Asset finance or buy outright: how to decide
The right answer depends less on interest rates than on what else that cash could be doing in your business.
The question is not really about the equipment
Businesses tend to frame this as a question about the asset — is it worth financing? The more useful question is what the same cash would return if it stayed in the business.
If capital deployed into stock, hiring or marketing returns more than the cost of finance, then paying cash for equipment is quietly the expensive option.
When buying outright makes sense
Cash purchase is straightforward when the business is holding surplus capital with no better use, when the asset is low-value relative to turnover, or when the equipment will outlast any sensible finance term.
When finance usually wins
Finance tends to win where the asset directly generates revenue, where the business is growing and capital is the constraint, or where predictable monthly cost matters more than lowest total cost.
Matching the term to the asset's working life is the discipline that matters most — a facility outliving the equipment it funded is the common mistake.