APC Inverters and UPS are available in wide kind of variety in market. And if you don’t know the  in-and-out of it, you might end up paying higher amount for your purchase. So this article will help you judge the actual worth of system you are buying from the apc dealers.

First and foremost, you must be clear about the fact that APC doesn’t manufacture batteries. Which means, when you buy an APC Inverter System, you are supplied APC Inverter/UPS with some other brand batteries.  Now with apc inverter you can be supplied with batteries of amaron, prestolite, bicron, smf, exide or may be some local brand. And that’s where the price difference starts coming into picture. So when one apc dealer offers you the apc 800va inverter at Rs.13000 whereas the other one quotes you Rs.15000 for same system, don’t get blinded by the lower price quoted by the first dealer. You must check what kind of battery are you getting.

There are many factors which you should consider but here I’m listing the 6 most important ones:

1) Type of battery – Flat or Tubular. Tubular is better and is typically Rs.800-1000 costlier than the flat ones.

2) Capacity of battery – It’s 80AH or 150AH. The higher the capacity, the more backup you get.

3) Brand of Battery – Is the battery made for Inverter or it’s the vehicle battery supplied for inverter as well.

4) Warranty on battery – It’s 1 year or 3 year. The higher the better. typically 1 year of additional warranty is worth Rs.800 at least.

5) Type of  Warranty on Battery (On site Or off site) – Engineers will come to your place (on site) or you have to carry it to service center(off site). This might not have much of financial implications but definitely adds a lots of convenience.

6) Life of battery – It’s 2 years or 5 years. The more the better.

Now as there are so many factors involved, it’s really difficult to judge as which one is the best offer among all the prices offered by various dealers.  So I’ll give you a simple 2-step calculation which will help you understand as which offer has better value for money.  So let’s analyze it with following example:

Our Case Study of Two Different APC Prices

APC Dealer 1: Providing APC 800VA with 120AH Flat Battery [ Life of battery is 3 years] @ Rs.13000

APC Dealer 2: Providing APC 800VA with 130AH Tubular Battery [ Life of battery is 5 years] @ Rs.16000

Although we’ll have to pay the full cost of inverter in one go, we will calculate what’s the equivalent investment we are making on daily basis. This way we will get to know the amount we would have to pay if we were paying every day for inverter.

Dealer#1

Total Cost: Rs.13000  Life of Battery: 3 years i.e. 365X3= 1095 Days

=> We are paying Rs.13000/1095 = Rs.11.88 on daily basis to avail solution for power cut

Dealer#2

Total Cost: Rs.16000 Life of Battery: 5 Years i.e.365X5= 1825 Days

=> We are paying Rs.16000/1825= Rs.8.76 on daily basis to avail solution for power cut

Now that’s the actual money you are investing on daily basis to get rid of power cuts. Definitely that’s an investment worth making considering frequent power cuts of these days and the kind of relief we have if we have a power back-up solution.

But that’s not the point I was trying to make. The point is – if you see the calculations above – it’s pretty clear that the offer given by APC Dealer 2 is far better than the one given by dealer 1.  So even if the price offered by dealer 1 seems to be cheaper, in actual sense it’s costlier than the dealer 2.

So the next time you decide to buy an apc inverter, just calculate what’s the actual worth you are getting and then decide. Just don’t go by the initial cost involved or the price quoted by the dealer. You might end up paying more in long run if you don’t consider things mentioned above.

==> Click Here to See APC UPS Price List

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