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Should You Buy or Lease a Commercial Dishwasher?
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
warewashing
Should You Buy or Lease a Commercial Dishwasher?
You know you need a commercial dishwasher—your kitchen is hectic, and your staff struggles to keep up. But when it comes to logistics, it’s hard to make a choice when you don’t know the pros and cons. Buying and renting are big decisions, so how can you be sure you’re making the best choice for your facility?
At State Cleaning, we lease, service, and provide chemicals for commercial dish machines. We know that dishwashers are not a casual purchase and that you may have questions during the process.
To help you determine where to go for your commercial dishwasher, we will explain what buying and leasing entail and the pros and cons of each. After reading, you’ll know whether you should buy or lease a dish machine.
What Does it Mean to Buy a Commercial Dishwasher?
Buying a commercial dishwasher means you own the machine. You’ll pay a significantly higher upfront price (usually around $15,000–$20,000 for a new machine), but you will own the machine, manage it yourself, and use your desired chemicals (if applicable) in it.
When you choose to own your own machine, you will have less contact with the manufacturer. After you buy it, it’s your job to manage it, which can be a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective. Unlike leased dishwashers, you won’t usually get repairs included in the price nor will you be able to swap out machines if yours begins to decline in performance as it ages, and this can get costly.
What Does it Mean to Lease a Commercial Dishwasher?
Meanwhile, leasing a commercial dishwasher means renting it from month to month (or year to year or longer, depending on the specifics of your agreement). In this setup, you do not own the dishwasher, but you will be paying for it regularly—a significantly lower upfront fee (usually, $100–$500 a month), but potentially a higher price over time (though this is not always the case).
With leasing, regular service and repairs are usually included in the price. Similarly, the machine is more easily swapped out when it gets older or starts to perform more poorly. Generally, this will save you time and money through regular maintenance and a longer dishwasher lifetime.
Pros and Cons of Buying a Commercial Dishwasher
Buying will look different for facilities in different situations.
For example, a small local bar would be more likely to lease a commercial dish machine. Why? Because buying a dishwasher is costly—as is buying the chemicals. If something were to go wrong with their purchased dishwasher, repairs could be as high as $1,000 even for a minor issue.
However, for a hospital, buying a commercial dish machine might make more sense than leasing. Hospitals tend to have a higher capital budget, which means purchasing a dish machine will be less of a financial hit. Plus, when they buy a machine, it becomes an asset to the building that can raise their property value.
The situations in which you should buy a commercial dishwasher vary, but generally, buying means spending significantly more on your dish machine.
Some facilities like to buy because it means they own the machine and don’t have to worry about price increases for machine rental. However, buying a machine means paying for your own maintenance, repairs, replacements, and chemicals. For this reason, most restaurants and many other commercial kitchens lease.
Pros and Cons of Leasing a Commercial Dishwasher
Leasing can look different depending on exactly what dishwasher you want and what company you’re working with.
For example, a heavily frequented establishment in fine dining might rent a heavy-duty dishwasher and consume several buckets of chemicals per month. Meanwhile, a bustling diner might lease a lower-capacity dishwasher and several buckets of chemicals per year. Your dishwasher size and kitchen capacity will drastically affect your program agreement and the amount you spend, but in any of these cases, leasing will be an effective choice.
Overall, leasing a commercial dishwasher is viewed as a significant cost savings as well as a time savings.
When you buy a dish machine, the cost of the machine, service, repairs, and chemicals can add up fast. But with leasing, you pay a much smaller monthly fee for the machine, you usually get regular service (typically monthly) included, you generally get repairs as needed without additional cost, and chemicals are either bought as needed or are included in your agreement.
This way, the burden of dishwasher management is taken off your plate, and you won’t face unexpected costs if something goes wrong. For these reasons, many facilities prefer to lease their dishwashers.
Learn About How a Dish Machine Rental with State Cleaning Works
When you’re on the hunt for a dish machine, it can be difficult to know where you should even start. Now, you know that leasing a dishwasher yields significant cost savings while buying one can be beneficial to the right business. To learn about how a dish machine rental with State Cleaning works, watch the video below.
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