Keep Above
Buy or hire the scaffolding
Scaffolding is hired by the job or the week far more often than it's owned — but owned towers exist for a reason, and the arithmetic is the same two-sider. Buying — price, upkeep, eventual sale — against hiring per job, over the same years and jobs a year: each lands on a cost per year and per job, 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 scaffolding?
What a year of owning it would take — replacement fittings and boards, inspection or tagging where it applies, and the space to store it between jobs. One yearly figure; $0 means it isn't counted.
What would one hire include here?
What one job would actually cost — the hire for the full period the job needs, delivery and pickup, and erection where it's charged. That whole per-job amount is the per-use figure; anything yearly belongs in the extras box.
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.