What does a phone farm really cost?

A 20-phone farm built from recent used Android phones costs about $6,821 before it runs and $1,681 a month in year one. That's $84.06 per phone per month once your upkeep hours count, or $25.31 for hardware alone. Change four inputs to price your own.

First-year cost of building a phone farm compared with renting

What it takes

Build your own

Rent from PhoneFleet

Hardware bought up front

20 recent used Android phones$175 each, good condition

$3,500

Included

Powered USB hubs and cables$15 a port

$300

Included

Host computer running 24/7

$700

Included

Wi-Fi access point

$189

Included

Shelving and cooling

$252

Included

Setting up every phone40 hours: reset, developer options, ADB

$1,880

Done for you

Up front

$6,821

Nothing to buy

Running every month

Electricity5 W a phone, around the clock

$13/mo

Included

Replacing failed devicesA quarter of the fleet a year

$73/mo

We swap them

Control software

$8/mo

Browser, REST, ADB, MCP

Hardware upkeep5 h a week on dead phones, hubs, cables and resets

$1,018/mo

Ours

Every month

$1,113/mo

Your quote × phones

First year, per phone per month

$84.06

Your quote

What renting changes beyond the number

Reach every phone from anywhere, not just from the network it sits on
Share devices across a team, or a fleet of AI agents, without passing hardware around
Nothing to ship, store, cool or insure, and no swelling batteries in your office
Browser, REST, ADB and MCP access without building your own tunnel
Month-to-month: release devices instead of owning them for years

Reserve devices See what renting includes

How we estimate

We price a farm built to run properly, not the cheapest pile of parts that might work.

Phones: a recent used Android in good condition, $175 each, with a powered USB port and cable for every phone.
A dedicated host: a computer that runs ADB and your control software around the clock.
Your time: valued at $47 an hour, the average US employer cost per hour worked, wages plus benefits (BLS, June 2026). Setup takes about two hours a phone; upkeep counts hardware work only, which you set above.
Replacements: a quarter of the fleet a year. Phones on constant charge wear out, and batteries start to swell after two to three years.
Electricity: 5 W a phone including charger losses, at the US average residential rate (EIA, July 2026).
Software: a group-control licence for about 20 devices.

All figures are estimates. App-level work, SIMs, mobile data and proxies are left out on both sides, because they're the same whether you build or rent.