Should I buy or lease my next piece of equipment?
Short answer
Buy if you'll use it weekly for five years. Lease or rent if it's seasonal, new tech, or below 50 percent utilization.
Run the math
Total cost of buying plus interest, divided by years of useful life, vs total lease/rental cost. If buy is within 20 percent of lease and utilization is high, buy. Otherwise lease and keep cash.
The cash side
Just because you can finance it doesn't mean you should. A truck payment never goes away. Cash you keep can save you in a slow quarter that a financed truck cannot.
Ask your version of this question
This is one business owner-tested take. Your shop size, trade, and team change the answer. Ask the exact version inside Ask a Shop Owner and get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.