Rent vs Buy Laptops for Business: The Real OPEX vs CAPEX Maths
Last updated: 2026-09-26
Is it cheaper to rent or buy laptops for a company?
Over a full three-year cycle, buying is often cheaper in raw rupees; renting wins on cash flow, refresh and disposal risk. Anyone claiming rental is always cheaper is selling, not calculating.
Renting converts a lump capital outlay into a monthly operating expense, removes resale and disposal risk, and includes replacement and maintenance. Buying is cheaper if you hold the machines their full useful life, have the capital idle, and have someone to service them.
What does buying actually cost?
More than the purchase price. The full picture on a ₹60,000 business laptop:
| Cost | Typical |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | ₹60,000 |
| GST 18% (recoverable as ITC) | ₹10,800 |
| AMC or repair provisioning | ₹2,000–3,000/year |
| IT admin time (imaging, support) | often uncounted |
| Resale at 36 months | 30–40% of cost |
| Disposal / data destruction | per-asset cost |
Under the Income Tax Act computers depreciate at 40% written-down value, so the book value falls fast even though the cash left on day one.
What does renting cost over the same period?
Take an illustrative ₹2,500 per laptop per month (an illustrative example, not a Techvity rate). Over three years that is ₹90,000 per machine — more than the ₹60,000 purchase price, before ITC on either side. Put your own quoted rate into the same sum.
What that premium buys: zero capital outlay, replacement on failure under the rental terms, no AMC bill, no resale risk, NIST SP 800-88 data wiping on return, and the ability to hand machines back when headcount falls.
When does renting clearly win?
Five situations, and they are all about uncertainty rather than price:
Headcount that may fall as easily as rise. Fixed-term projects. New offices where capital is committed elsewhere. Teams needing a refresh inside three years. And any organisation without an IT function to service its own hardware.
When does buying clearly win?
When you will keep the machines four to five years, the capital is genuinely idle, you already run an in-house IT team, and the specification will not need to change. A stable back-office fleet is usually better bought.
How do OPEX and CAPEX differ in the accounts?
Rental is an operating expense, deductible in full in the year it is paid, with no depreciation schedule. Buying capitalises the asset and unwinds it at 40% WDV over several years.
For a finance team managing a budget line rather than a balance sheet, that timing difference is often the deciding factor — and it is why the opex-versus-capex question gets asked more than the price question.
What is the honest answer?
Model it on your own numbers rather than accepting either sales pitch. The variables that actually move the result are how long you keep the machines, what you can resell them for, and what your capital is worth elsewhere. Techvity will supply the rental figures for the model even if the conclusion is that you should buy.