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Equipment Payments

How much does a skid steer cost?

Work out what a skid steer costs to put on a job, not what the dealer quotes for the machine. Kubota, Bobcat, Case, Deere or Takeuchi, the brand on the side is not what decides your check: the machine's operating weight is, because it decides whether the truck already on your driveway can carry it. Put in the dealer's price, the attachments you need, the weights off the spec sheets and your truck's tow rating, and see the out-the-door total, with the trailer beside the machine and, if the load comes in over your rating, the truck it drags into the purchase.

§ 01 Your numbers

Change anything. The answer updates as you type.

The headline figure on the quote, for the machine on its own. The default is ours and editable, and your dealer's figure is the one that matters.
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Ask what is inside this number before you compare it with anything. Wheels or tracks is the fork that moves it most: a compact track loader carries a price a wheeled skid steer does not, and it brings an undercarriage that wears out and gets replaced, which is a cost that arrives later and is worth knowing about now. Then ask about hydraulic flow. Standard flow runs a bucket, forks and an auger; a mulcher, a cold planer or a snow blower want high flow, and that is an option decided at purchase rather than added afterwards. A machine bought without it is a machine a whole class of attachments will not run on.
Off the spec sheet, not a guess. This is the number the whole page turns on, and it is printed rather than estimated.
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Two specs get confused here and they are different numbers. Rated operating capacity is what the machine can safely lift, and it is the one the salesman leads with. Operating weight is what the machine itself weighs, and it is the one your trailer and your truck care about. A machine's lift capacity is roughly a fraction of its own weight, so the machine that lifts what you need weighs multiples of it. Use the operating weight here, and take it from the spec sheet for the exact configuration, since tracks, a cab and a heavier attachment all add to it.
How many attachments you are buying with it. Two is our default and a placeholder: an auger and a set of pallet forks is a common start.
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A skid steer is a power unit with a coupler on the front, so the attachments are the part that does the work you bought it for. Count the jobs first, then split the list: what you will run weekly and should own, what you will want twice a year and could rent, and what your machine cannot drive at all. That last one is the trap, because it is decided by hydraulic flow rather than by price. Check each attachment against your machine's flow rating and coupler standard before the cost enters the conversation, and remember they ride to the job too.
What one attachment costs on average, across the ones you are buying. The default is ours and editable.
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An average is doing real work here, because the spread is wide: a set of pallet forks and a hydraulic breaker are not the same order of thing. If your kit is lopsided, price the big one first and let the average sit above what the small ones cost, or run the calculator twice. New and used pull this line hard in opposite directions, and attachments hold up well second-hand, which makes them one of the easier places to take the used route without taking on much risk.
What a trailer rated for this machine costs you. Put zero if you already own one rated to carry it, and check the rating rather than assume it.
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This is the line the page exists to surface, and it sits outside the machine quote because it is bought from a different seller in a different conversation. The rating is the thing to check, not the deck length: a trailer is rated by its own gross weight, and the machine has to fit under that rating with the trailer's own weight already counted against it. An equipment trailer that carries a mid-size machine is a real purchase rather than a small accessory, and it is the reason two machines a few thousand apart on paper can be much further apart in practice.
What the trailer weighs before the machine is on it. Off the trailer's plate. Zero only if the machine is never leaving the property.
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This box exists because leaving it out is the arithmetic error that makes the whole test wrong in the direction people want it to be wrong. Your truck does not tow the machine, it tows the trailer with the machine on it, so the trailer's own weight comes off your rating before the machine gets to use any of it. An equipment trailer is a heavy object in its own right, which is why a machine that looks like it fits under the rating frequently does not. The attachments ride along too, so if you are hauling the auger and the forks with it, add their weight to this figure.
From the manual or the door jamb, for your truck as it is actually configured. Put zero if the machine stays on one property and is never towed, and the test will be skipped rather than failed.
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Take this from your truck rather than from the brochure for your truck, because the rating moves with the configuration: the engine, the axle ratio, the cab, the bed and whether the tow package was fitted all change it, and two trucks wearing the same badge can be thousands of pounds apart. It is also worth knowing that tow rating is one of several limits and the others can bind first. Payload is the one that catches people, because a loaded equipment trailer puts real weight on the hitch and that weight lands in the truck's payload, not its tow rating. If the load is close to the line here, the truck's door jamb and a scale settle it rather than this page.
Net of selling the one you have. This line is only added if the load above fails the tow test, and is ignored otherwise. The default is ours and editable.
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This is the cost the machine quote cannot see and the one that turns a purchase into a much bigger purchase. Put in the difference the change would actually cost you rather than the price of the new truck, since you would presumably sell or trade the current one. If the answer here is uncomfortable, that is the page working: it is the reason to look hard at the machine one class down, at renting a truck for the days you move it, at paying a hauler per move, or at renting the machine outright and leaving the whole problem with the rental yard.
Estimated cost
$73,000
  • The machine, as quoted$45,000
  • Attachments (count × price each)$7,000
  • A trailer rated to carry it$6,000
  • A truck that can tow the load$15,000
  • Total$73,000
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$40,000 to $80,000 is the ordinary shape of this purchase: a mid-size machine, a couple of attachments, and the trailer that carries it. This is also the band where the tow threshold usually gets crossed, so check what share of this total is the machine and what share is getting it to the job. If a truck is in your total above, price the machine one class down before you sign, because that comparison is the reason this page exists.

What this assumes, and where it could be wrong

Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.

THE MACHINE PLUS THE TRAILER UNDER IT IS WHAT YOUR TOW RATING SEES.
This is the whole page. A skid steer earns its money on jobs, and it gets to those jobs on a trailer behind a truck, so the purchase is not a machine: it is a machine, a trailer rated to carry it, and a truck rated to pull both. The arithmetic error that makes this go wrong is small and it always runs in the flattering direction: people weigh the machine against the tow rating and forget that the trailer's own weight comes off that rating first. At our defaults an 8,000 lb machine on a 2,600 lb trailer is 10,600 lb against a 7,000 lb rating, which is over by 3,600 lb, and the machine on its own would have looked like it nearly fit. That gap is why the page asks for the trailer's weight in its own box.
The step up to a bigger machine is not the price difference between two machines.
It is the price difference until a weight threshold gets crossed, and then it is the price difference plus a trailer plus a truck. This is why the page tests rather than adds. Two machines can sit a few thousand apart on two quotes and be five figures apart in what they cost you, because one of them clears what you can already tow and the other one takes your truck out of the job. Nothing in either quote will tell you which is which, since the dealer is quoting a machine, and the threshold lives in your driveway rather than on their lot. Run the calculator twice, once per machine, and compare the totals rather than the quotes.
Rated operating capacity and operating weight are different numbers, and the second one is yours.
Rated operating capacity is what the machine can safely lift and it is the spec that gets led with, because it is the one that sounds like the job. Operating weight is what the machine itself weighs, and it is the spec your trailer and your truck answer to. They pull in the same direction, which is what makes the confusion expensive: the machine that lifts what you need weighs a multiple of what it lifts, so sizing up on capacity moves the weight further and faster than people expect. Take the operating weight off the spec sheet for the exact configuration you are quoting, because tracks, a cab and a heavier bucket all land in it.

Tow rating is one limit and the others can bind first. Payload is the one that catches people: a loaded equipment trailer presses down on the hitch, and that weight is charged against the truck's payload rather than its tow rating, so a load that clears the tow figure can still put the truck over. The truck's own gross rating and the trailer's rating are two more lines that have to hold. This page tests the one number people actually check, which is the one that rules a machine out fastest, and a load close to the line is settled by the door jamb, the trailer's plate and a trip over a scale rather than by a calculator.

What you write the check for is not what the machine costs you. A skid steer bought is a skid steer fuelled, greased, insured, stored and losing value while it sits, and a tracked machine is also an undercarriage wearing out under it. This page prices none of that, because it is answering the question people type: what does one cost to buy and get to work. If you want the other half, the operating cost calculator adds fuel, maintenance, the operator and the value it sheds per working hour. And if the tow test above just went badly, the rent versus buy calculator is the honest next question rather than a consolation prize, because a machine you need a few days a year is a machine the rental yard should be storing, insuring and hauling instead of you.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a skid steer cost?
The machine is a dealer quote, set against a size, a configuration, wheels or tracks, and whatever your region will bear, so this page leaves that figure to your dealer rather than inventing one to stand in for it. What the page adds is the part the quote cannot show you. A skid steer is bought to be moved to jobs, so the purchase is really the machine, the attachments that do the work, a trailer rated to carry it, and a truck rated to pull both. Put the dealer's numbers and the weights off the spec sheets into the form above and you get the out-the-door total. The line worth watching is the truck: it sits at zero for as long as the machine and its trailer stay inside your tow rating, and it lands in the ledger the moment they do not.
Is a Kubota skid steer cheaper than a Bobcat?
Two dealers will answer that with two quotes, and the honest answer is that the badge is not the axis your check turns on. Comparably sized machines from the known brands land in the same neighbourhood, and the spread inside one brand, between a small wheeled machine and a large tracked one with high-flow hydraulics, is far wider than the spread between brands at one size. So compare on the things that move the total: the operating weight, because it decides whether your truck can carry it; the hydraulic flow, because it decides which attachments will run; wheels or tracks, because tracks add an undercarriage that wears out; and what the local dealer's parts and service are like, because a machine down is a job not done. Price each candidate in the form above and compare totals.
What size truck do I need to tow a skid steer?
Work it from the load rather than from the truck. Add the machine's operating weight to the trailer's empty weight, add anything else riding along, and compare that figure against your truck's tow rating as it is actually configured, which is on the door jamb and in the manual rather than in the brochure. The calculator above runs that comparison and answers it in money: put your rating in and the truck line stays at zero if the load fits under it, and carries the cost of changing trucks if it does not. Then check the limits the tow rating does not cover, because they bind independently: the tongue weight of a loaded equipment trailer lands in the truck's payload, and the truck's gross rating and the trailer's own rating each have to hold. If the numbers are close, a scale answers it properly. If they do not clear, the choices are a smaller machine, a hauler paid per move, or renting the machine on the days you need it.
Should I just rent a skid steer instead?
If the tow test above went badly, that question is doing real work rather than being a consolation prize, because renting hands the trailer, the truck, the storage, the insurance and the maintenance back to the yard along with the machine. The thing that settles it is not the machine and not the rate: it is how many days a year you genuinely need it, since owning has to spread the purchase across all of them. The rent versus buy calculator finds the break-even in days per year from your own numbers, which is the comparison worth making before this purchase gets signed. It is also worth pricing the middle path, where you own the machine and pay a hauler on the days it moves, since that can be cheaper than owning a truck to move it yourself a dozen times a year.

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