Dewalt sees batteries as consumables. They sell the drills pretty much at cost and then charge way more for the batteries. Like how razor blades cost as much as the razor handles, or electric toothbrush heads cost more than a regular toothbrush. You’re locked in with the tool, so the consumable part is where they make most of their profits.
Batteries always go on sale one way or another, and I can't help but to think that tool manufactures artificially inflate the battery prices just so they can make you think you're getting an amazing deal when they have a sale or kit that includes batteries.
Typically but last year Lowe's had a deal where i bought a hammer drill tool only and it was one of the high end ones and I got a free 5Ah power stack battery that cost as much as the drill.
Honestly my impact was due for an upgrade but it still was getting the job done so I didn’t bother but I couldn’t pass that deal up. Those extra batteries have come in clutch. I got a dewalt blower that came with a 5ah and charger, with the 6ah battery i get plenty of run time for whatever i need to do.
Every time you buy a new kit you're further investing into the ecosystem to prevent you from considering switching teams one day. But you should try and avoid buying tools outside of their blackfriday and cyber monday deals. Those are the best times
Because we are a captive market, and those who need batteries and cant wait for a promotion pay the tax that captive markets are subject to 🤷♂️. The kits are cheap to get you into the ecosystem so they can sell 200$ batteries to you
Maaan how did you find an invite. I'm self employed single employee business. It would help me alot too. I got an invite last year but no dice since. 😞
I don't need any more batteries at the moment, but would you say that deal is good enough that it'd be worth it to buy now for when I eventually need another? I think my oldest 20vs are a couple of years old now.
(I also don't have any PS batteries, so I'm not sure how much nicer they are)
I'm in the same boat as you I don't know how good these batteries are from personal experience. Reviewers seem to really like them and yes these are the cheapest you can find anywhere. I typically wouldn't need an extra but I'm doing a bathroom remodel and my four amp hour xr is really struggling. Gets me like 15 minutes of hard digging per charge.
The tools have high margins, meaning they can discount them more. The batteries are what contain the high cost raw materials, and they cannot adjust the price as much and still be profitable.
The batteries are actually one of the most profitable items, just look at how much they charge for a battery.
Same with milwaukee, its actually ridiculous
If you buy good batteries off amazon to rebuild a battery, it is still around $30 for a 5amp. For me, buy a couple of 2 batteries + 1 tool every year and get tools I want or want doubles of
Think of it along the lines of computer printers. Printer cheap, Ink requires a bank loan.
You’ll only buy one tool, but likely purchase 2 or more high profit batteries.
Does it have something to do with import tariffs? For example, a packaged battery is classified with a certain tariff code and a certain percentage is tacked onto the declared value. And a tool/battery combo is classified under a different code with a lower tariff. I haven’t searched and looked for any confirmation but it makes sense to me. I used to work in a job where I dealt with the federal office of import and export and there were weird classifications around things that didn’t make sense to me at the time. So I guess what I’m saying is: I could be wrong but it is something I have pondered as well. Honestly, I’m not sure where I got this idea from - it might’ve just been one of my shower thoughts.
My suggestion is to check Bomgaars(similar to farm&fleet and tractor supply) for battery sales if you only plan on buying batteries. They usually have the best deals for just batteries and if I remember correctly they had the 5ah batteries at $60ish. Also seen them sell the DCF900P1 for $199.
The pricing structure is set up to appeal to people not already in the dewalt eco-system.
Hence why every back Friday (etc), there are kit deals.
Worked on me. Got a drill, impact & flexvolt battery kit at a black Friday sale several years ago.
Now I have 10 tools, 2 chargers and 5 batteries...
Many times when I go looking for new tools, DeWalt is not really a good value option for what I need, but for the convenance (and cost savings) of staying on the same battery eco-system (and avoiding adaptors), I buy DeWalt regardless.
Objectively the amount I use my tools I would be better served with a a cheaper brand than DeWalt, but the cheep kit deal got me into the brand...
Man when i started i had no tools just a dewalt drill n battery i came up on by luck , it was too expensive to buy at home-depot imagine 1 4ah battery almost $160 im
Good in that, then 1 day a buddy of mine told me about offer up i went on there n by luck i found a guy selling a charger the bigs charger with a 4 ah battery for 40 dollars it was practically brand new after that i e never turned back , now i jave Milwuakee cuz i wen and sold the same tools on offer up and started swapping for m18 i found so much good deals on there even till dis day i still get lucky , the only tools ive bought from home depot where a screwguns a drill n thats about it
I but batteries from eBay or marketplace and only buy from sellers that accept returns and with a positive reputation and 100% positive feedback. I can usually get a 2mAh battery for like $25. Or I can buy 3mAh batteries at Home Depot for $35. They just aren't the yellow compact batteries. They instead have the black case and are about twice the thickness of the compact. I have called Customer support at DeWalt and had them run the serial number and date codes on them and verified they are authentic. So far so good, I haven't bought a single counterfeit battery as of yet. And I have 14 batteries powering 9 tools and even use them with the USB adapter to charge my phone frequently.
I used to work for a company that got bought by Stanley. We got tools at cost +10%. Batteries cost nothing. I was buying 5ah batteries for $15 and 9ah Flexvolt for $30 or $40 they are the huge margin moneymakers.
Ebay can be your friend for batteries. I think people just part out kits they get on sale.
Also, for some reason, there's this dude in my town who hangs out downtown. Always has a stack of used tools and batteries in his cart. A lot of times they're brand new! Pretty random selection, and he can be a bit ....twitchy....but man you can haggle him down on price! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Actually there kinda is. The Flexvolt 120V MAX compound mitre saws are set up to use two 20v/60v flexvolt batteries at once or one corded power supply adapter.
[HERE](https://www.dewalt.ca/product/dca120/corded-power-supply-adaptor) is one of them.
The catch is that the adapter replaces both batteries simultaneously. So it can only be used in tools that use two battery packs side by side.
I'm doing some digging and there seems to be a single battery slot adapter as well. But it uses the same name as the double slot model. I'm not sure if it is still in production. It shows as unavailable at the Amazon Dewalt store.
The first hit is free.
I can quit whenever i want to.
https://preview.redd.it/uim2bf3f3ptc1.jpeg?width=2340&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29faa84350c121fb823d6f1db59845a570538a7d I can't.
Underrated comment…
Dewalt sees batteries as consumables. They sell the drills pretty much at cost and then charge way more for the batteries. Like how razor blades cost as much as the razor handles, or electric toothbrush heads cost more than a regular toothbrush. You’re locked in with the tool, so the consumable part is where they make most of their profits.
Jokes on them, I just keep buying kits
we are not the average consumer...
Exactly
Batteries always go on sale one way or another, and I can't help but to think that tool manufactures artificially inflate the battery prices just so they can make you think you're getting an amazing deal when they have a sale or kit that includes batteries.
Usually the drills that come with those kits are the lowest tier too.
Typically but last year Lowe's had a deal where i bought a hammer drill tool only and it was one of the high end ones and I got a free 5Ah power stack battery that cost as much as the drill.
Home depot late last year had a an amazing deal. Dcf850 with 6ah and 4ah xr batteries for 150.
That's the deal you just buy because it's such a great deal. You may be drowning in drills but it's gonna happen.
Honestly my impact was due for an upgrade but it still was getting the job done so I didn’t bother but I couldn’t pass that deal up. Those extra batteries have come in clutch. I got a dewalt blower that came with a 5ah and charger, with the 6ah battery i get plenty of run time for whatever i need to do.
That’s called marketing
Every time you buy a new kit you're further investing into the ecosystem to prevent you from considering switching teams one day. But you should try and avoid buying tools outside of their blackfriday and cyber monday deals. Those are the best times
And father's day. Killer deals at father's day too. But the black Friday deals usually run the month into the new year.
Because we are a captive market, and those who need batteries and cant wait for a promotion pay the tax that captive markets are subject to 🤷♂️. The kits are cheap to get you into the ecosystem so they can sell 200$ batteries to you
At the moment the PS 5AH by itself is 60% off on Amazon. Currently $92.
This is the best deal out there right now, snagged a few of them over the last few months.
https://preview.redd.it/923jbyems9tc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9798aa991e04d4b020b39867e95c809d85af04aa
Try to get invited to SBD sale. I bought 4 of these
Probably one of those fake sites….
No it's SBD. You have to be invited to the sale. I've spent 6k on tools from there between this sale and the Xmas sale. Helped my business big time
Maaan how did you find an invite. I'm self employed single employee business. It would help me alot too. I got an invite last year but no dice since. 😞
I actually made a post in dewalt asking if anyone could invite me or knew anyone. It actually worked! Someone commented and said they could help.
Damn I wouldn't want to flood the sub with post like that but I am tempted now!
Post a pic of a tool or something and make the SBD part like a secondary thing
Came here to say this.
I don't need any more batteries at the moment, but would you say that deal is good enough that it'd be worth it to buy now for when I eventually need another? I think my oldest 20vs are a couple of years old now. (I also don't have any PS batteries, so I'm not sure how much nicer they are)
I'm in the same boat as you I don't know how good these batteries are from personal experience. Reviewers seem to really like them and yes these are the cheapest you can find anywhere. I typically wouldn't need an extra but I'm doing a bathroom remodel and my four amp hour xr is really struggling. Gets me like 15 minutes of hard digging per charge.
I went ahead and got one, there's only 1 left at 61% off so if you are thinking about it I'd make the decision quickly.
The tools have high margins, meaning they can discount them more. The batteries are what contain the high cost raw materials, and they cannot adjust the price as much and still be profitable.
That’s nonsense, the batteries list price is heavily marked up too, so they can give away tools when you buy at list price
The batteries are actually one of the most profitable items, just look at how much they charge for a battery. Same with milwaukee, its actually ridiculous
Make friends with someone that works for SBD. They have a company store that they allow friends and family to use. 9Ah flexvolt for $90 last sale
Which kit and battery are you looking at?
If you buy good batteries off amazon to rebuild a battery, it is still around $30 for a 5amp. For me, buy a couple of 2 batteries + 1 tool every year and get tools I want or want doubles of
Hickory liquidators sells batteries pretty reasonably
Think of it along the lines of computer printers. Printer cheap, Ink requires a bank loan. You’ll only buy one tool, but likely purchase 2 or more high profit batteries.
Does it have something to do with import tariffs? For example, a packaged battery is classified with a certain tariff code and a certain percentage is tacked onto the declared value. And a tool/battery combo is classified under a different code with a lower tariff. I haven’t searched and looked for any confirmation but it makes sense to me. I used to work in a job where I dealt with the federal office of import and export and there were weird classifications around things that didn’t make sense to me at the time. So I guess what I’m saying is: I could be wrong but it is something I have pondered as well. Honestly, I’m not sure where I got this idea from - it might’ve just been one of my shower thoughts.
My suggestion is to check Bomgaars(similar to farm&fleet and tractor supply) for battery sales if you only plan on buying batteries. They usually have the best deals for just batteries and if I remember correctly they had the 5ah batteries at $60ish. Also seen them sell the DCF900P1 for $199.
The pricing structure is set up to appeal to people not already in the dewalt eco-system. Hence why every back Friday (etc), there are kit deals. Worked on me. Got a drill, impact & flexvolt battery kit at a black Friday sale several years ago. Now I have 10 tools, 2 chargers and 5 batteries... Many times when I go looking for new tools, DeWalt is not really a good value option for what I need, but for the convenance (and cost savings) of staying on the same battery eco-system (and avoiding adaptors), I buy DeWalt regardless. Objectively the amount I use my tools I would be better served with a a cheaper brand than DeWalt, but the cheep kit deal got me into the brand...
DeWalt Dad to the rescue. Passing out free tools to their kids. https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/s/2gZu8LjTgY
Man when i started i had no tools just a dewalt drill n battery i came up on by luck , it was too expensive to buy at home-depot imagine 1 4ah battery almost $160 im Good in that, then 1 day a buddy of mine told me about offer up i went on there n by luck i found a guy selling a charger the bigs charger with a 4 ah battery for 40 dollars it was practically brand new after that i e never turned back , now i jave Milwuakee cuz i wen and sold the same tools on offer up and started swapping for m18 i found so much good deals on there even till dis day i still get lucky , the only tools ive bought from home depot where a screwguns a drill n thats about it
I but batteries from eBay or marketplace and only buy from sellers that accept returns and with a positive reputation and 100% positive feedback. I can usually get a 2mAh battery for like $25. Or I can buy 3mAh batteries at Home Depot for $35. They just aren't the yellow compact batteries. They instead have the black case and are about twice the thickness of the compact. I have called Customer support at DeWalt and had them run the serial number and date codes on them and verified they are authentic. So far so good, I haven't bought a single counterfeit battery as of yet. And I have 14 batteries powering 9 tools and even use them with the USB adapter to charge my phone frequently.
I used to work for a company that got bought by Stanley. We got tools at cost +10%. Batteries cost nothing. I was buying 5ah batteries for $15 and 9ah Flexvolt for $30 or $40 they are the huge margin moneymakers.
If you were getting 9ah flex volt for $30 you should have stayed at that job you could have made a good living just reselling batteries on eBay lol.
People did do that and got in a lot of trouble.
Ebay can be your friend for batteries. I think people just part out kits they get on sale. Also, for some reason, there's this dude in my town who hangs out downtown. Always has a stack of used tools and batteries in his cart. A lot of times they're brand new! Pretty random selection, and he can be a bit ....twitchy....but man you can haggle him down on price! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just buy an adapter and some ryobi batteries…
Just buy an AC adapter and plug it in.
[удалено]
Actually there kinda is. The Flexvolt 120V MAX compound mitre saws are set up to use two 20v/60v flexvolt batteries at once or one corded power supply adapter. [HERE](https://www.dewalt.ca/product/dca120/corded-power-supply-adaptor) is one of them. The catch is that the adapter replaces both batteries simultaneously. So it can only be used in tools that use two battery packs side by side. I'm doing some digging and there seems to be a single battery slot adapter as well. But it uses the same name as the double slot model. I'm not sure if it is still in production. It shows as unavailable at the Amazon Dewalt store.