Keep Above
Buy or hire the carpet cleaner
Carpet cleaners are hired by the day and owned ones sit in cupboards between uses — exactly the trade this calculator counts. Buying one, with upkeep and an eventual sale, against hiring each time, over the same years and uses a year: each lands on a cost per year and per use, with the break-even stated and no winner declared.
Not counted while this is $0
After 5 years
Delivery, membership, deposits — not counted while $0
Put in what buying one would cost, and what one hire would cost. Nothing here is read from your accounts, and nothing is saved.
| Owning | Hiring | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid up front | — | — |
| Value lost | — | — |
| Hire fees | — | — |
| Other costs | — | — |
| Total over 5 years | — | — |
| Cost a year | — | — |
| Cost a use | — | — |
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
About this calculator
What counts as upkeep for a carpet cleaner?
Cleaning solution it goes through in a year, the occasional filter or brush, and cupboard space if that matters — one yearly figure for whatever owning it would take. At $0 it isn't counted.
What would one hire include here?
The day rate plus what a hire actually takes to use — the cleaning solution usually sold alongside it, and any delivery. Yearly rather than per-hire costs belong in the extras box; a refundable deposit isn't a cost.
What is the crossing point?
The uses a year at which the two totals would match, over the years you set — a position in the arithmetic, nothing more. When one side's structure makes a match impossible (owning nets to nothing, or hiring's fixed extras alone pass owning's total), the page says so instead of printing a number.