Buy your equipment or take it on a subscription? The math
Every growing company reaches this point: you need ten new laptops, a capable printer, or a stable network. Do you buy them outright, with a direct hit to your cash flow, or fold them into a monthly subscription? The right answer depends on several factors. It comes down to how often they need replacing, who handles their maintenance, and how you prefer to manage the spend in your budget. Here we run the math applied to your own company, past the generic advice.
Buying outright: the equipment is yours, and so is the maintenance.
When you buy, the equipment becomes company property and stops generating recurring monthly costs. On paper, if you use it for years and it needs no repairs, this is the cheapest option. For equipment with a long service life and minimal wear, buying is often the right call.
The downside comes later. You pay a sizable amount all at once (CAPEX), tying up capital that could be invested elsewhere. The equipment depreciates, and within a few years the investment has to be repeated. Once the warranty ends, repairs, consumables, and any replacement become yours alone. And without strict records, the trail of what you bought and what it’s still covered for is quickly lost.
The subscription: fixed costs, with service included.
A subscription (the Hardware as a Service / HaaS model) changes the cost structure entirely. Instead of a major upfront investment, you pay a fixed, predictable monthly amount (an operating expense, OPEX). That amount covers not just use of the equipment, but its service, consumables, and administration too. With us, a business laptop (Core i7, 16 GB RAM, SSD, Windows Pro) starts from €20 a month. A printer with consumables and service included starts from €20, and network equipment (router, firewall, Wi-Fi) from €20. When a piece of equipment fails, we replace it right away, with no fresh conversation about extra budget.
This is also where the model differs sharply from classic leasing, which it’s often confused with. Leasing finances the purchase only: you pay in installments, but maintenance and consumables stay your responsibility. Our service covers all of that and folds into the per-user IT subscription. You avoid multiple invoices from different suppliers and get a single, predictable monthly amount instead.
How to make the right call for your company.
Buying outright pays off when you have little equipment, expect a long service life, have in-house staff for maintenance, and your budget allows for major capital spend. A subscription is ideal when you prefer a fixed, predictable expense, want to be rid of repair worries, or your company is expanding fast and needs equipment that always works, with no technical improvisation.
In practice, the best answer is often a hybrid model. You buy the long-life equipment and choose a subscription for the gear that wears quickly and needs frequent technical support (laptops and printers). That way you direct your major capital toward core investments and fully offload the upkeep of equipment prone to wear.
How our approach works.
We cover both scenarios: we sell and administer equipment bought outright, and we also provide infrastructure on a subscription basis. Our recommendation is therefore fully objective, not tied to any one sales model. Prices for subscription equipment are public and can be added individually to your main plan, so you can work out the exact costs before the first conversation. If you’d like the math run on your company’s real figures (current inventory, replacement frequency, current costs), we’ll do it together during the audit.