plant hire
Should you hire or buy plant machinery?
For most people and most machines, hire wins - and it keeps winning far longer than in any other category. Plant depreciates, needs servicing to a schedule, needs transporting to site, needs insuring, and needs somewhere to live between jobs. Ownership only starts making sense at high, steady utilisation, which is a much higher bar than it sounds.
Last reviewed 13 September 2026
Why trust this page: GetBrent is a directory. We take no commission on hires and we sell nothing. The manufacturer would rather you bought and the hire company would rather you hired - we have no stake in which way you go, which is the only reason a comparison like this is worth reading.
Hire when...
Utilisation is anything under most of the week
This is the whole argument. A machine standing still costs money in depreciation, finance and insurance while earning nothing.
The job is short or one-off
A driveway, a pond, a footing. Hire, including delivery and collection, is almost always cheaper than any ownership scenario.
You need the right size rather than the size you own
Site access dictates machine size. Owning one machine means forcing every job to fit it.
You would rather not run a maintenance schedule
Servicing, LOLER and thorough examination where applicable, and keeping records. A hire fleet does this as its core business.
You need an operator
Operated hire puts the competence, the ticket and the liability with the supplier.
Buy when...
The machine is working most days
Sustained high utilisation is the only reliable case for buying, and it needs to be real rather than hoped for.
You have transport and storage already
A plant trailer or low loader, and a secure yard. If you need to buy those too, add them to the purchase price.
You need it on site permanently
Long contracts where the machine never leaves are exactly what ownership suits - though long-term hire often competes closely.
You can maintain it properly
In-house fitters or a standing arrangement. Plant that is not maintained loses value very quickly and fails at the worst moment.
Work out your own break-even
We do not publish prices, because a national average would be wrong for your job. Put in the quotes you have actually been given and the sum does the rest. Nothing is saved or sent.
On running costs: Transport to site, servicing, insurance, security and finance, spread over the days it actually works. For plant this is rarely small - leaving it at zero will flatter buying considerably.
Enter a purchase price and a hire rate to see the answer.
A guide, not advice. It compares cash spent and ignores finance, tax treatment, VAT recovery and what the item is worth when you sell it - all of which can move the answer, sometimes a long way. For anything substantial, put the numbers to your accountant.
The costs people forget
A purchase price against a day rate is not a fair comparison. These are what sit on the ownership side of it.
Transport to and from site
Every single job. This is the cost most often forgotten and it recurs forever.
Depreciation
The largest cost of owning plant and the one that does not appear on any invoice.
Servicing, inspection and records
Scheduled servicing plus the statutory examinations that apply to lifting equipment.
Security
Plant theft is organised and persistent. Trackers, immobilisers and secure storage all cost.
Attachments
Buckets, breakers, augers. The machine is the start of the spend, not the end.
Idle time
Finance and insurance run whether the machine works or not.
Before you commit either way
- Be honest about utilisation. Write down the days it will genuinely work this year, then take off a fifth.
- Price long-term hire as well as day rate - weekly and monthly rates change the comparison substantially.
- Check site access before choosing a machine size. Gate widths decide more purchases than spec sheets do.
- Ask what the hire rate includes: delivery, collection, breakdown cover, and what happens if it fails mid-job.
If you are buying, know the makes
What each manufacturer builds, the model ranges, and how they compare.
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