“I cannot heap enough praise on to the team at Area Indoor Planting Co. … The greenery and plantscaping they designed and maintain make the difference between a cold, dusty, brick, relic of a building and a charming workspace… they went out of their way to help me with a problem Fiddle Leaf Fig tree… they were able to salvage the plant and brought it back to its original glory. I highly recommend them.”Juan Perez via Google
Buy vs. Lease — Los Angeles & Orange County
Should your office buy or lease its plants?
Most Area Indoor Plants clients buy their plants and pots outright and add a monthly care plan. Leasing exists for offices that want a much lower upfront cost. Here is the whole comparison, with real numbers.
Free on-site walk-through · Written proposal within one business day · Serving LA County & Orange County since 1986
The short answer
Buy or lease office plants: which is right for your office?
Most Area Indoor Plants clients in Los Angeles and Orange County buy their plants and decorative pots outright as a one-time purchase, then pay a monthly maintenance rate for expert care. Buying tends to cost less over a long horizon because the purchase happens once, and the plants belong to the business. Leasing — our Maintenance Lease with Guarantee plan — is the better fit when an office wants a much lower upfront cost, one predictable monthly line item, and free replacement of any declining plant built in from the first day.
Area Indoor Plants has served Los Angeles since 1986, and both paths start the same way: a free on-site walk-through, followed by a written proposal within one business day that shows the purchase option and the lease option side by side. Service starts at $225 per month with every-other-week visits, and most programs run $225–$450 per month.
Last updated: July 2026
Side by side
Buying vs. leasing office plants: full comparison
The differences that actually change what you pay and what you own.
| What differs | Buying your plants | Maintenance Lease with Guarantee |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | One-time purchase of the plants and decorative pots, itemized in your written proposal | No purchase of plants or pots — a one-time installation fee, quoted in your proposal |
| Monthly cost | A maintenance plan from $225/month (every-other-week visits); most programs run $225–$450/month | One monthly rate covering plants, pots, installation, and care; most programs run $225–$450/month |
| Who owns the plants | Your business | Area Indoor Plants during the lease; your business at the end of it |
| Who owns the decorative pots | Your business | Area Indoor Plants during the lease; your business at the end of it |
| Who replaces a declining plant free | Area Indoor Plants — but only on the Guarantee Maintenance plan. On Every-Other-Week and Weekly plans, a replacement is a new purchase. | Area Indoor Plants, always — free replacement is built into every lease |
| What each visit includes | Watering, feeding, pruning, cleaning, and pest and disease inspection | Watering, feeding, pruning, cleaning, and pest and disease inspection |
| Flexibility to change the look | You own the design; swaps, additions, and seasonal pieces are quoted as purchases | Refreshes are simple because Area Indoor Plants owns the plants and pots |
| If the plan ends | The plants and pots stay with you — only the care plan stops | See out the lease and the plants and pots are yours to keep |
| Best for | Offices settled in their space, owners who want the design to be an asset, and anyone planning past a few years | Offices with no capital budget, short building leases, staged move-ins, and anyone who wants one predictable number |
Figures are the published Area Indoor Plants ranges for Los Angeles County and Orange County. Every space is tailor-designed, so your exact numbers come from the free walk-through proposal. See pricing for the full plan breakdown.
Option one
How buying works
Buying office plants means the business purchases the plants and the decorative containers once, up front, and then pays Area Indoor Plants a monthly rate to care for them. The plants and pots are company property from day one, and they stay in the space even if the maintenance plan later changes or ends.
The sequence is straightforward. Area Indoor Plants walks your space free of charge anywhere in Los Angeles County or Orange County, hand-picks plants from several partner nurseries across both counties to suit your light and layout, and sends a written proposal within one business day itemizing the plants, the containers, installation by our own crew, and the monthly care rate. After installation you choose one of three purchase-side plans:
- Every-Other-Week Maintenance — from $225/month. Expert visits every other week.
- Weekly Maintenance — the same care on a weekly rhythm, for busier spaces and thirstier plants.
- Guarantee Maintenance — the same care plus free replacement of any plant that declines under our care.
That third plan is the one worth pausing on. If you buy your plants and choose plain Every-Other-Week or Weekly service, a plant that fails is a plant you replace at your own cost. Guarantee Maintenance is what puts the risk back on us. Full details are on the plant maintenance page.
Option two
How the Maintenance Lease with Guarantee works
The Maintenance Lease with Guarantee is the Area Indoor Plants leasing plan: one monthly rate covers the plants, the decorative pots, delivery and installation by our own crew, every scheduled maintenance visit, and free replacement of any plant that declines. There is no plant-and-pot purchase — the only upfront cost is a one-time installation fee quoted in your proposal. Area Indoor Plants owns and stands behind the plants and containers during the lease, and at the end of the lease they become yours.
The practical effect is that the number you sign is the number you pay. A plant that struggles in a dim corner is our problem to solve, not a surprise invoice. And because Area Indoor Plants owns the stock and hand-picks it from partner nurseries across both counties, refreshing a lobby or scaling up as you take more floors is a conversation rather than a new capital request.
Leasing suits three situations in particular: offices with no capital budget for furnishings, tenants on a short building lease who do not want to own something they may not keep, and companies that prefer one predictable operating expense to a purchase plus a service contract. Some offices prefer a monthly operating expense to a capital purchase for accounting reasons; Area Indoor Plants does not give tax or accounting advice, so ask your own accountant how each option would be treated for your company. The plant leasing and rental page covers what is included in full.
The math
Which is cheaper over three years?
Over three years, buying office plants usually costs less in total than leasing them, because the purchase of the plants and pots happens once while a lease rate continues for as long as the plants are in the space. The break-even point depends on the one-time purchase price of your specific plants and containers, which Area Indoor Plants quotes per space after a free walk-through rather than publishing as a flat figure.
Here is the honest arithmetic, using only the numbers Area Indoor Plants publishes:
| Three-year cost | Buying | Leasing |
|---|---|---|
| Day one | One-time purchase of plants + pots (quoted in your proposal) | $0 |
| 36 monthly payments | $8,100 at the $225/month floor; up to $16,200 at $450/month | 36 × your quoted lease rate; most programs fall in the $225–$450/month range |
| At the end | You still own the plants and pots | You own nothing; the plants and pots are ours |
36 × $225 = $8,100 and 36 × $450 = $16,200 are simple multiplications of our published monthly range, not quotes. Your rate is set by plant count, plant size, container quality, visit frequency, and site access.
Three things that decide the answer for your office
- Compare like with like. A lease always includes free replacement; a purchase only includes it if you choose Guarantee Maintenance. Comparing a lease against plain Every-Other-Week service understates what buying really costs, because every failed plant becomes a purchase.
- How long will the plants live in this space? The longer the horizon, the more buying favors you, since the one-time cost spreads across more years. If your building lease is short or the floor plan is about to change, that advantage shrinks fast.
- What is the upfront number worth to you? Leasing trades a higher lifetime total for a far smaller capital outlay and no replacement risk. For some offices that is a good trade, and it is why the option exists.
For a wider breakdown of what drives the monthly number in this market, see our cost of office plants in Los Angeles guide.
What we actually see
What most Los Angeles offices choose and why
Most Area Indoor Plants clients buy their plants and pots and then add a monthly care plan. Buying is the default because the design becomes the office's own, the cost stops recurring, and the plants stay put through a service change or a move within the same building.
The pattern behind that choice is simple. An office that has signed a long building lease Downtown, in Hollywood, or in Beverly Hills is furnishing a space it intends to keep, and plants get treated like the rest of the furnishings: bought once, maintained forever. Offices that lease tend to be the ones with a short runway on the space, a staged build-out, or a rule against capital purchases.
There is also a hybrid worth knowing about: buy the greenery outright, then choose Guarantee Maintenance so replacements are still free. That combination gets you ownership and the replacement promise at once.
Statement pieces sit outside the buy-or-lease question entirely. Preserved moss walls, custom faux trees, and botanical light fixtures by The Plant Artist — our family's sister design studio — along with living green walls, are custom builds quoted individually.
Buyer's checklist
Questions to ask any plant company before signing
Before signing an office plant contract in Los Angeles, ask every bidder these questions in writing. Plant service quotes are notoriously hard to compare because the headline monthly number can hide who owns what, who fixes what, and how often anyone shows up. These five answers make two quotes comparable.
1. Is there a replacement guarantee, is it free, and exactly which plan includes it?
This is the question that separates bids. "We stand behind our plants" is not a guarantee. Ask which named plan the free replacement lives on, whether it covers plants that decline as well as plants that die outright, and what is excluded. At Area Indoor Plants, free replacement is included on Guarantee Maintenance and on the Maintenance Lease with Guarantee, and it is not included on plain Every-Other-Week or Weekly maintenance. Any company that will not put the scope in writing is telling you something.
2. Who owns the decorative pots?
Containers are frequently the largest single swing in an installation quote, and pot ownership is where lease agreements surprise people. Confirm in writing whether the pots are purchased by you, included in a lease rate, or billed separately as an add-on — and, if you are leasing, whether they go back at the end. (With our lease, they don't: the pots are yours at the end of the term.)
3. How often will someone visit, and what happens on each visit?
Visit frequency is the main driver of a maintenance rate, so a suspiciously cheap bid is often a thinner schedule. Ask for the frequency in writing and for the task list. Every Area Indoor Plants visit covers watering, feeding, pruning and trimming, cleaning and dusting the foliage, and inspection for pests and disease.
4. Who actually performs the work — employees or subcontractors?
Ask who walks through your door, whether it is the same technician each visit, and whether installation is done by the company's own crew or handed off. Area Indoor Plants installs with its own crew, and the family that quotes the job is the family that does the job. In a building with badge access, freight elevator booking, or after-hours rules, a rotating cast of subcontractors becomes your administrative problem.
5. What are the cancellation and change terms?
Get the term length, the notice period, and what happens to the plants at the end. Under a purchase the answer is simple — the plants and pots are yours and they stay. Lease terms differ by provider: under our Maintenance Lease with Guarantee the plants and containers become yours at the end of the lease, while many providers take theirs back — so the exit terms are worth reading before, not after. Also ask how mid-term changes are handled when you add a floor, move desks, or want a seasonal refresh.
One more worth adding: ask where the plants come from, and whether they are hand-picked for your light. Area Indoor Plants selects every plant in person from several partner nurseries across Los Angeles and Orange County rather than ordering to a spec sheet, which is what makes standing behind a plant reasonable in the first place.
In their words
What Los Angeles clients say
“Augustin, the owner, and all the crew at Area indoor planting are very responsive. When require additional plant decorations for our office building, have the plants & flowers that same week. They have a good creative department…”Robert Lara via Google
“Professional. Reliable. Excellent. Thank you Augustin and his son, Luca! They are the expert in what they do. They came in time to rescue our indoor plants.”Hans Koes via Google
★★★★★ 5.0 on Google · 19 reviews
Buy vs. lease questions
Frequently asked
Should an office buy or lease its plants?
Most Area Indoor Plants clients in Los Angeles and Orange County buy their plants and decorative pots outright and then add a monthly care plan, because the purchase is a one-time cost and the plants stay with the business. Leasing — the Maintenance Lease with Guarantee plan — is the better fit for offices that want a much lower upfront cost, one predictable monthly line item, and free plant replacement built in from day one. Area Indoor Plants quotes both options in the same written proposal after a free on-site walk-through.
Is it cheaper to buy or lease office plants over three years?
Buying usually wins over a long horizon because the purchase of the plants and pots happens once, while a lease rate continues for as long as the plants are in the space. Buying costs a one-time purchase plus roughly 36 monthly care payments; at the Area Indoor Plants floor rate of $225 per month that monthly side is about $8,100 over three years, and at $450 per month it is about $16,200. Leasing costs 36 monthly payments plus a one-time installation fee quoted in your proposal. The break-even point depends entirely on the one-time purchase price of your plants and containers, which is quoted per space after a free walk-through.
Who replaces a plant that dies — the office or the plant company?
At Area Indoor Plants, free replacement of a declining plant is included only on the Guarantee Maintenance plan and the Maintenance Lease with Guarantee plan. On the plain Every-Other-Week and Weekly maintenance plans, replacing a plant you own is a new purchase. This is the single most important thing to confirm when comparing plant company quotes in Los Angeles, because two bids can look identical until one of them makes replacements your problem.
Who owns the decorative pots when you lease office plants?
On a Maintenance Lease with Guarantee from Area Indoor Plants, the plants and the decorative containers are covered by the single monthly rate — Area Indoor Plants owns and stands behind them during the lease, and they become yours at the end of it. When an office buys instead, the plants and pots belong to the business and stay in the space if the care plan ever ends. Decorative containers are often the largest single swing in an installation quote, so ownership of the pots is worth settling in writing before signing.
How much does office plant service cost per month in Los Angeles?
At Area Indoor Plants, service starts at $225 per month with every-other-week visits, and most programs — maintenance plans and leases alike — run $225 to $450 per month across Los Angeles County and Orange County. Larger installations, moss walls, and custom work are quoted individually. Every plan includes watering, feeding, pruning, cleaning, and pest and disease inspection on each scheduled visit. See our pricing page for the full plan comparison.
Keep reading: pricing · plant leasing & rental · plant maintenance · cost of office plants in LA · office plant service
See both numbers before you decide
Free on-site walk-through anywhere in Los Angeles County or Orange County, with a written proposal within one business day showing the purchase option and the lease option side by side.