Nine Reasons It's Better to Rent Test Equipment

• Renting equipment allows you to get equipment without having a capital budget. Capital budgets are generally approved only once a year, so what do you do if, all of a sudden, you need some test equipment in the middle of the year? You rent it, of course!

• Rentals are paid for with expense dollars, not capital dollars. Because equipment rentals come out of your expense budget instead of your capital budget, there may be some tax advantages for your company. The expense of an equipment rental can be deducted immediately, while a capital equipment purchase must be written off over a period of years.

• Renting helps fill the gap when you have short-term needs for test equipment. One example of this is when manufacturing needs extra test equipment to get a big order out in a short period of time. Another example is when you need test equipment in engineering for a short-term project. Whether you need equipment for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, renting, rather than buying, can be a cost-effective solution.

• Long-term rentals can also make good economic sense. One reason for renting long-term instead of buying is that companies know they will not need the equipment once a particular project is complete. Rather than getting stuck with unloading that equipment, they simply return it to the rental company.

• Renting reduces your capital investment and protects you against product obsolescence. You know how fast technology can change. By renting equipment instead of buying it, you're not locked into technology that quickly becomes obsolescent. When new test instrument technology becomes available, you can quickly shift gears and use the latest technology available.

• Renting saves time and money with quick delivery. You may have to wait weeks or months for delivery of some test equipment. Rental companies, however, have lots of test equipment on the shelf, ready to be shipped. In many cases, you can get the test equipment you need overnight.

• Renting lets you try before you buy. Not sure if a piece of test equipment is what you really need? Rent one and try it out before committing a lot of money to a purchase.

• Renting saves time and money on maintenance costs. If you rent equipment, you don't have to worry about regular maintenance. That's the responsibility of the rental company.

• Similarly, by renting equipment, you needn't worry about how to handle test equipment failures.  There's no need to have an in-house test equipment repair lab because you simply send equipment that fails back to the rental company, who will then send you a replacement.