When IT teams budget for employee laptops, they typically focus on one number: the sticker price. But that $1,200 device? It’s actually costing your business two to three times more over its lifecycle.

We recently analyzed the 36-month total cost of ownership (TCO) for common categories of business laptops: mid-range, high-end, and GPU-enabled and the results were eye-opening:

• Mid-range laptops cost 195% more than their purchase price over 3 years
• High-end models rack up 117% in hidden costs
• GPU-enabled machines? You’re looking at nearly $5,400 in non-purchase costs alone

So where’s all that money going?

Software licensing. Endpoint security. International shipping. Support tickets. Device refresh cycles. And that’s just the start.

The Real Problem Isn’t the Laptop—It’s the Model

The device-centric model is expensive by design. Every user means more hardware to procure, more endpoints to manage, more risk to mitigate. And in today’s remote, hybrid, and contract-heavy workforce, it’s a model that simply doesn’t scale.

When every new hire or contractor requires a shipped device, setup, support, and security stack, your IT budget becomes a black hole and onboarding speed suffers, too.

What If You Could Deliver Work Without Delivering Devices?

That’s exactly what modern IT teams are doing with browser-based application delivery. Platforms like Sonet.io let you securely deliver any app from legacy ERP systems to SaaS and desktop tools through the browser, with built-in zero trust.

That means:

• No device shipping
• No setup delays
• No VPNs or endpoint agents
• No inflated TCO

How Much Are Devices Really Costing You?

We break it all down in our new white paper, “Beyond the Sticker Price: A 36-Month TCO Analysis of Business Laptops.” It’s a must-read for IT leaders who want to stop overpaying for hardware and start delivering secure, scalable access at a fraction of the cost.