Security Robot Leasing vs Purchase: 36-Month TCO

Security Robot Leasing vs Purchase: the Operational Starting Point

A QR-2 purchased outright costs between €95,000 and €140,000 per unit, including sensor configuration and docking station. The price range reflects sensor choices (thermal module, LiDAR resolution) and the number of docking points. A second unit, without volume discount, puts total investment between €220,000 and €270,000.

The RaaS model eliminates balance sheet activation. The monthly OpEx Posten sits at €3,500 per QR-2 unit, covering maintenance, software updates, and insurance. The decision shifts from a procurement question to a question of balance sheet structure.

Three levels are involved. First, the balance sheet: CapEx with multi-year depreciation versus OpEx as current expenditure. Second, maintenance burden: an in-house team with standards knowledge versus an outsourced service contract. Third, sensor obsolescence within 36 months, which falls entirely on the operator in a purchase scenario.

Plant managers routinely underestimate follow-on costs. Software updates, sensor recalibration every six months, and cybersecurity patches sum to €15,000–22,000 per unit per year. These Posten are absent from nearly every first TCO calculation that reaches us from plant managers.

Purchase ties up capital that would be more productive in perimeter hardening, access control, or KRITIS compliance. For a site with an €800,000 security budget, one QR-2 purchase binds 15 percent of that budget in a single hardware position.

Next step: review the RaaS model in detail.

Total Cost of Ownership over 36 Months

The purchase figures for a QR-2 are straightforward. Acquisition: €120,000 in the mid-range configuration. Maintenance: €18,000 per year under contract with a qualified service partner. Insurance against theft, vandalism, and liability: €8,000 per year. Initial training for two operators: €6,000, one-time.

TCO purchase over 36 months: €120,000 plus 3 × €18,000 plus 3 × €8,000 plus €6,000 equals approximately €198,000. Residual value depreciation is not yet included. With a resale value of 25–30 percent after three years, effective net cost falls to roughly €162,000–168,000.

TCO leasing QR-2: 36 × €3,500 = €126,000. That figure includes maintenance, updates, insurance, and replacement on failure. No obligation to train service personnel, since Quarero operates the unit.

Difference: approximately €72,000 in favour of leasing, with simultaneous full transfer of failure risk to the provider. Factoring in residual value depreciation, the gap narrows to €36,000–42,000. RaaS remains economically superior even at that narrower margin.

For comparison: classic Wachschutz costs €15,000–25,000 per month for a 24/7 Posten, depending on tariff region and qualification level. The BDSW publishes annual hourly billing rates and personnel metrics for the security industry. One Posten over 36 months costs €540,000–900,000, which is four to seven times the cost of a RaaS robot.

The full TCO comparison with classic Wachschutz is documented separately.

Balance Sheet Impact and Tax Classification

On purchase, the unit is capitalised as fixed assets. Depreciation follows the AfA table for security technology over six to eight years, depending on classification by the auditor. At €120,000 acquisition cost, that produces €15,000–20,000 in annual AfA, moderately reducing the tax burden over the period.

Leasing under IFRS 16 requires recognition of a right-of-use asset for contracts longer than twelve months. Under a HGB standalone financial statement, the leasing rate remains an expense. This asymmetry is relevant for groups consolidating under IFRS and regularly produces misunderstandings in the first CFO conversation.

One point deserves precise treatment: Quarero structures RaaS contracts with a 24-month minimum term as service contracts, not as leases. The operator acquires no right of use over a specific unit but rather an availability service. IFRS 16 capitalisation therefore does not apply as a rule. The legal construction is decisive here and differs materially from a classic operating lease.

CFOs should align the classification with their auditor before signing. Quarero provides a memo on the contract structure on request, setting out the typical accounting treatment. Without that alignment, the CFO carries a false IFRS 16 expectation that becomes uncomfortable at the balance sheet press conference.

For tax purposes, the service fee is fully deductible as operating expenditure. Input VAT recovery applies for business use. The liquidity effect is linear across the contract term, with no capitalisation spike in month one.

Next step: align the three-tier pricing model with the in-house auditor.

Sensor Obsolescence: the Hidden Risk of Purchase

2022-generation thermal sensors deliver 384×288 pixels with detection distances around 180 metres. Current modules reach 640×512 pixels with distances above 300 metres at equivalent heat signatures. An operator who purchased in 2022 is running one-third of today's detection performance in 2025.

LiDAR resolution roughly doubles every 30 months, visible in the step from QR-2 to QR-3. The QR-2 uses 16-channel LiDAR with 100-metre range. The QR-3 for KRITIS applications uses 32-channel LiDAR with 200-metre range and finer vertical resolution. For perimeter surveillance at night, that step is operationally significant.

On purchase, the operator bears the full obsolescence risk. A hardware refresh costs €40,000–60,000 per unit when the sensor module and compute platform are replaced. These costs do not appear in the first TCO calculation. They arrive in year three or four, when nobody has budgeted for them.

Under RaaS, Quarero replaces the unit at a generation change within the contract renewal cycle. The operator receives current hardware without a separate capital outlay. Obsolescence sits contractually with the provider.

For KRITIS operators, obsolescence is a risk that must be documented in the protection concept. The NIS-2 Directive requires essential entities to maintain complete documentation of all cybersecurity-relevant components. Outdated sensors without manufacturer support represent a documented deficiency in an audit report.

Hardware generation details are available in the QR-2 specification.

Maintenance, Updates, and Availability Guarantee

In-house maintenance requires trained personnel with knowledge of EN ISO 13482, which defines safety requirements for personal care and service robots and serves as the reference standard for patrol robots. At least two full-time positions are needed to cover 24/7 availability: one for the day shift plus weekend on-call, one for backup and leave cover. Personnel costs for this sit at €130,000–160,000 per year.

Software updates for security robots occur monthly for the operating system and security patches. Patrol algorithms are updated quarterly when new behavioural patterns or anomaly classes are integrated. Operators running this in-house need their own test and release pipeline.

Quarero RaaS includes 99.2 percent availability, a replacement unit within 48 hours on total failure, and no excess charge. Availability is calculated monthly from telemetry data and reported in the service report. Any shortfall triggers a credit in line with the SLA.

On purchase, SLAs must be negotiated separately, typically €12,000–18,000 per unit per year for comparable response times. Excess per incident commonly runs €2,500–5,000. The EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 governs the placing on the market and conformity assessment of mobile robotics in the EU and makes the manufacturer responsible for conformity, not the service partner. That restricts the free choice of service partner.

Cybersecurity updates fall under NIS-2 reporting obligations and must be documented without gaps. Under RaaS, Quarero delivers a monthly patch report that can be incorporated directly into audit documentation. In-house operation requires building and maintaining that documentation internally.

Scaling and Pilot Phase

New RaaS units are delivered within 48 hours from the Quarero pool. Purchase requires eight to twelve weeks procurement, depending on configuration and sensor availability. For a security incident requiring short-notice additional capacity, purchase is operationally unsuitable.

A three-month pilot is cleanly represented in the RaaS model. Under purchase, it is unrealistic due to depreciation logic: buying for €120,000 and decommissioning after three months writes off 90 percent of the purchase price. Most plant managers considering a pilot procurement under purchase do not work through this point.

Seasonal scaling, such as one additional unit for four months during harvest season or a logistics peak, is only economically viable under RaaS. Quarero offers short-term contracts from four months with a 15 percent surcharge on the monthly rate.

Site relocation or shutdown: RaaS return against remaining term, typically at a 30 percent discount on the remaining rates. Purchase means resale at below 30 percent of acquisition cost, since the secondary market for patrol robots is thin and buyers are almost exclusively research institutions.

Multi-site operators with more than three locations achieve a scale effect under RaaS through a central control room. Quarero operates clients with five to twelve units distributed across multiple sites from a single Quarero control room. The hybrid perimeter protection calculation for industrial parks shows the calculation model for these configurations.

When Purchase Is Still the Right Decision

Research institutions requiring hardware modification and code access are classic purchase candidates. Operators using the robot as a platform for proprietary algorithms or sensor integration need ownership and root access. RaaS contracts exclude that depth of intervention by contract.

Public sector procurement with an annual capital budget and an existing maintenance organisation is a second case. Where budget law mandates CapEx procurement and a technical workshop is available, purchase can be appropriate. TCO is not the deciding factor there; budget law structure is.

Very long-term deployment over seven years on an identical sensor profile without KRITIS relevance justifies purchase where obsolescence sensitivity is absent. This applies to few use cases: indoor patrol in a climate-controlled hall with no detection requirement against new threat classes.

Operators with an in-house robotics team of at least five full-time positions can manage maintenance and updates internally. Below that threshold, in-house operation is not economically viable.

In all other cases, RaaS is superior on TCO, risk, and compliance grounds. Data from the last 40 tenders shows: 34 concluded as RaaS contracts, six as purchases, of which four were public sector.

Decision Matrix for Plant Managers and CFOs

Four criteria structure the decision. Balance sheet preference: CapEx or OpEx, depending on group policy and liquidity position. Contract horizon: foreseeable need beyond five years or shorter. Sensor generation: requirement for current detection performance, or 2022-level sufficient. Maintenance competence: in-house team available or not.

Score 0 to 3 per criterion, where 3 points clearly toward RaaS. 8 points or above: clear RaaS recommendation. Between 5 and 7 points: the decision warrants discussion. Below 5 points: the configuration leans toward purchase.

Example: a site with 200 employees, KRITIS relevance in logistics, no in-house robotics team, IFRS group consolidation. 3 (OpEx preference) plus 2 (24-month horizon) plus 3 (current sensors required) plus 3 (no maintenance competence) = 11 points. Clear RaaS recommendation.

The template and a detailed TCO calculation are available from the Quarero sales team. An Excel template is provided on request, with fields for site-specific inputs. Default values include the AfA table, SLA assumptions, and sensor generation costs.

A 90-day pilot with a QR-1 or QR-2 is recommended as the basis for the final decision. The pilot covers a full seasonal cycle including weather variation and delivers reliable telemetry data for the final calculation.

After the pilot: conversion to a 24-month contract, or return with no residual costs. The pilot rate is credited at 50 percent against the first three monthly rates on conversion. On return, no dismantling or transport costs arise.

For a concrete assessment of a specific site, the recommended path is to submit a pilot request and work through the RaaS model in detail with the finance department in parallel.