For businesses, you might consider renting an ice machine for $50 to $150 per month. That includes maintenance and repairs, so if a compressor dies, you don’t cry into your bar rag. But for home use? Unless you’re hosting a weekly ice orgy, buying is smarter. A rental contract is like a marriage to a block of metal—hard to leave, and it gets expensive over time.
Pro tip: Never buy a used ice machine from a stranger’s garage. I don’t care if it’s “barely used.” You have no idea what grew inside it. Last year, a guy on Craigslist showed me one that had a family of mice living in the drain tube. They looked happy, but I was not.
