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Nobody in this trade quotes machines the way a shop quotes laptops. Ask five suppliers what an Antminer costs and you will get five numbers, all of them defensible, none of them comparable until you convert them onto the same basis. That is not evasion. It is what happens when a product is priced against a moving revenue stream rather than against a cost of goods.
The unit the trade actually uses
Machines are traded in dollars per terahash. You take the price of the unit and divide it by its rated hashrate. A 200 TH/s machine at 3,000 dollars is 15 dollars per terahash. A 400 TH/s machine at 5,200 dollars is 13. The second machine costs more and is the cheaper purchase, which is the whole reason the trade uses the ratio and not the sticker.
Dollars per terahash is how you compare across brands, across generations and across conditions in a single glance. It is also the number that moves. Across a normal year it can travel a long way in both directions, and the machine sitting in a warehouse does not change while it does.
What sets the price of a terahash
Three forces, roughly in this order. First, hashprice: what a terahash of computing power earns per day on the network right now. When mining revenue rises, every operator wants machines and the price of hardware follows within weeks. Second, efficiency tier: a machine at 13 J/TH and a machine at 20 J/TH both produce terahashes, but the efficient one keeps producing them profitably for years longer, and the market prices that difference steeply. Third, plain supply: what the manufacturers are shipping, which batches are allocated and how long the queue is.
None of those three is under a seller's control, which is why prices in this trade are quoted with a validity window rather than printed in a catalogue. A quote good for thirty days would be a bet, not a price.
Why the same model has three prices this week
Because you are not buying a model, you are buying a model in a condition, in a quantity, from a batch, delivered on a term. Change any one of those and the number changes honestly.
- Condition. New and sealed carries the manufacturer warranty. Used carries a test record and a short dead on arrival window instead, and prices well below new for exactly that reason. We go through the tradeoff in new or used.
- Quantity. A single unit and two hundred units are different products commercially. The second one moves as a batch, gets a batch price and gets batch logistics.
- Batch and lead time. Stock on the ground costs more than an allocation three months out. You are paying for certainty, and in a rising market that certainty is worth real money.
- Incoterm. An ex works price and a delivered duty paid price for the same pallet can differ by a wide margin. See Incoterms in plain words before you compare two numbers.
What else lands on the invoice
The hardware line is the one everybody looks at. The landed cost is the one that decides whether the deal was good. Depending on the machine and the destination you should expect some or all of the following: freight, insurance, import duty and any tariff applicable to the classification, customs brokerage, inland delivery, power supply units where they are sold separately, rack rails or brackets for hydro units, and spares.
Spares deserve a line of their own. Buying two percent extra on a batch of two hundred sounds like an indulgence until the first control board fails in month four and the replacement is a twelve week wait. Sensible operators build the spare ratio into the purchase price and stop thinking of it as an extra.
A worked landed cost
Take two hundred units of a 230 TH/s machine quoted at 12.50 dollars per terahash ex works. Hardware is 2,875 per unit, 575,000 for the batch. Add freight and insurance, brokerage, duty at whatever rate the classification carries in your jurisdiction, and inland delivery, and a realistic landed figure for a new importer sits meaningfully above the ex works line. Divide the landed total back by total terahash and you get your real dollars per terahash. That is the number that goes into your payback model, not the quoted one.
Operators who skip this step routinely discover that the cheapest quote was the most expensive purchase. The conversion takes ten minutes and they are the most valuable ten minutes in the whole process.
Questions that get you a comparable number
- What is the Incoterm, and what exactly does it cover to my door?
- Is the power supply included, and does it match my site voltage?
- Is this stock on hand or an allocation, and what is the shipping window?
- What is the condition, and what warranty comes with it in writing?
- What is the price at my quantity, and what changes if I move up a tier?
- How long is the quote valid?
Run this against your own numbers
Tell us your power situation, your site and the scale you are aiming at. We come back with a hardware shortlist and a firm quote.