How does Whybuy stack up?

A lot of people look at renting an appliance and think, “If I just bought it, I’d be better off.” That’s true only if:

  1. you buy everything upfront,

  2. nothing breaks,

  3. you don’t move, and if you do all your appliances fit the new place,

  4. you don’t get scammed if buying used,

  5. and you keep the appliances for years.

Once real life happens, renting starts to make sense. We’ll show it with real numbers.

Example Household with 3 Appliance Setup

Total to buy new:
$889 (washer) + $489 (dryer) + $2,079 (fridge) = $3,457

Total weekly with Whybuy:
$2.50 (plan) + $3.95 (washer) + $1.00 (dryer) + $4.95 (fridge) = $12.40/week

So this household can have all three appliances for $499 upfront and $12.40 per week.

Break Even Point

To compare fairly, subtract the $250 upfront membership from the buy price:

  • $3,457 − $499 = $2,958 left to “catch up”
  • $12.40/week × 52 = $644.80 per year
  • $2,958 ÷ $644.80 ≈ 4 years and 8 months

Moving Changes Everything

The maths above assumes you stay put. A lot of people don’t. When you move, owning appliances suddenly has extra costs and extra hassle.

  • You have to get the appliances moved. Most movers in Melbourne will charge a minimum and it’s rarely cheap, especially with stairs or tight access.
  • You have to make the appliances  fit the new place. Different houses have different fridge cavities, different laundry setups. It’s common that one of the three (usually the fridge) doesn’t fit at the new place.
  • If something gets damaged in transit, that’s on you. A dented fridge you own is now your dented fridge.
  • You have to organise it. Time off work, chasing movers, dealing with no shows – that’s all your problem when you own.

With Whybuy, think of it as serviced appliances: we supply them, we move them, we swap them when the new place is different. If something gets damaged in transit, that’s not your problem. So it’s not just “4 years with no breakdowns” — it’s that we remove a whole set of headaches that come with owning big whitegoods while renting or moving around.

More Appliances = Better Value

The plan is shared across appliances. That means every extra appliance on the same plan in the same household increases the number of years before buying would have been cheaper.

Subscription Appliances Suits Tenants

We’re not here to blow smoke — buying can be the better move if you’re settled and staying put. But a lot of people aren’t, and for renters or people who move around, subscribing to appliances almost always makes more sense. 

A lot of tenants would like a nice Fisher & Paykel fridge or a fancy condenser dryer – they just don’t want to drop $2,000 on something that might not fit the next place, or that they might have to sell at a huge loss in 12 months.

Owning only makes sense if you know you’re staying put.

If you don’t know where you’ll be in a year, renting wins because you can just tell us, “New place, smaller fridge space,” and we swap it. You’re not stuck with a perfectly good fridge you now have to offload on Marketplace for a third what you paid.

Subscription Appliances Suit Sharehouses

Share houses are the worst for appliances because no one really owns them. So they end up being:

  • half broken,
  • never cleaned,
  • all five people flogging the same $80 Facebook washer,
  • and no one wants to spend real money because they know they’ll probably lose it when the house breaks up.

Then you get the arguments: “I paid for it”, “yeah but we all used it”, “I’m not giving you $200 for that thing”, “well I want a better dryer”, etc.

Whybuy takes all of that friction off the table – the appliance isn’t tied to one person, it’s decent quality, and when the share house ends, it just goes back. No buy ins, no payouts, no keeping a busted washer in the garage because no one wants to be the one who loses.

Subscription Appliances Suit People Who Don't Know How to Maintain Them

A lot of the time appliances seem to be faulty but really it was bad setup or maintenance.

  • The fridge was never properly adjusted or levelled, so the door doesn’t seal and now its leaking from the fridge door or worse – the whole fridge section is no longer cooling.
  • The washer still had the filter left in while moved, so the first time it was used it flooded, not only making a huge mess in your new place, but it’s wrecked the drum bearings, and now it’s stupidly loud on spin and headed for an early death.

Plenty of people don’t know that stuff — and plenty don’t want to know it. And that’s fine. That’s what we’re for. We supply it, set it up so it actually works, and if it starts playing up, we come deal with it. Think of it as serviced appliances, not “Good luck, here’s your washer.”

“What About Buying Second Hand?”

Totally fair question – second hand can be cheaper. But it comes with trade offs:

  • Delivery is often on you. You still have to get it home or pay someone.
  • Shorter remaining life. You don’t know how hard it’s been used or if it was on a dodgy circuit.
  • Hidden faults are common. Leaky fridge, noisy bearings in the washer, dryer that trips after 15 minutes – sellers don’t always disclose it, and private sellers don’t take returns.
  • Many retail second hand cowboys exist. Some places just move broken untested stock and don’t answer their phones (pro tip: call in a fake warranty issue before you buy)
  • Your time matters (or maybe it doesn’t). If your time is valuable, chasing a “$200 fridge, pick up today” is more expensive than paying for a serviced, delivered, maintained appliance. For many of our customers who are doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, they’re better off focussing their time elsewhere.

So yes, second hand can push the break-even a bit further out if you get a good unit and you’re willing to wear the hassle. Our service is for people who want decent appliances, delivered, moved, and looked after, without gambling on Facebook Marketplace.

“What About Rent to Buy?”

We don’t typically have the rent to buy customers on our books, it’s just not the type of customer we typically attract. But for those of you who have found your wayself reading this, please take our advice. Rent to buy looks attractive because it says “no big upfront cost and you get to own it.” The problem is the numbers.

In most rent to buy offers we’ve seen, you end up paying around three times what the appliance is actually worth over the term. If you compare that to our rental pricing, it can take around 12 years of renting with us before buying would have been cheaper than the rent to buy deal. Renting 3 appliances with us is usually cheaper than renting 1 appliance with a rent to buy business. That’s how expensive those contracts are. It’s not even a competition between Whybuy and rent to buy businesses, we absolutely destroy them on value.

There are a few reasons for that:

  • Rent to buy is basically a loan on bad terms. If what you really want is to own the appliance, a personal loan at a normal interest rate and then buying the appliance outright is almost always cheaper than rent-to-buy.
  • You’re still paying if it breaks. Most rent to buy contracts don’t magically extend the appliance warranty. So if the appliance is on a 1-2 year manufacturer’s warranty but your contract is 3+ years and it fails in year 2, you can be stuck paying for an appliance that isn’t working – and you still have to repair or replace it yourself.
  • The weekly looks compartatively small, the total is not. They’re priced to be easy to say yes to, not to be good value over the whole term. 

So the order should really be:

  1. If you want service and flexibility → rent.
  2. If you absolutely must own it → get a personal loan and buy.
  3. Only use rent to buy as a last resort, and even then, can you live without it?