We rent these, so treat what follows accordingly — but the arithmetic here is not really arguable, and it points at buying more often than you might expect us to admit. The question that decides it is not the purchase price. It is how many nights a year you actually switch the thing on.
The purchase price is the small number
Buying a unit starts a series of costs that do not stop: servicing, wear parts, tyres, battery replacement, somewhere to keep it, someone to tow it, and the slow depreciation of a diesel machine sitting in the sun.
None of those appear on the invoice you compare against a rental rate, which is why the comparison usually looks better for buying than it turns out to be.
Utilisation is the whole argument
A mast used three weeks a year is an expensive way to store metal. A mast used most weeks of the year is a genuine asset, and at that point the rental spend does start to look like something you should have kept.
Count the nights honestly — not the nights you might need it, the nights you actually did last year. That number decides this, and most people find it is lower than their instinct said.
What renting is really buying you
Not the mast. You are buying out the failure modes: the service you did not schedule, the part that was not in stock, the unit that would not start on the one night it mattered.
You are also buying flexibility on type. A site that needs solar this month and diesel next month is trivial to serve on hire and expensive to serve by ownership.
- Breakdowns are a callout, not a delay you absorb.
- You can change unit type between jobs without owning both.
- No yard space, no towing vehicle, no annual service to remember.
- Costs land on the job that caused them rather than on your overheads.
When buying genuinely wins
Three cases, and they are real. If a unit would run most weeks of the year, buy it. If your sites are remote enough that no hire company will reach you at short notice, buy it. If you already run a yard with a mechanic and a tow vehicle, the marginal cost of one more machine is small.
Outside those, the sums usually favour hiring — and if you are in one of those three, we would rather tell you than take a booking you regret.
The middle path most people miss
Long hires exist for exactly this situation. If you need a unit for four months, that is not a purchase decision, and it is not a daily-rate decision either.
Send the actual duration rather than rounding it to "a while". Cost per day falls sharply with length, and a lot of people buy a unit because they priced four months as sixteen separate weeks.
The costs people leave out of the comparison
When people run this calculation themselves, the same items go missing every time. It is worth listing them explicitly, because together they usually change the answer.
Storage is the first: a trailer-mounted mast takes real yard space, and yard space is rarely free. Towing is the second — somebody has to have a vehicle rated for it and the time to move it. Servicing is the third, and it is an annual commitment rather than a one-off.
Then there is the cost nobody plans for: the unit that will not start on the night it matters. When you own it, that is your night. When you hire it, it is a callout on somebody else's schedule, and that difference is worth more than most people price it at.
A simple test to run this week
Open last year's job records and count the distinct nights a light tower was on site. Not the jobs — the nights.
Then price that number two ways: as the hires you would have taken, and as one owned unit with servicing, storage and towing added. Most people find the two numbers are closer than expected, and that the deciding factor is not cost at all but whether they want to own the maintenance.
If the count is climbing year on year, buying is worth revisiting annually rather than deciding once. If it is flat and low, the answer is unlikely to change.
Ask about a light tower for your site
Send the site, the dates and roughly how many hours a night you need the lights on. You get a rate back.
Ask on WhatsAppLight tower questions people ask
Do you sell units as well as rent them?
Our business is rental. If buying is genuinely the right answer for your usage we will say so rather than talk you into a hire.
How many nights a year makes buying worthwhile?
There is no single threshold — it depends on the unit and your yard costs. The useful exercise is counting the nights you actually used one last year and pricing that against a long hire.
What is the longest you will hire a unit for?
Long hires are normal and price better per day than short ones. Send the real duration and we will quote it as one hire rather than a stack of short ones.