Abstract Background When spraying simple liquids through a hydraulic nozzle, the mechanisms that affect breakup into droplets have recently been described. However, it is unknown how the droplet size distribution changes when surfactant‐based adjuvants are added to the spray. Results When spraying different surfactant‐based solutions containing commercial adjuvants, the breakup of the different liquids behaves in the same way as for water‐only sprays, but the droplet sizes are smaller. By replacing the equilibrium surface tension with the dynamic surface tension at a surface age of ~20 ms, the volume mean droplet size variation with the Weber number, flow rate and nozzle geometry follows the predictions established for pure water sprays. When we rescale the droplet size distribution with the mean droplet size, all distributions collapse onto a single curve and can be described by a compound Gamma function. Conclusion Addition of a number of surfactant‐based adjuvants to an agricultural spray is observed to lead to a slight decrease in the volume mean droplet size. We show that the effects of these adjuvants on the drop size can be understood by taking into account the nozzle geometry, the flow rate, the liquid and air densities and the dynamic surface tension of the surfactant solutions at a surface age of approximately 20 ms. © 2020 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.