Imagine being at a fork in the road. Two years ago, you hired a guy to work in your shop who happened to have some installation experience. When you asked if he was willing to tackle an occasional install, he said, “Sure.” So, you began keeping a few of your aerial installations in-house, renting a towable lift on an as-needed basis. Now, two years later, your fabricator/installer is spending most of his time hanging signs. You’re renting the 50’ towable lift from Home Depot two or three times a week at $500 per day, and you’re wondering if there’s a magic moment when it makes sense to purchase your own bucket truck.

Circumstances like this have motivated many sign company owners to call us to explore bucket truck pricing. Since buying a bucket truck is a big decision, we’ve learned to ask questions designed to help weigh the pros and cons. As with most big decisions, timing is everything, right? If you pull the trigger too soon, you’ll tie up precious capital on an underused asset. If you wait too long, you’ll deny yourself the very efficiencies that will ultimately pay for the equipment. So, this blog is designed to walk you through the pros and cons of owning a bucket truck as opposed to renting a towable lift to perform sign installations.

Annual Costs

For sign companies that rent towable lifts, their monthly spend on lift rentals is typically the first trigger prompting an investigation of bucket truck prices. In their mind, they’re throwing money out the window on rentals, so if they can finance a truck at or below their monthly rental expense, they feel it’s worth exploring.

As of September of 2025, our Chariot Sign Package Price is $144,942. This purchase price financed over 72 months at 6% (without regard to taxes) produces a monthly payment of $2,402. If the rent for a towable lift is $500 per day, then it takes approximately five rental days per month to equal a monthly truck payment. But wait, don’t forget that you’ll need to insure the truck. Insurance costs might push you to six rental days per month before the bucket truck will cash flow itself.

Here are a few other cost factors to consider:

• Garaging – Do you have a safe place to keep the truck?
• Service on the chassis – This may not affect the equation very much, since you’re currently pulling the towable lift with an owned vehicle (probably a pickup), on which you are already paying for service (oil changes, etc.). But if you purchase a diesel bucket truck, keep in mind that your service expenses will exceed those of a gasoline engine.
• Servicing the lift – Is there a parts and labor warranty on the lift, or will you be paying for repairs out of pocket? Who will you put in charge of routine maintenance.
• Annual inspections – OSHA requires an annual inspection for aerial devices. If you’re renting a lift, that expense is covered by the rental shop. If you own a bucket truck, the annual inspection is your responsibility (figure at least $500).

Flexibility

Obviously, renting a lift gives you maximum flexibility. That’s assuming the rental company has towable lifts with various working heights and lifting capacities, and that the most appropriate lift is available on the day you need it.

If you purchase a bucket truck, you’ll be forced to decide on a working height and a lifting capacity before you write the check. So, how do you make that choice? Do you buy a truck that will handle any installation that you’ll ever perform? What if you could save $100,000 by purchasing a truck that will tackle 80% of your installations? It’s worth running the numbers. If you go the 80% route, you’ll still have the flexibility to rent a lift when more capacity is needed, but those additional rental costs need to be added to your comparison spreadsheet before you can determine the most cost-effective route.

Another flexibility factor is the ability to maneuver into tight spots. Depending on its size, a bucket truck will be either more maneuverable or less maneuverable than a towable lift. It would be wise to assess your frequently visited customers and determine which chassis size is the most appropriate for your book of business.

The last flexibility issue that I’ll mention is the flexibility to start servicing signs. If you’ve been renting towable lifts, you probably haven’t focused on sign service. After all, it’s not worth renting a lift to change a light bulb. But once you own a bucket truck, sign service is a possibility. Servicing signs is not only a potential way to keep your bucket truck busy between installations, but it also allows you to find new customers who may be in the market for a new sign someday.

It’s interesting that many larger sign companies inadvertently create two silos: An installation department and a service department. One big reason these departments don’t meld together is that the installation trucks aren’t designed for service (not enough storage) and the service trucks aren’t designed for installations (no way to hold a sign). This can be frustrating when one department is slow, and the other is buried with work. Fortunately, the marketplace is responding with hybrid bucket trucks that can cross over between installations and service. So, from a flexibility standpoint, a hybrid bucket truck is an option worth considering.

Sign Industry Accessories

Rental companies usually offer equipment designed for general aerial use. In other words, they don’t typically rent specialized equipment for a particular industry. So, the towable lift you rent at Home Depot probably doesn’t come with time-saving accessories that can turn a two-person job into a one-person job.

For example, if you’re planning to install a one-hundred-pound raceway sign, you will likely need to rent a towable lift with a two-man basket—one person running the controls and operating the power tools while the other person is holding the sign. But if you own a bucket truck with sign installation accessories, your two-person crew can divide and conquer. When material-handling requirements are accomplished through specialized tools, only one person can be in the bucket. This allows the second person to work on the ground (uncrating, cleaning, wiring) or behind the wall. This division of labor can significantly cut installations times, making your jobs more profitable and your bids more competitive.

Obvious Efficiencies

There are some inherent inefficiencies associated with renting a towable lift by the day:

• Scheduling – Is the towable lift available on the day it’s required.
• First come, first serve – For rental shops that don’t take reservations, your installer must arrive when the rental shop opens to pick up the towable lift.
• A second vehicle – If your shop truck is needed to pick up the towable lift, then a second vehicle with a trailer will likely be required to bring the sign, tools, fasteners, etc. to the jobsite.
• Set up time – Towable lifts can be finicky to set up, and bigger projects often require multiple set-ups.

When added up, these inherent inefficiencies leave a lot of money on the table; money that could be used to help purchase a bucket truck.

Surveys

It’s one thing to rent a towable lift for a job that’s already on the books (since you’ve included the cost of the lift in your quote), but what about quote requests that require an aerial survey? A prospective customer is not likely to pay for your lift rental simply to receive a competitive bid from you. If you had your own truck, you’d likely tackle that survey the same day the quote request came in, allowing you to send the quote within the next day or two. But if you rent towable lifts, you might postpone the survey until you have an installation lined up so you can kill two birds with one stone. You’re hoping that your prospective customer is patient, but what if they’re not? How many sales are lost to untimely quotes?

Conclusion

Renting towable lifts is great way to wade into sign installations because it allows you to keep your equipment costs in line with your revenue stream (variable versus fixed expenses). But there is a crossover point when the inefficiencies of renting begin to outweigh the benefits. Having a thorough understanding of your desired future state, with its costs and efficiencies, will help you know the ideal time to pull the trigger on purchasing your own bucket truck.