Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Why Paying for Use Is Beating Paying to Own
September 23, 2026
In 1962, Rolls-Royce made an unusual decision for an engine maker. Rather than simply selling engines for the de Havilland 125 business jet and billing operators whenever something went wrong, it offered a complete engine and accessory replacement service charged at a fixed cost for every hour flown. It called the idea Power by the Hour.
You see, the operators didn't want to own a maintenance problem, they wanted engines that worked. Six decades later, that same distinction between owning a thing and paying for what it does sits behind some of the biggest financial decisions businesses and wealthy individuals make.
The Cost Nobody Puts in the Brochure
An expensive asset costs money while you use it. It also costs money while it sits there.
That second cost is the one people usually always underestimate. Insurance, storage, servicing, staff and depreciation all keep running on the days nothing happens. Spread over heavy use, those fixed costs become manageable. Spread over light use, they make each hour of actual value very expensive.
Let’s take a simple example. An asset with £1 million a year in fixed costs, used for 400 hours, costs £2,500 an hour before anything else is added. Use it for 100 hours and the same asset costs £10,000 an hour. Nothing about the asset changed, only the usage did.
Hilti Didn't Sell Drills. It Sold Uptime.
Construction is not an industry known for embracing subscriptions. Tradespeople take pride in their kit. So when Hilti launched its Fleet Management programme, the idea of contractors renting power tools met real resistance.
And yet, the pitch worked anyway. Customers pay a monthly fee covering the use, servicing and repair of their tools, with no upfront purchase. Tools are replaced with newer models on a regular cycle, and theft and breakdowns are covered.
What the contractor gains is not really a drill. It's the certainty that a broken tool on a Monday morning doesn't stop a job, and that money which would have been sitting in a tool store is available for payroll, materials or the next contract.
Image by Lorraine Robinson from Pixabay
The Yacht Arithmetic
Yachts show the problem at its most extreme. The long-standing industry rule of thumb holds that a yacht costs around 10% of its purchase price to run every year. As YachtBuyer points out, that rule becomes badly misleading for larger crewed or older vessels, because the boat's value falls while its running costs climb.
Now factor in how often owners actually go to sea. Industry usage data suggests a typical owner uses their yacht for somewhere between four and eight weeks a year. The crew, berthing and maintenance bills arrive for all fifty-two.
For someone who wants a fortnight in the Aegean each summer, chartering does more than save money. It means choosing a sailing yacht one year and a larger motor yacht the next, in whichever sea suits the season.
Aviation Runs the Same Numbers
Business aviation may be where this calculation is most precise, because every cost can be counted by the flight hour.
Owning an aircraft brings crew salaries, hangarage, insurance and management fees whether it flies or not. The broad consensus in the industry is that whole ownership starts to make financial sense somewhere in the region of 200 to 400 flight hours a year, depending on the aircraft.
Plenty of companies and individuals fly nowhere near that. A board that needs to visit three European sites in a single day, or a family heading to a small Alpine airstrip twice a season, has a real need for private aviation, but not for a full-time aircraft. For them, private jet charter delivers what actually matters: the right aircraft for each specific trip, whether a light jet for a short hop or a long-range jet for a transatlantic meeting, with none of the ongoing overheads.
Image: Pexels/RDNE Stock project
When Owning Still Wins
None of this makes ownership a bad idea. It makes it a decision that depends on the numbers.
Heavy, predictable use changes the maths quickly. So does a need for total control: a particular cabin configuration, crew who know your preferences, an aircraft ready at an hour's notice every day of the year. There's also a middle ground. Leasing, fractional shares and block-hour arrangements sit between full ownership and one-off bookings, and each suits a different usage pattern.
The mistake is treating ownership as the natural reward for success rather than as one option to be costed alongside the others.
Capital Has Better Things to Do
The shift towards access is really about where money works hardest. Capital held in an asset used a few weeks a year cannot also fund an acquisition, a new market or an opportunity that turns up unexpectedly.
See: Crypto’s 22 Billionaires & the Global Adoption Index
Rolls-Royce understood that in 1962. Its customers wanted flying hours, not engines. The most useful question to ask of any expensive asset is the same one: are you paying for the thing, or for what it lets you do?
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Leave a Reply