zen and shipped from Boise, Idaho.

All three build around 4×4 and 6×6 lumber, which measures 3.5 and 5.5 inches, not four and six. Buy it before you plan the cuts. Toja’s build guide tells you to take a bracket to the store to check the fit.

Toja’s FAQ warns that pressure-treated wood holds moisture and “can take a significant amount of time to dry out completely”. The span and post guidance below is each brand’s own. Your building department or an engineer decides what your site needs, not these brands and not us.

Watch out: Toja’s FAQ says it does not recommend “8 ft. lumber for your vertical posts” unless the product page notes an exception. Its own diagrams on the kit pages mark a recommended post length of 8 ft. Check the product page for your kit before you buy posts.

Bracket kits have no fixed footprint: you cut the lumber. The limit is the longest run each brand recommends, then how it lets you add sections. Toja’s wall-mount, angled, hexagonal and Grid 30 kits are below, at list price with “made to order” in place of a size.

The warranty numbers differ less than the wording. Read what each one covers before you read how long.

Ask your building department before you order whether you need a permit and what anchoring it accepts. The permit section of the cost guide shows where to start.

Toja’s Structure Kits page says its roofed-structure details come with an engineer-stamped load document, that the loads cover freestanding structures only, and that you may need a building permit. Foundations are for “your own engineer”. Check what its linked PDFs cover before you rely on them.

Bjorn and Zen state nothing equivalent on the pages listed in Sources. Zen says it cannot advise on mounting to the ground or a house and tells you to check local building codes.