Buy vs Hire Tools Calculator

This calculator helps you decide whether to buy or hire a tool or piece of equipment in New Zealand, a question that comes up constantly for home renovators, tradespeople and anyone tackling a one-off project. Buying makes sense for tools you will use often, because once you own it the marginal cost of each use is near zero, and you can sell it later to recover some value. Hiring makes sense for expensive or bulky equipment you will rarely use, such as a concrete mixer, scaffolding, a rotary hoe, a floor sander or a scissor lift, where buying would tie up a lot of money in something that sits idle and depreciates. The trick is that the right answer depends on how often and how long you will actually use it, and people tend to overestimate how much they will use a shiny new purchase. This tool makes the comparison concrete. You enter the purchase price, the resale value you expect to recover later, the daily hire rate, how many days a year you will use it, and how many years you will need it. The calculator works out the net cost of buying, after resale, the total cost of hiring over that period, which option is cheaper and by how much, and the break-even number of days, the point at which buying becomes worthwhile. Use it to make a clear-headed call rather than an emotional one, to justify a purchase, or to avoid buying something you will use twice. The figures are your estimates, so be honest about real usage; maintenance, storage and the hassle of collection also matter but are not costed here.

Net buy cost allows for resale. Maintenance, storage and collection hassle are not costed. An estimate to guide the decision.