How many rental days before your camera has paid for itself

A Blackmagic PYXIS 12K costs £4,199 at Wex Photo Video today. A Sony FX3 costs £2,999. The PYXIS is £1,200 more expensive, and both of them pay for themselves in the same 25 rental days.

That is the number almost nobody works out before buying a camera, and it is the one that decides whether the kit in your cupboard is an asset or a slow loss. Divide what you paid by what the camera earns on a rental day and you get the number of days before the purchase is square. On Picturental the division is clean, because the owner's day rate is paid out in full: the renter pays a 12% fee on top, and nothing comes off your side.

So here is the arithmetic for four cameras, using Wex's purchase prices on 3 October 2026 and the day rates these cameras are actually listed at in London.

Four cameras, four payback periods

Camera	Price at Wex	London day rate	Days to pay for itself
Sony FX3	£2,999	£120	25
Blackmagic PYXIS 12K	£4,199	£170	25
Sony FX6	£5,220	£138	38
Sony FX9	£9,999	£175	58

The prices are Wex's own, inc VAT, checked on their product pages on 3 October 2026, and the FX3 figure is for the FX3A, the version Wex currently sells. The FX3 is down from £3,240, the FX6 is down from an RRP of £5,994, and the PYXIS 12K L-mount is down from £5,015. The day rates are what these cameras are listed for by owners in London right now. Where more than one owner lists the same body the rates differ, and that moves the answer: a second FX3, listed as a kit at £96 a day, pays back in 31 days rather than 25. The £120 figure above is the bare body, which is the like-for-like comparison with a bare-body purchase price.

Read the right-hand column again, because it does not behave the way people expect. The cheapest camera and the second-most-expensive camera tie. The £5,220 FX6 takes half as long again as either. And the FX9 takes 58 days, which is more than twice the FX3.

Price does not predict payback. The ratio of day rate to purchase price does, and that ratio is set by what renters will pay, not by what you spent.

Why the FX6 is the worst bet on this list

The FX6 is a better camera than the FX3 by most measures a working operator cares about, and that is exactly the problem. It costs 74% more to buy and rents for 15% more a day.

Those two numbers are the whole story. A camera earns its keep on the rate renters will pay, and that rate is set by what the camera does on a job rather than by what it cost. An FX6 does not produce 74% more usable footage in a day than an FX3, so it does not command 74% more, and the gap lands on the owner.

The PYXIS 12K is the opposite case. It is new enough, and there is little else at that price shooting 12K, so it carries a £170 rate on a £4,199 body. That premium will not last — it never does — but while it does, the camera is the fastest payback on the list.

What this looks like in a real year

Nobody rents 25 days in a month. Realistic utilisation for a working owner is two or three weekend days a month on a camera you use midweek, which is 24 to 36 days a year.

Put the table through that:

• An FX3 clears its purchase price in eight to thirteen months.
• A PYXIS 12K does the same.
• An FX6 needs about thirteen to nineteen months.
• An FX9 needs between a year and a half and two and a half years.

After those days, every subsequent rental day is the camera paying you for owning it. That is the entire argument for listing, and it is stronger on cheap kit than on expensive kit, which is the reverse of what most people assume.

The FX9 deserves a note of its own. Wex now lists it as discontinued with no new stock, while still showing a £9,999 cash price. A discontinued body depreciates faster than a current one and rents for the same money, so an FX9 sitting in a cupboard is losing value in a way an FX9 out on hire is not. If you own one, it is the single strongest candidate on this list for being listed rather than stored.

What a rental house charges for the same camera

The honest way to test whether a day rate is fair is to price the same camera at a rental house. Wex Rental hires an FX6 at £145 a day and an FX3 at £105 a day. Both figures exclude VAT, and both exclude a damage waiver: Wex applies a 10% waiver fee in the basket unless the renter can supply proof of their own insurance.

Build the FX6 up and it comes to £145, plus 10% waiver, plus VAT: £191.40 a day for a renter with no policy of their own who cannot reclaim the VAT. The same camera on Picturental is £138 plus the 12% fee, protection included, which is £154.56. That is £36.84 a day cheaper, about 19%.

Now change the renter. A VAT-registered production company with its own equipment insurance reclaims the VAT and declines the waiver, so it pays Wex's £145 flat — and £154.56 on Picturental. For that renter the rental house is £9.56 a day cheaper, and we are the more expensive option.

Both of those are true, and an owner should know which renter is knocking. Peer-to-peer wins decisively with students, unregistered freelancers and small production teams, who are most of the market and all of the people who cannot reclaim 20%. It does not win on price against an established production company with its own cover, and pretending otherwise would not survive a single phone call.

The number to run before you list

Take what you paid, divide by the day rate the same model is listed at in your city, and you have your own figure. The calculator does it for you if you would rather drag a slider than reach for the arithmetic. If it comes in under 30 days, the kit is earning its shelf space the moment it goes out. If it comes in over 50, you are holding something that needs to work considerably harder than its owner expects.

Either way the answer is the same, which is the slightly uncomfortable part: the camera does nothing for you in the cupboard. See what comparable kit is listed at, or put a listing up, which takes about two minutes.

Frequently asked questions

How many rental days does it take for a camera to pay for itself?

Divide the purchase price by the day rate. On London listings in October 2026 a Sony FX3 bought at £2,999 and rented at £120 a day takes 25 days, a Blackmagic PYXIS 12K at £4,199 and £170 a day takes 25 days, a Sony FX6 at £5,220 and £138 a day takes 38 days, and a Sony FX9 at £9,999 and £175 a day takes 58 days.

Does a more expensive camera take longer to pay for itself?

Not reliably. What decides payback is the day rate as a proportion of the purchase price, not the purchase price. A £4,199 PYXIS 12K and a £2,999 FX3 both pay back in about 25 days, because the PYXIS carries a proportionally higher rate.

Is peer-to-peer cheaper than a rental house?

It depends on the renter. A renter who cannot reclaim VAT and has no equipment insurance pays about £191 a day for a Sony FX6 at Wex Rental once the 10% damage waiver and VAT are added, against £154.56 on Picturental. A VAT-registered company with its own policy pays Wex £145, which is less than the Picturental total.

Does Picturental take a cut of the day rate?

No. The renter pays a 12% fee on top of the rate, and the owner's rate is transferred in full, which is why payback is a straight division of price by day rate.

Is it worth renting out a discontinued camera?

Often more so than a current one. A discontinued body such as the Sony FX9 loses value whether or not it leaves the cupboard, while its day rate holds up, so the cost of not renting it is higher.