When you’re planning a lab budget, it’s tempting to anchor everything to the price tag. That $85,000 centrifuge, the $150,000 sequencing system, the $12,000 biosafety cabinet—it adds up fast. But the sticker price is only part of the story.
In reality, the true cost of owning lab equipment—the total cost of ownership (TCO)—includes a long list of line items that rarely show up on the initial quote. Maintenance contracts, calibration services, installation fees, downtime, utilities, training, decontamination, and eventually, decommissioning. Miss a few of those in your planning, and your margins can vanish—or worse, your runway can shrink faster than expected.
If you’re a biotech founder, CFO, or lab manager trying to stretch a tight budget across headcount, infrastructure, and program milestones, these hidden costs matter. They’re often the difference between shipping a product and spending another quarter troubleshooting instrumentation.
This post breaks down what lab equipment really costs, why TCO matters more than most early-stage teams realize, and what practical strategies—from smarter purchasing to cost-effective leasing—can help you reduce the financial drag without compromising your science.
What Drives the Real Cost of Lab Equipment?
It’s everything after you sign the PO
Buying lab equipment is rarely a one-and-done transaction. The upfront cost might get the attention of your finance team, but it’s the lifecycle expenses that often strain your budget—especially as you scale up or work toward regulatory milestones.
Here are the main drivers behind the true cost of owning lab equipment:
- Installation and site prep: Even basic systems may require electrical upgrades, ventilation work, or structural reinforcement. A misalignment between equipment needs and your facility infrastructure can trigger last-minute retrofits—and those aren’t cheap.
- Maintenance and service contracts: Many instruments need regular calibration, preventative maintenance, or repair. Some OEMs bundle support into the purchase price (for a year, maybe), but after that, service contracts can run 8–15% of the equipment cost per year. Skip them, and you risk costly downtime or non-compliance.
- Downtime and productivity loss: Unplanned downtime can cost more than repairs. Missed data collection windows, delayed batches, idle team members—these are real operational expenses, even if they’re harder to quantify in a spreadsheet. If an LC-MS goes down during a critical screening run, the financial and scientific consequences stack up fast.
- Training and onboarding: Some instruments require advanced training or dedicated superusers to operate and troubleshoot. That’s time your team isn’t spending on core research—and in some cases, it may lead you to hire a new specialist altogether.
- Utilities, consumables, and hidden operating costs: Large centrifuges and freezers pull serious power. High-throughput systems burn through reagents, columns, cartridges, and tips. Some imaging or sequencing platforms require proprietary consumables that lock you into ongoing costs. Over a 3–5 year period, these often eclipse the equipment’s purchase price.
- Compliance and documentation: If your work is subject to CAP, CLIA, GLP, or GMP guidelines, the equipment has to meet those standards—and stay compliant over time. That means calibration logs, audit readiness, software validation, and in some cases, periodic re-qualification. All of that has a cost.
- End-of-life and replacement costs: Eventually, you’ll need to upgrade or decommission. New equipment doesn’t last forever—and as service contracts expire or parts become obsolete, maintaining old systems can become more expensive than replacing them. Not to mention: disposal, decontamination, or resale logistics often fall on your team.
What does this add up to? It’s not unusual for a $100,000 instrument to cost $175,000–$200,000 over its useful life once all expenses are tallied. And that assumes it doesn’t break unexpectedly, require unplanned upgrades, or become obsolete sooner than expected.
Where Budgets Break Down (and Why It’s Avoidable)
The missed line items that cost you more later
Most early-stage lab budgets aren’t undercooked on purpose—they’re just overly optimistic. Founders and operators tend to budget based on vendor quotes and expected timelines. But vendors don’t include power upgrades, lab certification delays, or the fact that your new hires will need two weeks to get trained on the mass spec you just installed.
Here’s where budgets typically fall apart:
No buffer for service or emergency repairs
Many teams skip service contracts early on to save money. But if a critical instrument breaks and your only option is to pay out of pocket—or wait weeks for OEM support—you’re paying in both cash and productivity. Budgeting for maintenance isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s risk insurance.
Underestimating operational expenses
Even small items—pipette tips, CO₂ tanks, solvents—add up fast. If your equipment is consumable-hungry or has proprietary supply requirements, your monthly burn may spike unexpectedly. This is especially true for instruments that seem “cheap” up front but come with locked-in usage costs.
One-size-fits-all purchasing
A lab that’s trying to run five assays on one aging instrument is asking for trouble. But on the flip side, overbuying—purchasing a $250K system for a workload that doesn’t need it yet—ties up capital and space. Mismatched equipment often reflects rushed or overly generic procurement planning.
Lack of lifecycle planning
Too often, the decision to buy is treated as a finish line. But the real costs come later. Will you need to recalibrate annually? Is the warranty renewable? What’s the resale value in five years? Without thinking about these timelines up front, it’s easy to build a lab that looks good for 12 months—and becomes a cost center by year two.
The upside? These are solvable problems. The more you factor lifecycle, flexibility, and scalability into your procurement strategy, the more predictable your budget becomes.
Three Cost-Lowering Strategies That Actually Work
Smart choices—not shortcuts—drive long-term savings
Reducing lab equipment costs doesn’t mean buying the cheapest option or delaying critical purchases. In most cases, cost savings come from thinking more strategically about how, when, and why you acquire equipment in the first place.
Here are three approaches that consistently help biotech teams stretch budgets without sacrificing performance:
1. Lease instead of buy—especially for high-cost or short-term assets
Leasing can reduce upfront costs and preserve working capital, but it’s not just about cash flow. It’s also about flexibility. Leasing lets you upgrade more easily, access support and service without separate contracts, and avoid getting stuck with outdated or overbuilt systems.
For example, if you're still validating your assay workflow, locking in a $300K system that may not scale with your needs could backfire. Leasing a fit-for-purpose system with room to pivot keeps options open while reducing TCO over time.
2. Prioritize multi-use and modular equipment
Whenever possible, choose equipment that serves multiple protocols or can be reconfigured as your needs evolve. A modular plate reader or automated liquid handler might cost more upfront, but if it can serve three teams instead of one, you’re consolidating costs and improving utilization.
Just be careful not to stretch functionality too thin. A jack-of-all-trades instrument that causes daily bottlenecks won’t save you anything in the long run.
3. Outsource or delay non-core capabilities
Not every piece of equipment needs to live in-house on Day One. Certain high-end imaging, NGS, or mass spec needs can be outsourced until sample volumes or IP sensitivity make internalization worthwhile. And when it’s time to bring them in, you’ll know exactly what specs you need—so you don’t overbuy.
Likewise, if a piece of equipment is only needed for a 3–6 month project, consider short-term leasing or working through a shared lab that already has it available. You’ll get access without long-term ownership drag. The key is to match the acquisition strategy to your workflow, stage, and timeline. That means thinking like an operator—not just a scientist.
A Better Way to Think About Equipment Cost
It’s not what you pay—it’s what you enable
In the rush to build capacity, it’s easy to fixate on line items: How much does this laboratory equipment cost? Can we get a discount? What’s the best deal per feature?
But the real question isn’t what an instrument costs—it’s what it lets your team do. Does it help you generate cleaner data, faster? Hit a milestone sooner? Launch a pilot program without months of delay? Avoid costly downtime or rework?
That’s the lens leaders in healthcare are increasingly using: total cost of value, not just total cost of ownership.
You’re not just buying hardware. You’re buying time, capability, reliability, and strategic options. If a leased instrument with support gets you to IND six weeks faster, that’s worth more than any upfront savings on a used unit you had to maintain yourself. If modular systems help you shift workflows as your team evolves, that’s future-proofing—not overspending.
At the same time, no one wants to overbuild or throw capital at equipment that won’t get used. That’s where thoughtful budgeting, flexible procurement, and lifecycle planning come in. Don’t just ask what something costs. Ask what it enables—and what it saves you when it works the way it should.