lounge suit 60-100: full morning/black tie 90-150
decent high-street 150-350 + GBP 30-60 alterations
Advanced options
The break-even is brutal for hire: at typical prices, 2-4 hires buy the suit outright, and the bought suit fits better every time (it's been altered to YOU, not to the average of last month's hirers). Hire earns its keep for the genuinely rare dress codes: morning dress for one wedding, white tie once a decade, matching a wedding party's specific look, and growing teenagers. Buy navy or charcoal, get it altered, and it covers weddings, funerals, interviews and court: the one garment with a 4-occasion range.
What The Suit Hire vs Buy Calculator Works Out
- Verdict: hire price x the number of events against the purchase price. Lounge-suit hire runs GBP 60 to GBP 100 an event and morning dress or black tie GBP 90 to GBP 150, while a decent high-street suit is GBP 150 to GBP 350, so two to four hires buy the suit outright.
- Break-even: the purchase price divided by the hire price, rounded up: the number of hires at which owning becomes cheaper.
- The costs compared: hiring leaves you owning nothing, with deposit holds and return deadlines; buying gets a suit altered to you rather than to the average of last month's hirers, and it is there for the funeral that gives four days' notice and no fitting appointments.
- The exceptions: morning dress with top hat, white tie, a groom's party matching a specific hired look, growing teenagers (a GBP 60 hire beats a GBP 250 suit outgrown by Christmas) and destination weddings where luggage rules. Everyone else: buy navy or charcoal, have it altered, done.
- Alterations (advanced): sleeve and trouser adjustments cost GBP 30 to GBP 60 and transform a suit; a GBP 180 suit altered beats a GBP 350 suit off the peg. Added to the cost of owning.
- Dry cleaning and years kept (advanced): about GBP 15 a year of cleaning and pressing (press-only services between genuine cleans, since over-cleaning ages cloth faster than wear), multiplied by how long you keep the suit.
- Hire extras (advanced): damage waivers, delivery and return postage, and the deposit lost to a spilled glass or a late return, added to every hire. The return-condition clauses are how a hired suit becomes an accidentally bought one.
- Resale value and other wears (advanced): what the suit sells for at the end is deducted from owning; work days, interviews and other wears beyond the listed events bring down the owned cost per wear.
- All-in totals, cost per wear and all-in break-even (advanced): both routes with every extra counted, the cost of each wear under each route, and the number of hires at which owning wins once alterations, care, extras and resale are all in the sum.