Should You Buy or Hire a Wood Chipper
We sell wood chippers and we hire them out, so we've got no reason to steer you towards one over the other. There are real pros and cons on both sides, and neither is the more cost-effective choice across the board. Job frequency decides the answer, almost every time. Learn more now.
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Buy a wood chipper outright, or hire one for a single job, and the machine still has to earn its keep to make sense financially.
Buy a chipper that sits idle three weeks out of four and you’ve tied up capital in a machine earning you nothing.
Hire one every fortnight for a running contract and the day rates will outstrip a purchase within a year or two.
Get this decision wrong and it costs you either way. Get it right? And you and your company reap the benefits.
We buy and hire out wood chippers at ILH Groundcare, so here is everything you need to know before making the decision.
How often the work comes up
Look at what fills your diary most weeks.
Tree surgery, hedge and site clearance, green waste and landscape contracts all put a chipper to work regularly, and for that kind of workload, buying makes sense because the machine earns its keep every week.
If you’re taking on the odd garden clearance or a one-off job that needs a chipper, hiring covers you without the outlay. A wood chipper that sits unused for most of the month isn’t saving you money just because you own it outright.
The operator doing a few chipping jobs a month sits in between the two.
That’s where the maths gets closer, so track actual usage over a few months and work from that figure.
What buying costs beyond the price tag for a wood chipper
Purchase price and what you get for it
A new Forst chipper’s upfront cost ranges widely by throat size, power source, and whether it’s towable, tracked, or PTO-driven.
That initial cost of purchasing buys you a machine you control completely: available whenever you need it, no waiting on a hire firm’s fleet, no day rate eating into the job margin.
Buying used cuts the upfront cost further, though you inherit whatever maintenance the last owner skipped.
A well-maintained used chipper from a dealer who services what they sell is a different proposition to one off an auction site with no history.
Storage, maintenance and upkeep
Owning a woodchipper means finding storage space for it between jobs, and a machine parked outside all winter needs more upkeep than one kept under cover.
Blades need sharpening, the hopper and chute need clearing of stuck woodchip, and engines need servicing. Skip that for a season and a blunt blade turns a two-hour job into a four-hour one, the first time you’re relying on it for a full day’s chipping.
Maintenance and repair costs are yours to carry, whether that’s routine servicing or a breakdown mid-contract. Factor a proper service budget into the true cost of purchasing.
What hiring costs beyond the wood chipper’s day rate
Wood chipper hire shifts maintenance and repair onto the hire company entirely.
Every machine that leaves a decent hire fleet has been serviced, checked, and is ready to work, so you’re not carrying that cost or that risk yourself.
The trade-off is availability.
Book a hire during a busy season and you might not get the exact chipper you want on the day you need it. For arborists with predictable job scheduling this rarely matters, but for last-minute contracts, call ahead and confirm stock instead of assuming it.
Over a full year, day rates for occasional hires almost always add up to less than a purchase price, once you factor in the servicing, storage, and depreciation a bought machine carries on top of what you paid for it.
The machine type matters as much as hire or buy
Machine type, whether petrol, diesel, towable, tracked, or PTO-driven, changes both the buying and hiring maths, alongside the wood chipper’s capacity.
A tracked machine costs more to buy and more to hire than an equivalent towable, so factor machine type into your decision alongside hire vs buy.
A landscaping business running mostly accessible sites rarely needs to spend up for a tracked chipper, while an arborist working steep or restricted-access ground might find that hiring the right tracked machine for those specific jobs beats buying one that’s overkill for everyday work.
Some smaller machines get sold as garden shredders rather than wood chippers.
For anything beyond light garden work, a proper trade chipper handles the volume and branch size a domestic shredder can’t.
Factors to consider when deciding whether to buy or hire a wood chipper
Working out your actual usage
Work out roughly how many days a month you’d actually use a wood chipper, whether that’s for wood chips, mulch, compost material, or clearing tree branches and small trees after trimming or pruning on site.
Match that figure against your needs and budget before you look at any machine’s spec sheet.
If the answer is most weeks, buying wins on cost within a couple of years. If it’s a handful of jobs a year, hiring keeps your capital free for other kit.
Budget, storage and a mixed approach
Budget and available storage space narrow it further. A landscaping business with a yard and a steady chipping workload is in a different position to a sole trader working from a van with nowhere to park a second machine overnight.
A sole trader with a growing client list might buy a compact chipper now and hire a tracked machine for the occasional job that needs one. Capital outlay stays low, and every type of site is still covered.
FAQ on wood chipper hiring and buying
How much does it cost to hire a wood chipper for a day?
Day rates vary by machine size and type, tracked and larger models cost more than a compact towable. Call our team for current rates on the specific chipper you need.
Is buying a wood chipper a good investment for a business?
If you’re chipping regularly, yes. A machine used most weeks pays for itself faster than most owners expect, and a well-maintained chipper holds decent resale value if your workload changes.
What are the disadvantages of owning a chipper?
Storage, upkeep, and capital sitting idle between jobs are the main costs of owning one. A chipper that’s rarely used often costs more over a year in those three things combined than the day rates it was bought to avoid.
Can I hire a chipper for one job and buy later if the work picks up?
Yes, and it’s a sensible way to test which machine size and type actually suits your work before committing to a purchase.
Contact ILH Groundcare today
If you’re weighing up buying against hiring, we sell wood chippers and we hire them out, so we’ve no reason to push you either way.
We’ll give you a straight answer based on your actual workload, not on what earns us more. Track your usage over a few months like we’ve suggested above, then call us and we’ll help you make sense of it.
We’ve supplied, hired and serviced Forst, Arbmax and FSI machines across Scotland since 2007, and every new Forst chipper we sell carries a 3-year warranty. Hire, buy, service and parts all sit under one roof here, so whichever way you go, you’re covered.
Get in touch with our team on 0141 775 9288 or contact us online, and we’ll talk you through it honestly.